38 Legendary Sitcom Characters Ranked By How Poorly They Would Handle The Pandemic
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Starting off with who would handle the pandemic the best:
38.Janet from The Good Place
Come on, Janet is a person/mainframe, she'd be fine in the bonkers, awful world we live in these days. Janet even says in the finale of The Good Place that the way she experiences time is like she lives in memories when she thinks of them, like she experiences everything at once. She'd be fine.
37.Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine
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Rosa would throw a knife at anyone who comes within six feet of her. She'd glue a mask to her face. She'd interrogate suspects over zoom and never skip. Rosa invented the vaccine.
36.Nick Miller from New Girl
It would take Nick four months to notice there was a pandemic happening, but he wouldn't have left the house for six months anyway, so no matter. He'd be the Quarantine King: constant snacks, writing 200 books, bringing a lawn chair into the shower just to have a new place to sit. He'd be so good at quarantining it would flow over into unhealthy.
35.Dwight Schrute from The Office
You know Dwight has been preparing his whole life for this. There is a giant Schrute Farms bunker exactly like that city in that book where they live underground (The City of Ember, thank you Google). So while Dwight would be more intense than is ideal in a quarantine situation, he would get the job done.
34.Captain Raymond Holt from Brooklyn Nine-Nine
It would take Holt an impressively long time to lose it in the pandemic. He'd be normal and unaffected for well over a year and a half, other than his worry for others and the inconvenience to his daily life. Then Kevin would inform Holt of the Omicron variant, and Holt would stand up from the dining room table with a firm, "Excuse me," put on a winter coat, go outside, and walk from Brooklyn to Northern Maine without once stopping or changing his emotionless facial expression. But, hey, fair.
33.Phoebe Buffay from Friends
To quote Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Phoebe is a wild card. I mean, she's not, but quite often when Friends needs that role, they use her. In isolation, Phoebe's wild-card-ness and authoritative strengths would mesh into a vibe of, "I am in charge of this quarantine bubble, and I am ordering Cheetos on Instacart for an offensive amount of money, and don't you dare lower your mask in a public space or I will lock you in your room until Spring." So it would be a lot, and Phoebe would sometimes break and not do the safest possible thing, but she would crush it.
32.Julia Sugarbaker from Designing Women
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Given how elegant and kind she is, given that she is a natural born leader, and given that Julia Sugarbaker feels as if she could singlehandedly convince every single anti-vaxxer to get both doses and a booster, it's safe to say that she would be amazing in the pandemic.
31.Jason Mendoza from The Good Place
Jason would have no issue quarantining, but he would forget, like, all of the rules. He'd be like, "a mask? Like the Cameron Diaz movie?"
30.Liz Lemon from 30 Rock
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Liz would love quarantining until she got tired of herself, then she'd eat cheese, then she'd fall asleep, then she'd watch all of the Back to the Future movies three times, then she'd love quarantining again. A fascinating cycle.
29.Michael from The Good Place
Michael could endure a decade of the pandemic before it got to him, but the fact that some humans choose not to wear masks, not to get vaccinated, not to help, would infuriate him so much that it would consume him.
28.Cece from New Girl
Cece is famously a slob, so while she'd miss the outside world, because she is a human being and WE ALL MISS THE OUTSIDE WORLD HOW IT WAS, she'd get over it. Weeks and weeks would pass without Cece noticing.
27.Joey Tribbiani from Friends
Joey would be sad all the time during the pandemic, but he'd hang out in his chair and – now, I know this is controversial – he'd read. I'm serious. A great storyline for Joey in a pandemic were if he got really into books. Imagine Joey quoting Tolstoy, obviously pronouncing it, "Anna Karen-Nina."
26.Stanley Hudson from The Office
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Stanley wouldn't give a shit about the virus or the pandemic. He would follow all of the rules, and, of course, get vaccinated, but he'd move through life as if everything were normal. And he would be ecstatic about working from home, Zoom camera never on one time.
25.Chandler Bing from Friends
The first couple months of COVID world would suck tremendously for Chandler. Then he would start talking to himself all the time, and he'd be grand.
24.Coach from New Girl
Coach is chill enough to remain chill as long as theoretically possible in situations like the COVID-19 pandemic. After that expiration date, all bets are off.
23.Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place
Eleanor would toe the line between "I love being alone in my sweatpants indefinitely" and "I need a restaurant NOW." The compromise would be giving herself bangs using a compact mirror in an Arby's parking lot, but all in all, Eleanor would be as Eleanor-y after years of lockdown as she was before.
