The 28 Best Unlikely Friendships On TV, Ranked

What's more satisfying than watching a friendship blossom on screen? Watching a friendship blossom on screen between two characters you'd least expect, of course. 

Whether the pair is brought together by a murder, a corporate uprising, a mutual hatred for the same people, or a multimillion-dollar embezzlement scandal, there is no denying that these stories of platonic odd couples work. Ultimately, because we are not expecting them to.

They remind us of our innate ability as humans to look past our differences and occasionally con us into thinking our best friend is just one accidental insemination (Jane the Virgin) or "cancellation"-worthy tweet (Hacks) away. Below, I ranked some of the very best unlikely TV pairings in recent memory. 

Plot-heavy summaries/spoilers below.

The first thing to look for when evaluating the merits of a fictional unlikely friendship is whether it is symbiotic in nature, and Vice President Selina Meyer and her bagman Gary receive a failing grade here. With all due respect to Khaleesi, Selina is the evil Queen of HBO. Gary worshipped her. His life was her life, happiest when he picked out the right lipstick or pair of shoes. She was his god, and he a mere mortal. They were in sync. A look from her told him what to do. And what did she do to repay him for his decades of service? She framed him, and he went to jail. Selina then became president, her life’s dream, but when she called for Gary, he wasn’t there. In the finale, 25 years in the future, at President Meyer’s funeral, out of jail (a jail, by the way, that Selina never cared to visit), Gary is there. He doesn’t scream or cause a scene. He simply places the lipstick he was saving for her nomination night and says, “I brought the Dubonnet.” It’s a perfect finale gut punch. 

Watch it on HBO Max.

Who among us hasn’t sent a dick pic that nearly takes down a multi-billion dollar corporation? Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are not a model friendship by any stretch of the imagination, but they are certainly the most interesting. The slime puppy and the Mommy. They’re a car crash, and we can’t look away. They set boundaries, and then they break them. Roman is on Gerri’s side, angling for her to take over whatever Waystar is called now. The saddest thing about them is that through all the depravity and scalding hot insults, Roman forms a real attachment to her — one his sister Shiv eagerly reports back to her father about. (“He’s weird about Gerri. Everyone knows it.”) But when the moment comes for Gerri to help Roman, she goes full ESQ, saying with ice in her veins that it doesn't serve her interests. A brutal way for Roman to learn they were never really on the same side. 

Watch it on HBO Max.

Are Amy and Tyler just using each other to get their revenge on the company? Is there any substance to this partnership outside of Abaddon? And does any of this ultimately matter if they’re both getting exactly what they need out of the arrangement? Like most of Enlightened's heady questions of morality and the human condition, the answers are almost never spoon-fed or given a black-and-white treatment. Amy may have big plans to take down Abaddon, but she doesn’t have the technical skills. Cue her sheepish sidekick Tyler. Once it’s clear that Tyler will lose his job whether he helps her or not, he gets sucked back into her grandiose plans. They’re both whistleblowers but in different ways. Amy sees herself as a liberator and Tyler as the liberated. Tyler would never have met Eileen without Amy, even if Amy only introduced them so she could get access to her files. So does the end justify the means? Well, you can figure out where I landed on this one by its placement at 26. 

Watch in on HBO Max.

A lot of characters in this ranking have said something to the effect of, "I could kill him!" In all of these instances, however, it's a joke. Then there's Arya and The Hound. Initially, Arya despises The Hound primarily for killing her childhood friend Mycah. The Hound then takes Arya hoping to use her as ransom. While riding together to Arya's family, The Hound tells her, "Truth is, you're lucky. You don't wanna be alone out here, girl. Someone worse than me will find you." She replies, "There's no one worse than you." To which The Hound tells Arya, "There's men who like to beat little girls. Men who like to rape them. I saved your sister from some of them." Arya knowing that The Hound saved her sister doesn't make her love him immediately, but it does change their dynamic. They might not like the same people, but they do hate the same people: the greatest way to make a friend.

Watch it on HBO Max.

