Six Suggested Plots for TV Characters to Kick Off 2014

We might have just finished up ringing in the new year, but the start of the 2014 TV season is still upon us. I know you're depressed that the champagne bottles are empty and the noisemakers are now simply obnoxious and not at all fun, but we can still celebrate a brand new batch of episodes from some awesome television shows. Looking into the future, where do you see some of your favorite characters heading on their respective series? As I usually remind my fellow viewers, I can't watch everything, even if I'd like to. Below are six suggested plots for characters that are returning to our screens in 2014. Feel free to chime in below with any of your own hopes for some of your favorites! Any theories you'd like to share?

If I could write the next string of episodes for some hit shows, here's where I'd take some popular characters:

HBO - "Girls"

Marnie – Girls

With the unfortunate loss of Christopher Abbott’s Charlie, any sort of an arc set up for Marnie heading into Season 3 of the HBO hit just leapt ahead to what probably would have inevitably ended up being her Season 4 plot. If you think about it, there was no way that Girls was actually going to have the solution to Marnie’s personal problems as a twenty-something young woman be a reconciliation with the boyfriend she could barely stand sleeping with during all of Season 1. That relationship failed in the first place for a reason, and it’s clear that Marnie only wanted/ wants Charlie when she can’t have him. Having said that, Christopher Abbott has left the show of his own volition, so where does Marnie go from here?

At first, I mourned the loss of Charlie. Now, I’m thinking this could be a blessing in disguise. I don’t think it would have been nearly as interesting to watch Marnie go through the same excruciating motions of trying to be in love only to find herself disenchanted once again. She’s out of options now. She has no career and no safety net in Charlie. Season 3 should be Marnie’s year of true self-discovery. I’ve heard Lena Dunham speak in interviews regarding the fact that Hannah is often quite aware of how little progress she's made, whereas Marnie is actually convinced that she’s accomplishing some sort of personal growth as she continues to flounder. Maybe it’s actually time for Marnie to face the music. If Girls can send Hannah spiraling through a legitimate mental breakdown in order to give her some kind of a clean slate and closure heading into Season 3, the show can surely give Marnie her own kind of a long, hard look in the mirror.

The CW - "The Vampire Diaries"

Matt – The Vampire Diaries

Call me crazy, but I don’t think a single Euro-trip with Rebekah was enough to quash Matt Donovan’s perpetual sense of eternal confinement to Mystic Falls. For a couple of seasons now, we’ve listened to Donovan go on and on about how he’s never going to be anything more than an average busboy, but if The Vampire Diaries has no intention of transforming Matt into something supernatural (Thank God!) or killing him off (I think it’s too late for that.), what can they do to eventually set up a satisfying end to Matt’s arc on the show?

Here’s a suggestion that might be controversial. If they can write in a legitimate reason for doing so, they might be able to pull off moving Matt over to The Originals. Tyler is in New Orleans for an indefinite amount of time, so Matt could serve as a link between Lockwood and the Original family that wouldn’t revolve around the old faithful plotline of simply hating on Klaus. There’s enough of that going around on that show already. Plus, I didn’t really buy the end to the Matt-Rebekah romance that never really ended up going anywhere beyond behind-the-scenes threesomes in Italy. I’ve always liked the idea of a different kind of a love triangle on these vampire shows. It’s always about one girl caught in between two vampires/ supernaturals. Think about Twilight, True Blood, TVD, Buffy, etc. (Remember how Buffy never gave Xander even a smidgen of hope in the battle over Buffy’s heart?) It could be interesting to see Rebekah, an Original vampire, caught in between her love for Marcel, also an intriguing age-old vampire, and Matt Donovan, a quarterback busboy who also happens to be a stellar human being.

MTV "Awkward"

Collin – Awkward.

MTV’s smash comedy took a legitimate potential threat to Matty McKibbin and warped him into nothing more than heartless pot-head over the course of the latter half of Season 3. What happened to the smart and creative Collin that enticed Jenna to stray from her boyfriend in the first place? Honestly, I can’t even really recall Collin speaking during this season’s final string of episodes that inevitably led to a reconciliation between Hamilton and McKibbin, yet it seemed all the while that some of the show's core viewers were unwilling to give up on the new guy they’d invested their TV time crushing on.

If Awkward. is planning on keeping Nolan Funk on board, Collin needs a bit of redemption. I’m guessing that they’re going to switch up the dynamic in Season 4 by sticking Matty in between Jenna and her new buddy, Bailey, as opposed to finding Jenna once again in the center of a love triangle. An alternative, though, would be to have Collin legitimately fall for Bailey and to have him actually change his ways for her. Now that Jenna has won back the respect of her clique, it might be interesting to see a self-righteous Jenna stressing over the fact that Bailey managed to hook Collin into a committed relationship while she failed to do so herself. Relationships on shows like this don’t work unless there are bumps in the road, and Jenna’s overactive imagination often gets her into entertaining, and awkward, trouble. Still, I'm pretty sure Awkward. is simply, and sadly, going to dump Nolan Funk and go with switching up the love triangle by pitting Matty between the two ladies this time around.