22.Jake Peralta from Brooklyn Nine-Nine
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Jake is a sloven (secret) homebody, so he'd be okay. Yes, he'd miss going into work and interacting with other people face-to-face, but he and Charles would come up with some costume they could each wear so they'd be able to be together all the time without breaching social distancing – like Jade Thirlwall at the EMAs.
21.Rachel Green from Friends
Rachel is exceptionally good at adapting to new circumstances, so while she would naturally have difficulty quarantining and everything, she'd figure out how to make it work for her. And she's selfish enough to take time for herself every day.
20.Pam Beesly from The Office
Pam would handle the pandemic with as much normalcy as possible in a time so abnormal that the word "abnormal" feels like a joke.
19.Mary Richards from The Mary Tyler Moore Show
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Mary would be okay, but she wouldn't be anything more. The tears would come a lot, but they'd end a lot, too.
18.Jess Day from New Girl
Jess would be a wonderful combination of optimistic and logical. She'd create dozens of perfect handwashing-length jingles. But as a teacher, she'd only just pull through each day. Jess would print out the Zoom logo and burn it nightly.
17.Carlton Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Carlton would try his hardest to be chill, but who are we kidding? He would be terrified of every surface for the rest of his life – which, to be fair, isn't that unreasonable.
16.Terry Jeffords from Brooklyn Nine-Nine
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Terry would remain positive and happy for so, so, so long, but one day, he would break in the yogurt aisle.
15.Monica Geller from Friends
"Monica Clean" would reach a whole new terrifying level. Every second of her time would be spent cleaning. Every mug would be washed six times. Every time Chandler entered the apartment, he'd be hosed down. So yes, Monica would handle the pandemic well on the safety side, but internally? She'd be in a hurricane.
14.Tahani Al-Jamil from The Good Place
Tahani is super duper rich, and as the great Sarah Snook said in reference to her show Succession, "[N]one of the world’s really wealthy people were going to be affected by the pandemic." Now, that doesn't mean Tahani would handle the pandemic well, it means the opposite. She would also be furious at the world each time she left her house(s).
13.Mindy Lahiri from The Mindy Project
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Being a doctor, Mindy would, of course, have a very rough time in the pandemic, and it would be made worse by her impressive impatience, her lack of impulse control, and her fantastic materialism in her personal life. Dr. Lahiri would scream multiple times a day. At some point, she'd go so far as to earnestly try pigtails. Good luck.
12.Andy Bernard from The Office
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I don't think Andy could take not being around people much. He'd be talking to his baking tins within minutes.
11.Elaine Benes from Seinfeld
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Elaine is both unbothered and wholeheartedly bothered by everything. Couple that with this nightmare of an era and we have a dangerous, unpredictable, furious amalgamation.
10.Amy Santiago from Brooklyn Nine-Nine
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Amy would attempt to fashion a flawless home-work life many times. She'd attempt to plan her walks many times. She'd attempt to take up good hobbies many times. She'd attempt to maintain a healthy sleep schedule many times. But these are impossible feats, so she'd be left with nothing but disappointment and peanut butter many, many, many times.
9.Ross Geller from Friends
I don't know why but I feel like Ross would totally turn wild.
8.Tracy Jordan from 30 Rock
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Tracy would not tolerate wearing a mask.
7.Winston Bishop from New Girl
Winston would spend six years living in a box in his room with Ferguson for absolutely no reason. He would eat oatmeal three times a day for absolutely no reason. He would only wear white for absolutely no reason. But this is what the pandemic can do to you.
6.Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place
Though Chidi's intelligence and logic would fight to conquer his anxiety and panic, by the end of day three of quarantine, Chidi would be laying belly-down on his bathroom floor, surrounded by poorly baked homemade sourdough, quietly singing "It's Gonna Be Me" by NSYNC to a puppy he's fashioned out of household items.
5.Kelly Kapoor from The Office
Kelly wouldn't follow any lockdown rules until she bedazzled her facemasks, and after that she'd BARELY do it.
4.Schmidt from New Girl
Schmidt's eccentricities would become so unbearable in a pandemic environment that even he would grow tired of himself, and my lord is that saying something.
3.Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock
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Jenna's need for attention would win over her knowledge of the state of the things. So she'd go to a billion parties in the tiniest rooms you've ever conceived of.
2.Niles Crane from Frasier
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Niles is far too delicate to thrive in a COVID-19 world. The poor man would spend his days with a wool blanket draped over his shoulders and a candle in hand, listening to Jane Austen audiobooks over and over.
1.And who would handle the pandemic the worst: Michael Scott from The Office
The moment Michael Scott learned about COVID-19, he would buy every single item in the grocery store. Then he would go through all of the food in five days. The pandemic would break him psychologically months before there was even a lockdown.
