Though it might seem hard to contemplate now, there was once a time when neither Netflix nor memes existed.
Back then, if you wanted to watch a movie or TV show, you either had to hope it was being shown on television or head down to your local Blockbuster in the hope that they had it on DVD and, more importantly, in stock.
Back then, if you wanted to express a particular message, emotion or sentiment in a colourful or imaginative you had to make do with text messages or primitive emojis to get your point across.
Thankfully, that sort of thing has been very much relegated to the past. No, today Netflix is very much part and parcel of everyday life. You genuinely can’t go more than a day without engaging in some sort of Netflix-related chat with a work colleague, family member or friend– and it’s great.
More importantly, these chats are made that much more engaging by the availability of a wealth of funny and thought-provoking memes that highlight just how silly some of these beloved shows really are.
Maybe it’s a particular plot point, a specific character arc, or something that just doesn’t sit right with you, but when you encounter a meme seemingly mirroring your own concerns about a particular show, it’s a real cathartic moment. So much so, in fact, that we have decided to collected together some of the very best.
With that said, here are the 25 Memes That Show Netflix Series Make No Sense.
Altered Carbon - The white guy problem
In all fairness, the knives were out for Altered Carbon long before the sci-fi series arrived on Netflix.
When it was first announced back in 2016 that the streaming giant would be adapting Richard K Morgan’s novel of the same name with Joel Kinnaman as central protagonist Takeshi Kovacs, it didn’t take long for a few folk on Twitter to take note– and they weren’t happy.
The casting the Swedish actor in the role of a man originally of Japanese and Slovakian descent made little sense.
Coming off the back of the controversy that had surrounding Matt Damon’s role in The Great Wall and Scarlett Johansson’s Ghost in the Shell remake, Altered Carbon was quickly accused of whitewashing.
In truth, the issue was a little more complicated than that. After all, the reincarnation of Kovacs as a white man was something that occurred in the source material. In fact, Netflix was pretty careful to follow the course of the book to the letter.
However, maybe that’s where they went wrong to begin with. Morgan may have only written the novel back in 2002 but things have moved on a lot since then.
It wouldn’t have taken much for Netflix to tweak the format and deliver a series with a compelling Asian protagonist rather than the scenario presented in the series, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
It also veers dangerously close to the idea of Kovacs gaining redemption as a white saviour.
Stranger Things - The evolution of Steve
Have you ever seen a character seemingly evolve into something completely unfamiliar from one season to the next? Stranger Things fans have.
His name is Steve Harrington and from the first series to the next, he went from a 16 Candles / Pretty In Pink style douchebag-turned-hero to Risky Business shades-wearing, Goonies-era Josh Brolin big brother type. This might have had something to do with the fan reaction to the character.
While few of us were genuinely happy that he was back together with Nancy by the end of the first season, actor Joe Keery’s likeable demeanour, coupled with one memorable scene involving a baseball bat, had viewers crying out for more Steve.
The result was the strangely retooled version of Steve that turned up in the second series. Quickly jettisoned by Nancy in favour of the sensitive but creepy Jonathan, Steve took on a new role as stand-in older brother of sorts for the show’s main protagonists.
This allowed him and, crucially Keery, to remain a part of the show.
It also meant fans got a little bit more of what made Steve so much fun the first-time round, namely, his proclivity for bashing things with baseball bats. All of which is great, of course, if a little jarring.
Daredevil - Good guy Kingpin makes breakfast
Let’s start by making one thing clear: Vincent D’Onofrio is brilliant as Wilson Fisk, aka The Kingpin, on Netflix’s excellent small screen version of Marvel favourite, Daredevil.
D’Onofrio has never been one to do things by halves. He famously gained 70 pounds to play Private Leonard Lawrence in Full Metal Jacket and took nearly a year to shed that weight.
So when it came to playing Fisk, D’Onofrio was keen to offer up a balanced, human, version of the Marvel supervillain. “Wilson Fisk is just a ball of emotion – he can be a baby sometimes…but he can also be a monster,” D’Onofrio explained during an appearance at the 2017 Emerald City Comicon [via comicbook.com].
The writers, meanwhile, were keen to showcase how Fisk ended up with his wife Vanessa over the course of the show’s first series.
The two factors ended up combining to create a version of Kingpin who is ferocious, to say the least, but also, on occasion, a little too, well, nice.
It’s something that hasn’t gone unnoticed online as the image above demonstrates. Kingpin might love Vanessa and everything, but would a guy that wealthy go to the trouble of making her breakfast. It seems like a very un-Kingpin thing to do.