It takes an excellent comedy to be able to sit in a moment of uncomfortable dramatic seriousness. This happens expertly between April and Donna in the episode “Spirit Animals,” where the office picks out dogs that match their personalities. When it comes to Donna, April picks out a poodle because she's “pretty and likes makeup and stuff.” Donna is immediately offended. She has put thought into what dog April is. April admits she doesn’t know that much about Donna and that they don’t really hang out. From there, they learn more about each other and realize that they care for each other. Later on, April serves as Donna’s maid of honor (sure, partly because April was the only one who could handle Donna’s family), but still, it’s an honor. Donna may have April in her phone as “Satan’s Niece,” but the big smile that spreads on her face when she sees who’s calling says it all. 

Watch it on Peacock.

Mentor/mentee? Friends? Surrogate mother/daughter? It’s unclear precisely what the relationship is between these two. But what we do know is that they both have something to learn from each other. Deborah is an aging comedy legend who sells out on the Vegas strip (although not as well as the owners would like). Ava is a bratty twenty-something who claims one tweet ruined her career (although it seems like her overall meanness had a little to do with it). The last gig Ava can get is writing for Deborah. At first, Ava doesn’t want to do it, and Deborah doesn’t want to have Ava around, but slowly they start to chip away at each other’s hardened exteriors. Whether they want to admit it or not, they’re each other’s best chance to move forward.

Watch it on HBO Max. 

On the surface, the relationship between Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Greg (Nicholas Braun) seems normal, teetering on nice. While Greg is a blood relative to the Roys, they’re still very much the two on the outside (Season 2's ambiguous finale notwithstanding). It's natural, then, for Tom to take Greg under his wing, knowing he’s not going to get guidance from anyone with the last name Roy. But as is the Tom tradition, he takes things way too far and considers Greg a piece of his property. As Tom reflects on their relationship, he likens them to Nero and Sporus, which tells you just about all you need to know about the dubious nature of this pairing. (This story ends with the Year of Four Emperors. A Civil War in which four separate rulers tried to gain power and succeed the throne. Sound familiar?) 

Watch it on HBO Max.

“That happens to be where Josh lives, but that’s not why I’m here,” —Rebecca, with the greatest lie ever documented on TV. When Rebecca uproots her entire life and moves from NYC to West Covina, California, she does it for one reason: Josh, her camp boyfriend when she was 16. The only small problem with this plan is that Josh now has a longtime girlfriend. It would be all too easy to pit Rebecca and Valencia against each other, but then again, this is not a show that likes to rest on lazy tropes and clichés. Yes, Rebecca and Valencia certainly have it out for each other at first. But as the show goes on, they both realize they’re better than one man and learn that their friendship brings out the best in each other. 

Watch it on Netflix.

“Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me,” starts one of Emily Dickinson’s most famous poems. Those familiar with Dickinson’s work know the poet had a fixation on death. But in Dickinson, it is personified. Like a girl with a school crush, she is obsessed, wanting to learn everything about him. She even has visions of the two of them together. Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) is never more glamorous than when she greets Death (Wiz Khalifa) in his carriage. She wears a red silk ballgown, with perfect curls falling from her pinned-up hair. Wouldn’t you put on your best clothes to meet a person you’ve obsessed over? I would. But of course, this is all before Emily experiences death in any tangible way. Then, Ben, a love interest of Emily’s, dies of tuberculosis, and she gets her first taste of what death really means. After Ben dies, Death yells at her for romanticizing it all. Emily’s relationship with death then changes and becomes entwined with her coming of age. 

Watch it on Apple TV+.

Considering that Dwight is rivals with Pam's best friend/boyfriend/husband Jim (John Krasinski), it's amazing that Dwight and Pam grow to have such a strong bond. When Jim moves back to Scranton with a new girlfriend, Dwight is the one who kindly comforts Pam. And Pam reciprocates the gesture, helping him come up with a Valentine’s Day plan. They're there for each other over and over in times of need. In a final moment of friendship, Dwight fires both Pam and Jim before they can quit in order to get them severance. Plus, he's the only one that can calm their baby Cece when she's crying. 

Watch it on Peacock.

Part of the beauty of being a freshman in college (for some, not all) is that after 18 years of living with your family, you are suddenly sharing a room with a stranger. Leighton (Reneé Rapp) and Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) certainly would not have picked each other; at least Leighton wouldn’t have picked Kimberly. Leighton is a rich legacy kid from the Upper East Side, and Kimberly is a naïve scholarship student from Arizona. Leighton wants nothing to do with Kimberly or their other two roommates. On more than one occasion, she says that they’re roommates, not friends. But Leighton’s “friends” are awful to her! Leighton has spent her life hiding her sexuality, and it’s shocking to even Leighton that the person she winds up sharing it with is Kimberly. Kimberly might not carry a designer handbag, but she’s a true friend and doesn’t judge Leighton. And in turn, Leighton realizes there’s more to Kimberly than meets the eye. (We'll save the fact that Kimberly is sleeping with Leighton’s brother for another time, and keep this focused on the girls.)

