Why Holly Gibney Is One of TV's Best Protagonists (2024)

Stephen King has created many frightening fictional creatures to terrorize both viewers and readers. From Pennywise in It to the vampires of Salem's Lot, King's entities are unique in that even his villains have depth. The same is true of his human characters. Between heroes like Needful Things' Alan Pangborn and villains like Misery's Annie Wilkes, King's skill for crafting compelling characters comes through when we're able to see just how three-dimensional and multi-faceted they are. But of all the human characters that populate his many adaptations over the past four decades, Holly Gibney (played by Justine Lupe in the Mr. Mercedes series and Cynthia Erivo in The Outsider) isn't just one of the most compelling — she's one of TV's best protagonists in general.

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Holly isn't the typical Hollywood protagonist. She isn't concerned with socialization and her courageousness in times of fear and stress isn't always immediate. In fact, she thinks, behaves, and sees the world in a way unlike most people around her. This is largely due to her place on the Autism Spectrum. Holly lives with Asperger's Syndrome, a developmental disorder that effects her ability to socialize and communicate. Aside from the physical indictors of her disorder like fidgeting and facial tics, Holly tends to have trouble understanding social cues, feels awkward and uncomfortable in social situations, and sometimes retreats into herself when she feels a sensory overload — when her surroundings get too bright or loud or claustrophobic — from the world around her. Combined with an overbearing mother who sees and treats her like a child rather than the adult she is, it certainly seems like the odds have been stacked against her. However, Holly's willingness to self-improve, along with her continued perseverance in times of crisis, show that her disability doesn’t make her less than the neurotypical characters she interacts with; instead, it serves to show just how smart, capable, and resilient she is.

Holly consistently proves that neurodivergent people are capable of just as much as those who are neurotypical. After all, she single-handedly brought down Brady Hartsfield (Harry Treadaway). In part to her Asperger’s, Holly is able to hone in on a single task and observe her surroundings while characters like Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson) are unable to because their minds are too clouded with thoughts of what others are thinking or feeling. Because she's less concerned with processing emotions and having a social filter, Holly is able to cut through trivial information to uncover important details (like Brady's new methods of targeting his victims). Here, it's obvious that being an introvert isn't her weakness. It's her superpower. By bravely disarming Brady, selflessly putting herself through great mental discomfort by testifying at his trial, or putting herself in physical danger to help those around her, Holly repeatedly shows that looks can be deceiving.

Holly's uniqueness makes her much more than a background character who checks off a diversity box. For all her prickliness and lack of social filter (sometimes to her detriment), there’s a real warmth that radiates from her. She knows that she’s different and while it makes her uncomfortable to step outside her box, to make new friends and engage in new social situations, she continues to persevere and show her resilience in times of crisis. Not only does she choose to bounce back from the awful names people call her (Jibber-Jibber) and stand up to her domineering mother to advocate for her own wants and choices, but she attempts to heal her traumas — her role in Brady's demise, as well as the deaths of her cousins Olivia (Ann Cusack) and Janey (Mary-Louise Parker) by Brady's hands. She does this by making the decision to take claim of the Mercedes that Brady stole to aid in his massacre. But rather than destroy it, Holly does what only Holly would do. She restores it and has it painted yellow. Characters like Bill think it's horrible and incredibly macabre, but Holly disagrees. To her, it's beautiful. She makes the decision to face her traumas head-on rather than stick them in a box at the back of her mind and pretend they never existed. She is quite literally painting her own story.

Insights like these reveal Holly to be both more emotionally complex and multi-faceted than she first appears. It also helps that her arc across the Mr. Mercedes series provides her with real growth. From her introduction as a timid and soft-spoken young woman afraid to assert herself, to ending the series as someone who is more independent and begins to feel more confident in her own skin and skills, Holly grows by leaps and bounds. In overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles like her Asperger's Syndrome, her cousins' deaths, and her grief and trauma after disabling Brady, Holly serves to erase the misconception that neurodivergent people are “disabled”; rather, they just see and experience the world differently. It's yet another reason why Holly Gibney isn't just one of Stephen King's best characters, she's one of TV's best protagonists. And she's got a brand new yellow Mercedes to prove it.