The Punisher - Who needs blood when you’ve got rage?
A TV series based on Marvel’s most vengeful and dangerous of characters was always going to be a little bit tricky. However, Netflix have proven themselves to be more adept at the task than any of the various movie studios that have attempted to bring The Punisher to the big screen in the past.
Not only is The Punisher arguably a better paced series than any of the previous small screen Marvel incarnations to arrive on the streaming service, but in Jon Bernthal, the series has recruited a pitch perfect actor to play the part of Frank Castle.
Netflix also deserves enormous credit for refusing to hold back on all of the violence, with The Punisher ranking among the most violent original shows to ever emerge on the service.
The Punisher isn’t without its problems, of course. The main gripe, if you can even call it that, is perfectly highlighted in the meme above.
Castle is punched, shot, stabbed and even tortured to within an inch of his life. He doesn’t have any super powers either, which kind of makes it a bit ridiculous when he emerges, relatively unscathed from each and every one of these unsavoury encounters.
They say time is a healer, but for this version of Castle, the greatest healer of all may just be rage.
Stranger Things - Will goes all Bob Ross with is artwork
Poor Noah Schnapp. Not only was his Stranger Things character, Will Byers, sidelined in the “Upside Down” for the majority of the show’s first, and so far best, season, but since returning to Hawkins, he’s not had a whole lot to do.
For much of the second season, in fact, he’s alternated between looking increasingly fearful, and as the series progressed, enduring a series of fits brought on by some sort of psychic connection with the show’s central monsters.
When Will finally is given something to do in the second series, it amounts to little more than a bit of rough sketching.
It all gets a little bit ridiculous to be honest, with Will seemingly channelling his inner Bob Ross to produce a pretty impressive bit of artwork.
Seriously, Will’s depiction of the giant towering monster set to destroy Hawkins and everyone that resides then is pretty detailed. This is made all the sillier when you consider just how scared Will is supposed to be.
Could you put together a piece of art gallery-level work this good if you were being stalked by monsters only you could see? No, we didn’t think so.
So how is a small boy, who is still most likely traumatized from his previous experience, able to?
Jessica Jones - When Kilgrave is bae
David Tennant really did do an excellent job as as Kilgrave, the master manipulator and central antagonist in the first season of Jessica Jones. He portrayed a truly unhinged villain.
Capable of controlling people’s minds at his will, he’s a tyrant from the moment viewers first lay eyes on him and never really lets up. It’s an impressive portrait of the kind of obsession and control that has poisoned plenty of relationships in the past.
Kilgrave is obsessed and fascinated with Jones. He believes that he loves her but that love soon evolves into something beyond sinister.
He’ll do anything to have her back, though, whether it’s controlling Malcolm Ducasse, her neighbour, to keep tabs on Jones or by concocting a plan that results in Hope Schlottman destroying her own parents.
It’s disturbing stuff yet, for unknown reasons, Kilgrave still seems to think that it could help him get Jones back, which doesn’t quite add up.
Why would Kilgrave ever truly believe that Jones would return to his arms after he threatened to hurt a bunch of people? He might be crazy, but she isn’t.
Perhaps that’s how obsession works. Then again, perhaps it’s not. In any case, it wouldn’t have made for the same compelling viewing without him, would it?
Orange Is The New Black - Alex who?
Orange Is The New Black was one of the first major hits to emerge on Netflix during the early days of the streaming service’s popularity, and it’s not difficult to see why.
Part classic prison drama, part jet black comedy, the show excels in creating a more human portrait of prison life.
It’s intelligently written too, touching on issues of race, religion, gender, and orientation. Yet for all the complexity behind Jenji Kohan’s well crafted adaptation of Piper Kerman’s memoir, one of the show’s most appealing facets from its inception has been a simple one: it’s a love story.
Chronicling the topsy-turvy relationship that emerges between Taylor Schilling’s Piper Chapman and Laura Prepon’s Alex Vause, the show’s central romantic relationship kept viewers hooked.
Most fans were therefore understandably choked up about their break. Piper seemed pretty upset about it too, until a certain inmate by the name of Stella Carlin turned up on the scene.
Everyone gets that Ruby Rose is a pretty stunning individual all around, but even so, Piper seemed to move on from Alex a little too quickly once she came on the scene.
There’s nothing wrong with her moving on, per se. It just would have been nice if there had been a bit more mourning in between.
Jason Bateman is a genius
Ozark brought Netflix subscribers something that most had probably never seen before: Jason Bateman being a bad guy– a really bad guy.
In a pretty major departure from his role as Michael Bluth on the endlessly watchable Arrested Development, Bateman plays financial planner Marty Byrde. He’s a desperate man in a desperate situation.