Watch it on HBO Max.

An Irish socialist chauffeur named Tom Branson and the uptight English daughter of an Earl known as Lady Mary are certainly not the most likely pair, especially in England in the early 1900s. And for the first few seasons, they’re not a pair at all. When Tom and Lady Sybil, Lady Mary’s sister, try to run away and elope, it’s Lady Mary that stops them. She knows it’ll cause too much of a scandal and begs them to reconsider. For Mary, this is a giant leap to help Tom be seen as serious and someone possibly good enough to be with Sybil one day. After Sybil dies, Mary never turns her back on Tom. When Mary marries Matthew, Tom is his best man. When Matthew dies, Tom is there for her, too. Now, they’re two brokenhearted people. Mary insists he belongs in Downton, and after a quick stint in America, Downton is where he stays. They know they will never see eye to eye on everything, but they are family, and in 1920s York, that’s what matters. 

Watch it on Netflix.

In the grand tradition of great telenovela relationships, these two rise to the top. It’s almost impossible to explain in a blurb what Jane and Petra have gone through together. To start, Jane is accidentally inseminated with Petra’s husband’s sperm. It only gets wilder from there — to cheating scandals, deaths of loved ones, and of course, what would a telenovela be without a massive evil twin twist? Despite the two sharing the same love interest for many seasons and the narrator even going so far as to call them “oil and water,” they end up being so crucial to each other that Jane refers to Petra as her “sister.” And while the road for Jane and Petra is not always smooth, in fairness, how could it be? They become each other’s rock in moments of need. 

Watch it on Netflix.

Paris is immediately set off by Rory, the angelic cherub who has just transferred to Chilton, when she reads her transcript and sees that she has all A’s. No one is coming in the way of her valedictorian/Harvard dreams! And yet, despite the bitter competition, they become best friends by the end (no, this is not Lane erasure). Their friendship grows so strong that Paris pulls strings to room with Rory at Yale. Rory, while immediately shocked, goes along with it. They’re each other’s foils; their competition only makes them stronger. (Neither here nor there: How in the world does Rory end high school with a better GPA than Paris? Truly one of life’s greatest mysteries.) 

Watch it on Netflix.

There's a weird thing that happens when you run into someone from high school a decade (or, in this case, a few decades) later. That person is frozen in time — star of the track team, debate club president, theater kid. So when Sam and Joel become friends 20+ years after graduation, to him, she's still the show choir star; she barely remembers him at all. They're now both in the same town they grew up in — Manhattan, Kansas, the "eighth biggest city in Kansas." They both are searching for a community, for a place to belong. Joel, knowing Sam is in deep grief after her sister's passing, invites Sam to "choir practice," a place for queer people, although "you don't have to be gay" to feel safe. There, he gets her to sing again. In a particularly poignant moment in the second episode, Sam's other sister snarkily remarks, "Who would have thought this one would have such beautiful handwriting?" Joel stands quietly, adding, "I would."

Watch it on HBO Max.

Mabel doesn't immediately seem like someone who would be friends with Oliver and Charles-Haden Savage, but when there's a murder in their Upper West Side apartment building, they realize that they're in their very own murder mystery, much like the true-crime podcast they're all obsessed with. So the three join together to solve the murder and create their own. As predicted, their lives get tangled in the mystery along the way. For years, I've wanted a show to take advantage of Selena Gomez's natural charm and perfect comedic timing, and to watch her hold her own against comedy legends is a thrill for anyone who can finish the line, “well, you know everything’s gonna be a breeze...”

Watch it on Hulu.

Ever since Eleanor exclaimed, "I might legit be into Tahani," fans of the show (who had already picked up on these characters' sly, natural chemistry), were chomping at the bit for them to get together. Funny, since the two were hand-picked by demons to torture each other for all of eternity. Tahani is everything Eleanor is not. She's glamorous, tall, rich, and has a mansion with a fountain and ballroom. Eleanor, by contrast, has a shack with clown paintings. For a while, the demon’s plans worked. But, in one of the most incredible TV twists of all time, Eleanor and Tahani suddenly discovered they were actually in the Bad Place (not the Good Place) and that throughout roughly 800 afterlives, there was actually no Good Place at all if they weren't together (along with Jason and Chidi). They were a unit, and they were each other’s family, each other’s good place. Jeremy Bearimy, baby!

