I think Claire was the worst by far. She was definitely realistic in the sense that she was a lot like most other girls her age, but damn was she annoying. I couldn't stand that whiney entitled attitude she had, her self-centered outlook on everything and selfish personality, or her ignorance towards just about everything in life. Billy was really annoying too but at least he had a legitimate excuse for being that way.
shareFor me it was Lisa. I can't even really explain why, she was a sympathetic character yet she really, really bugged me for some reason.
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Claire was fine to me. Lauren Ambrose portrayed her well in my mind. That said...
I hate Ruth so much that I almost cannot re-watch the show. She is a doddering, judgmental (but plays it off well), hypocritical hag that should have been killed off by the end of season 1. Every other episode she would half say something and then wait to be coerced into spitting out the other half of whatever ignorant thing was about to spew out of her mouth.
Brenda was pretty heinous as well but for some reason while I was actively judging her I was also cheering for her. I wished her well even though she rubbed me the wrong way. I think it was just Rachel Griffiths plays a psycho bitch in many things I had seen before so I couldn't see past her other roles.
David could be way too melodramatic and Nate acted a bit too nonchalant but I guess that's why the worked so well together on screen.
The screwed up characters are the reason the show works though, everyone is flawed and some severely so.
Funny you should mention Claire, because I consider her my favorite character. Now in terms of major characters that annoy me, I'd have to go with Rico or Keith.
And it's not even that they were necessarily annoying, as much as they were just poorly developed. The show never seemed interesting in fleshing out and complicating the two of them in the way that it explored the Fishers, or Brenda. While other characters were certainly more grating at times, I was able to appreciate their missteps as signs of simply being human and appreciated the nature of their flaws.
While Keith and Rico were not exempt from that type of sympathy, I personally did not feel it to the extent that I applied it to seemingly more difficult characters like Brenda or Ruth. I never got the impression that they were able to hold their own as individual characters, I often felt as though that their main purpose as characters was to accentuate and support the rest of the cast's storylines
For me it just comes down to being multifaceted and multilayered, and I always felt as though Keith and Rico were just afterthoughts, set dressings, and whatever individual plotlines they were given were just attempts to seemingly keep them involved in the story. I just never got the impression that anyone in that writers room was genuinely interested in developing those characters, and as a result I found it hard to appreciate them and their faults on a more internal level.
I think Rico should have been fleshed out more, and his storylines are generally not that interesting. But with Keith I think it's more of a problem with the actor unfortunately, who is just very one-note -- we learn quite a bit about him I think (though we could know more), his anger and his relationship with his father and sister, etc. But the actor, while not bad, seemed to always be in the same "frustrated/angry" mode.
shareRuth is great. She's such a total mess its hilarious! She holds things in so much that when she explodes its a great catharsis.
shareLisa! Completely annoying throughout the entire series!
shareSince I'm 15 years older than the last time I started watching this, you'd think I'd relate more to Ruth, but she is annoying the crap out of me. Ordinarily I appreciate women struggling to find agency and I can see they're trying to make her multi-level with the sexual exploring and search for personal validation, but what a self-involved whiner! When Nate's going in to have his brain surgery, she's nattering on about why didn't you tell ME, don't you love ME, I would have behaved differently to you all these months, I've been excluded and deprived, ME, ME, ME. It's hard to blame her children for sidelining her in their lives.
On the third day of the HBO binge, I've found all of them annoying at one point or another--just like real-life people, I suppose. Claire is a basic egocentric disaffected teenage girl, but someone will often slap her down for that snotty attitude, so that's okay.
I think I was largely sympathetic to Rico the first time around and now he seems like a macho jerk with a morally superior attitude. He's been most likable in his scenes with Nate Sr.
I'm much more tolerant of Brenda since I read in the Trivia section they might have cast Juliette Lewis in the role. That would have been difficult, for me.
Nathaniel Sr. seems like the only person you'd really want to be friends with. And I could be pretty happy out there with Kathy Bates and Patricia Clarkson at Topanga Canyon!
Nikolai = the dirty old man, grumpy Russian, flatulence king.
shareGeorge.
shareLisa, hands down.
BUT---now that I've just re-watched it, I'd give higher annoying marks to Vanessa.
I guess they all could be annoying at times, but then I think that's the point. It would be fake if they were all 100% likable all the time. But the ones that stood out to me at times were:
Ruth-her snapping at people got a bit tiresome
Rico-self-righteous and hypocritical
Brenda-too needy