In the debut of a Mexican kingpin following a money laundering scheme gone wrong, Marty agrees to relocate his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks with the promise of laundering even more money for the vengeful crimelord.
It’s a dire situation very much in the mold of Breaking Bad, except even Walter White would probably balk at some of the stuff Marty gets up to.
Given that he’s trying to launder insane amounts of dirty cash, you would think that Marty would want to keep a low profile. What do you do when you want to keep a low profile? Buy a local adult club, apparently, and not just buy it in the conventional sense, either.
Instead, he forces the owner to sell it as part of an approach that definitely won’t come back to bite him.
However, above all of this, you have to wonder what his wife, Laura Linney’s Wendy Byrde, who has so far gone along with all of this, thinks. Hats off to Marty, though. What a guy.
Riverdale - Where’s Archie when you need him?
As far as comic book adaptations go, Riverdale has fared better than most on Netflix. Some of the credit for that has to go down to show’s gorgeous young cast, which features a wealth of fresh faced young actors and actresses eager to make an impression on viewers.
While Lili Reinhart, Camilla Mendes, and Cole Sprouse offer up a fair amount of eye candy to the discerning viewer, the undoubted pick of the bunch has to KJ Apa. Cast in the pivotal role of Archie, Apa is a teenage dream.
He’s that one guy capable of crossing almost any social group thanks to his status as both a high school football player and musician.
However, above all else, he provides something that no other character can offer to fans: a six pack.
Riverdale’s plotting provides plenty in the way of scares, but that’s nowhere near as alarming as the amount of time that Archie spends without a shirt on.
Seriously, that guy is going to catch a chill. Someone needs to tell whoever is directing the show that Archie doesn’t need to be in a semi-permant state of shirtlessness. It’s actually got to the point where it’s distracting to the show itself.
The Punisher - Frank Castle’s logic
Ever since he first arrived on the scene with Marvel, Frank Castle has been a violent machine. That’s kind of the point: his wife and two children were mercilessly gunned down in the crossfire of a hit where he was the intended target.
That’s enough to leave anyone feeling vengeful, but Castle takes things to a whole new level.
He wants everyone destroyed, so it makes sense that Jon Bernthal’s version of the character in the hit Netflix adaptation would have a similar need to destroy everyone… well, to a point.
As lethal as The Punisher may have been in the comics, when it comes to the TV series, it might have made a little more sense if Castle had held back a little.
Taking ouy all of the criminals all of the time seems like a pretty extreme way to go and results in some alarming moments, whereby Castle destroys a few guys who probably could have been better served with jail time.
Those hapless construction worker goons who attempt to take the life of their colleague Donny Chavez in an attempt to cover their tracks following a robbery gone wrong could have also been better off behind bars.
There’s simply no room for rehabilitation in Castle’s eyes, though. If you commit a crime you deserve to have your life taken from you, apparently. There’s certainly a logic to it but it does seem incredibly harsh.
Riverdale - Veronica’s daddy issues
Veronica Lodge has got issues– daddy issues, to be precise. There’s no amount of non-dad-related revelations that will change her mind on Netflix’s Archie Comics adaptation of Riverdale.
From the moment Camilla Mendes’ character arrives on the show, she’s busy talking about pops.
After all, he is kind of the reason why she ends up there in the first place, given that her father’s arrest and incarceration force her to up sticks from New York to Riverdale. That would be enough to leave most people raging at their father.
However, it just goes on from there– on and on, in fact. Veronica is seemingly obsessed with becoming a better person. It’s part of the reason why she embarks on a relationship with goody two-shoes himself, Archie Andrews. It’s also why she spends a lot of her time questioning her father’s loyalties.
It gets even worse after Mr. Andrews is shot, with Veronica seemingly convinced her parents are guilty of the crime.
Seemingly based purely on her father’s past experiences, she accuses him of hiring a hit man to do the job. All of which would be engaging enough if it weren’t for the fact that’s pretty much all she talks about all the time.
It might be time to take up a hobby.
Stranger Things - A little light reading
One of the best things about Stranger Things has been the way it has helped Winona Ryder enjoy a career renaissance. Though she was a huge star in her younger years, personal problems had seen Ryder slip away from the limelight in more recent times.
She’s very much back in business now, though, thanks to the juicy role of Joyce Byers on the hit sci-fi series.
Nominated for countless awards, including a Golden Globe, Ryder’s wide-eyed performance even extended to the famous moment where the cast of the show went up to collect Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Stranger Things was not without its flaws, though, of course.