Watch it on Netflix.

Jen and Judy are two iconic besties with dark, dark secrets. At first, their friendship seems mutually beneficial, even healthy. They meet at a grief support group — Jen, grieving the loss of her husband after a tragic hit-and-run; Judy, grieving the death of her “fiancé” who has died of a heart attack. This, of course, eventually reveals itself to be far from the truth. Judy does not have a fiancé, or at least not one who died. She is, however, behind the wheel of the hit-and-run. Jen and Judy begin to rely on each other for support. Who else could understand their shared grief? Judy even "helps" Jen try to figure out who’s behind her husband's death. Jen does eventually find out the truth, but by then...well, there's a new dead guy to deal with. Nothing bonds two friends like a common (dead) enemy. 

Watch it on Netflix.

We love Nick and Jess. We love Cece and Schmidt. We love Winston and Aly. But the beauty of New Girl is that friendships are equally as important as romantic relationships. Nowhere is this made more clear than with Winston and Cece, who kick it up a gear when Jess is sequestered for Jury Duty (an all-time great way to give maternity leave), leaving the show in Season 5 for six episodes. Without Jess, the two become best friends and invent the classic Winston and Cece mess-around. Winston's the one who goes with Cece to buy a (regrettable) wedding dress, and he even becomes a bridesman at her wedding. My favorite line of the whole series is Winston telling Cece on the phone that Schmidt broke up with Fawn: "Yo CeCe, this is Winston Bishop, aka Winnie the Bish, aka, aka, aka Brown Lightning. Schmidt dropped Fawn like a bad habit so ain't nobody riding shotgun." It's funny every time! 

Watch it on Netflix.

By now, it's the stuff of Hollywood lore — Jesse was supposed to die in Season 1 of Breaking Bad. But then the magnetic, cough, chemistry between him and Walter White made the creators realize they had gold on their hands. Jesse and Walt's relationship was the glue that held the show together for five seasons, however dysfunctional that bond may have been. The pilot episode perfectly laid out that exact dynamic. Walt needed Jessie's help making crystal meth. So he blackmailed him, and threatened to turn Jesse into the DEA if he didn't. Walt knew the science. Jesse knew the business. Walt's deal with Jesse was the audience's first clue at how manipulative the nice teacher in a sweater could be. At times Walt acted as a father figure to Jesse, but the troubling part of their relationship never faded.

Watch it on Netflix.

Though certainly heightened, the basis of Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Amy's (Mayim Bialik) friendship is super relatable: Sometimes you just don't like your boyfriend's best friend's new girlfriend, and vice versa. Penny finds Amy awkward and annoying. The two have absolutely nothing in common but are forced together because the guys in their lives are best friends. But somehow, the perfect blonde bombshell and the nerdy scientist defy all odds. Penny teaches Amy how to embrace her feminine side and that nail polish and "girly" things can (and should) be fun. Amy teaches Penny that her thoughts and opinions matter. Sure, they love their men, but it's the relationship they have with each other that makes them grow the most. 

Watch it on HBO Max.

It makes sense to befriend someone you sit next to at work every day for many years. However, Angela and Oscar evolve more than any other work duo on this list. Angela is a buttoned-up conservative Christian woman who, by her own account, thinks "the clothes at Gap Kids are just too flashy." When Oscar comes out as gay, no one knows how Angela will take it. She invites him to join the party planning committee, even if it is the "committee with all the women." In her way, she's trying. Then, their budding friendship hits a speed bump. Oscar just so happens to be having an affair with Angela's State Senator boyfriend. She's cheating on the Senator with Dwight, but it still stings. Despite the affair, when Angela falls on hard times, Oscar invites her to move in with him and shares in the parenting duties of Angela's young son Philip. Work acquaintances, friends, sworn enemies, and Godfather of the other's child — quite the relationship trajectory!

Watch it on Peacock.

