Television, in particular, has become a sanctuary for this evolution. The success of Hacks hinges on the volcanic, unapologetic genius of Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance, a legendary comic whose struggle is not with irrelevance, but with the very definition of success. Similarly, Mare of Easttown gave Kate Winslet the space to be ugly, exhausted, brilliant, and broken—a portrait of a grandmother-detective whose sexuality and grief were woven together without a hint of cliché. These characters are messy. They are ambitious. They have pasts that haunt them and futures they still dare to plan.