'Mai' To 'Kevin Can F**k Himself': 5 Female-Lead Shows Centred Around Revenge

People often fantasise about retaliating against the people that have wronged them. However, in television shows and movies centred around the theme of revenge and vengeance, the female characters act as collateral to motivate the male characters.

Over the years more forms of entertainment media have allowed their female characters to lead their revenge arcs. The dark comedy film Darlings starring Alia Bhatt, Shefali Shah, Vijay Varma, and Roshan Mathew focused on Bhatt’s character getting revenge on her abusive husband.

Rather than killing off female characters to entice the male leads to take action and go on a rampage, these television shows have women who take their life into their own hands. The following television shows feature female leads on a mission of vengeance.

5 Female-Centric Revenge Shows

Kevin Can F**k Himself

The dark comedy Kevin Can F**k Himself stars Annie Murphy as Allison Devine-McRoberts, a woman who decided to kill her husband after she learns he squandered their life savings. Trapped in a small town in an unhappy marriage to a self-centred man-child, the ">show explores her feelings of entrapment, resentment, and rage.

The stereotypical sitcom wife’s life unravels and she begins plotting to kill her husband with her neighbour turned friend Patty (played by Mary Hollis Inboden).

Annie Murphy and Eric Peterson in Kevin Can F**k Himself

Revenge

A young girl’s life turns upside down after her single father is framed for treason by a wealthy family. After her father is murdered in prison by associates of the family that framed him, she makes it her life’s mission to enact revenge on those who betrayed him.

Actor Emily VanCamp plays the role of the vengeful woman, who dons the name of Emily Thorne and moves into the beach house next door to the wealthy family that destroyed her father’s life. She targets the matriarch of the family Victoria Grayson (played by Madeline Stowe), the woman who fell in love with her father and then betrayed him.

Revenge centres around Emily and her allies as they create and execute an elaborate plan to take down the family.

Mai: A Mother’s Rage

Mai is a thriller drama television series following Sakshi Tanwar’s character Sheel Chaudhary, a mother mourning the death of her daughter. Sheel discovers that her daughter’s death was not an accident but a pre-planned murder and takes justice into her own hands.

The docile housewife transfers into a ruthless and vengeful character as she struggles to seek justice for her late daughter. Sheel decides to enact revenge on those who murdered her daughter and attempted to conceal the truth behind her death.

Sankshi Tanwar in Mai

Nikita

The action thriller Nikita follows the titular character’s mission to take down the Division, a secret government-funded organisation. Nikita, played by Maggie Q, was recruited by Division when she was a troubled teenager.

After she broke the rules by falling in love with a civilian, the Division retaliated by assassinating her fiance. Nikita turns rogue and dedicates her life to taking down the organisation and avenging the death of her fiance.

Alias

The action thriller stars Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a double agent for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assigned to the SD-6 unit. After Sydney tells her fiance that she is a spy and reveals the existence of SD-6 to him, he is murdered by the organisation.

Sydney realises that SD-6 is not a part of the CIA and begins working to take down the organisation from the inside while hiding her identity from her friends, family, and her colleagues. Even after destroying the organisation, Sydney’s work is not over as she pursues the former leaders of the SD-6.

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