The CW "Arrow"

Roy/ Thea – Arrow

Arrow has a habit of purposely confusing us with doubles of popular DC Comics characters. I think they do this so that the plotlines of the show aren’t super predictable due to the fact that some of these heroes and villains have been around for decades in the literary world. We’ve been introduced to two possible Deathstrokes, there was some confusion over the identity of Black Canary, and, of course, there is the “Roy is canonically supposed to be Speedy, but Thea is Speedy” situation at play. Someone needs to eventually become Red Arrow, or Arsenal, or both.

Roy ended his arc during the first half of Season 2 of Arrow with a near-lethal injection of super-serum from Brother Blood. Having survived, we know that he’s now gifted with excessive strength and healing abilities, but we also know that anyone who has survived an injection of this stuff has gone off the deep end, drunk with power and rage. I don’t think simply introducing Roy as a new sidekick for Ollie would work. Diggle has been doing just fine. If Roy Harper is to ever become Speedy, Thea Queen will either have to gift him with her moniker or bite the dust. Either way, I think Roy is going to have to fight through a bout of chaos before growing to the point where he could maturely fight alongside Oliver. Of course, Thea is scrappy and plucky. Maybe the reverse could happen, and Roy Harper will end up six feet under with Ollie’s little sis finding the inspiration to carry on his crime-fighting dreams. Oliver dons a green hood to honor his fallen friend, Yao Fei. Maybe Thea will inevitably end up sporting a scarlet hood as an homage to Roy’s signature red hoodie.

HBO - "True Blood"

Lafayette – True Blood

A show like True Blood often suffers from the issue of having to tie together the plots of several unrelated characters. There will always be the central arc of the season, but that often means that awesome characters like Arlene, Sam, and Lafayette simply serve to distract us from the story that we’re most invested in. Much of the time, they deserve better than that. (Remember the fire demon aka Ifrit? No? It’s probably because you’ve allowed the memory to be singed out of your brain.) Speaking specifically regarding Lafayette, does anybody even recall him showing up during Season 6? He was tragically underused!

True Blood is heading into its seventh and final season this year. News has already spread regarding the casting of a serious love interest for Lafayette heading into the show’s final episodes. After what they put him through with Jesus, sending the gem that is Lafayette off with a solid boyfriend would be an appropriate way to end his run on True Blood. I don’t personally care too much about his witch abilities anymore. I’m over the medium storyline.  If they need to use him to contact somebody on the other side, then fine, but I think that Lafayette has given us all a ton of very entertaining and totally hilarious moments. I think, when it comes down to it, I’d simply like for True Blood to give him a break this year. True Blood, by break, I don’t mean that he should be off of our television screens for any reason whatsoever. What I do mean is that it’s time to reward the good characters who’ve been dragged through the nonsense of the supernatural happenings of Bon Temps, especially Lafayette.

Showtime - "Shameless"

Lip – Shameless 

First, check out the clip from Shameless Season 4 below:

Shameless returns to Showtime January 12^th, but where should we expect to find the eldest Gallagher boy as we head into Season 4? We know that his little bro, Ian, used his ID to enlist in the military following a tragic breakup with Mickey Milkovich. We've also always known that there was no way Shameless was going to let Lip head off to college without any bumps in the road. Lip is someone who writes the rules on the Chicago South Side, but living on a college campus where he doesn't have a grip on the lay of the land should prove to be interesting. That is, until he finds himself on the receiving end of that army dude's bum-rush featured in the trailer above.

I think what's going to prove to be most interesting for viewers is watching Lip face the repercussions of Ian's rash decision to use his brother's ID to enlist. Gallaghers are at their best when they stick together as a family. That much can be witnessed, once again, in the clip above, as flying solo doesn't seem to be the best look on Lip in any case. Will Lip actually take the fall to somehow protect his brother? It could be interesting to see just how far one would go to protect the other, especially if Lip needs a reason to escape from the trials and tribulations of an average college life. One major suggestions for Lip, though… stay single!

Those are some of my suggestions, but what do you think? Who will shape up to be Ollie's sidekick? Is Marnie kind of a lost cause? Should Matt stay stuck in Mystic Falls for all eternity? Will Lafayette find a bit of happiness? Do you have any plot suggestions for some of your favorite characters in TV this year?