There are many wonderful friendship pairings in Ted Lasso. It’s ultimately one of the biggest reasons the show is so enjoyable to watch. But no friendship is stronger and more unlikely than Keeley and Rebecca's. When we meet them, Keeley is a B-list model with a bad boyfriend (sorry to Season 1 Jamie). And Rebecca is a scorned divorcee hell-bent on destroying anything her ex cared for. It would be easy to pit these two against each other, but that’s simply not the Ted Lasso way. So instead, the two hit it off. Rebecca helps Keeley become the tough businesswoman she always had the drive to be, and Keeley helps Rebecca embrace her fun and feminine side. Sure, Rebecca once set up a paparazzo to make it seem like Keeley and Ted were having an affair, but when Keeley finds out, she forgives her, because as Ted Lasso really drives home, people can change. 

Watch it on Apple TV+.

As a preeminent Friends scholar, please allow me to plead my case. The point of this list is unlikely friendships. To which I say, HOW did Monica and Phoebe ever become friends? I know they were roommates, but how and why? Phoebe is a bohemian guitar-playing massage therapist, and Monica is an uptight clean-freak chef — not exactly a likely pair of roommates. We do learn in a flashback episode that Phoebe can’t stand Monica’s tidiness, so she secretly moves out to live with her grandma. (Which, unrelated, leads me to my biggest Friends qualm: If Phoebe has a grandma she can move in with, where was that grandma when she was a homeless teenager?) Monica and Phoebe, on paper, make no sense as friends, and that is the beauty of it. 

Watch it on HBO Max.

An evangelical youth pastor and a former Satanist walk into a bar… I don’t have a punch line. But, The Righteous Gemstones has about three per episode. We have not yet learned how Evangelical Kelvin and Former Satanist Keefe came to be each other’s main confidants, and I’m not sure I ever want to. What’s essential is that Keefe and Kelvin will do anything for each other. When Kelvin needs help getting dressed (his own father broke both his thumbs, it’s a whole thing), Keefe is literally his hands. When Kelvin needs to prove his strength in front of the “God Squad,” Keefe takes the cross. Keefe goes so far as to go back to a Satanist rave to help Kelvin “save” a girl from inside the club. Keefe’s chest may be tattooed with 666, but his love and devotion is to Kelvin. 

Watch it on HBO Max.

Is Billy Joel’s "Uptown Girl" about Christy Brinley? Or is it an ode to one of the most significant friendships of the 21st Century, Ryan and Seth? Obviously, it is the former, but who am I to crush a fanfic dream? It’s hard to explain the grip that Seth and Ryan had on the pre-teen/teen girls of the world. This was pre-Zac Efron, and back when Harry Styles was a child. The whole world was in love with a half-Jewish nerdy sailor and a blonde from the wrong side of the tracks who wore a lot of tank tops. These two easily could have been enemies, coming from different worlds, with seemingly very little in common. But, instead, they had each other’s backs from day one, and their friendship grew into brotherhood, legally, and in every sense of the word.

Watch it on HBO Max.

Most shows rely on the will-they, won’t-they storyline to last years, but Schitt’s Creek presents a fresher alternative: get the sexual tension out of the way early and have it lay the groundwork for a unique, against-all-odds friendship. When we first meet the pair in Season 1, David is a spoiled rich boy that thinks motels are one thousand levels beneath him. Stevie, always dressed in flannel with inexplicably perfect hair, is the motel’s manger, tough and authentic in every way David is not. The beauty of these two is that never once do they try to change the other. They so deeply understand who the other is. When they tell each other that they’re the other’s best friend, both admit to never having had one before. It's a real treat to watch the partnership between these two dry-witted, emotionally distant souls blossom. 

Watch it on Netflix.

Grace and Frankie epitomize the saying “opposites attract." They’re also the textbook definition of what it means to be someone’s, to quote Meredith Gray, “person.” When we first meet them, they’ve already been friends — or at least have tolerated each other — for 40 years. After their husbands tell them they’ve been having an affair with each other for almost as long, Grace and Frankie move into their shared beach house and become one another’s biggest and best support system. Grace is a button-up suit, and Frankie is a walking tie-dye t-shirt. Grace makes Frankie more focused. Frankie makes Grace more fun. Even when one falls in love and moves away, it never lasts long. They’re now each other’s family, and they can’t be apart. Their partners know they’re a packaged deal, and their friendship will always come first!

Watch it on Netflix.