One moment in particular stood out to fans. It came during the show’s first season when Joyce begins communicating with her son Will via a series of lights in her home.
It’s clearly established that Will is stuck in the upside down and is using the lights to send a message home. Yet, at the same time, Will is seemingly discovered by the police.
Most viewers cottoned on that the discovery wasn’t Will, but Joyce doesn’t– even though she’s been talking to Will via those lights. How did she not put two and two together?
The Defenders - Iron Fist sucks
On the whole, Netflix has done a pretty bang up job of bringing some of Marvel’s most beloved superheroes to the small screen. There are always exceptions to the rule, of course, such as Iron Fist.
For unknown reasons, Netflix incarnation of Danny Rand is a jerk. Entitled, egotistical, and rarely rational in his thinking, it’s fair to say fans didn’t take to Finn Jones’ portrayal, with Iron Fist quickly emerging as a poster boy for white privilege.
More important than that is the fact he’s also pretty rubbish at being a superhero. Given how unpopular that first series of Iron Fist was with the critics, you would have though Rand would have taken a backseat in Netflix’s small screen equivalent of The Avengers, The Defenders.
However, he doesn’t. He’s front and centre, barking orders and throwing punches before stopping to ask questions.
He’s such a tool and if further proof of that were needed, this meme showcasing Iron Fist’s inability to do anything of the things he is supposed to do is highlighted.
Why did they create such a lame version of the popular Marvel character? Given how badly he’s gone down with the public and how dated the concept seems to be, it wouldn’t be a shock if the character didn’t end up sticking around for long.
Jessica Jones - Marvel needs to work on its villains
Krysten Ritter’s winning performance may be the main takeaway from Jessica Jones, but some of the credit for the success of the show’s first season should also go to David Tennant.
He’s fantastic as the master manipulator Kilgrave, a man capable of controlling mere mortals with his mind. It’s a winning turn from a man whose biggest role prior to that was playing Doctor Who. Tennant is remarkably adept at playing the show’s menacing antagonist.
It’s a role that has got fans talking about his surprising talents. However, it’s also highlighted a slightly negative aspect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date: a criminal lack of great villains.
The first season of Daredevil might be the exception to the rule, thanks to Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk. but by and large the bad guys have underwhelmed on the big and small screen.
Arguably the best of all the antagonists in Luke Cage left the series way too soon, while Iron Fist’s adversary was similarly underwhelming, despite a decent backstory.
Harold Meachum was a memorable villain in the Iron Fist comic and, in David Wenham, Netflix seemed to have cast the perfect actor for the role. However, like the majority of villains in the Netflix Marvel universe so far, he ended up falling a little flat. The only way is up from here though, right?
House of Cards - Spot the product placement
There are plenty of extremely inappropriate memes concerning House of Cards on the internet right now, but this one is addresses a slightly more family friendly issue concerning the Netflix drama series.
This, along with Orange Is The New Black, was one of the first big hits to emerge on the streaming service. At a time when plenty were playing it safe, Netflix took a massive gamble on a glossy, big budget TV series based on a much-loved BBC show and it paid off– big time.
The party may be over now, thanks to issues away from the show, but House of Cards will always hold a place of significance in the evolution of TV drama.
No expense was spared either… well, almost. As anyone who ever watched the show knows, there was one particular area where things felt a little, well, forced: product placement.
Take the example of the Windows Phone. It’s a piece of technology used by next to no one in the real world. It’s a different story in House of Cards, though, where this poorly received piece of technology takes pride of place, often playing a crucial role in proceedings.
In a show that asks you to buy into any number of silly ideas, this might just be the most ridiculous of all of them and one step too far.
Orange Is The New Black - Prison seems likes fun
Part of the reason why Orange Is The New Black has proven so popular with Netflix subscribers is the fact that the show feels very authentic.
Some of the credit for that has to go down to the writing and also the fact that it’s based on the real-life memoir of Piper Kerman, who spent 13 months in prison for money laundering and drug trafficking offences.
As such, you believe in most of the characters presented on screen. No doubt drawn from very real encounters with very real criminals, it lends the show that crucial air of authenticity.
Credit also has to go to the casting of the show, with most of the actors and actresses involved coming across as completely believable in their respective roles. Uzo Aduba, Laura Prepon, Natasha Lyonne and Kate Mulgrew all fall into this category. Ruby Rose, however, doesn’t.
As the meme highlights, there’s just something a little too perfect about her looks and general demeanour.
She sticks out because she looks like a model, which is hardly a surprise, given that she is an actual model. There’s just something a little too glossy about Stella Carlin. It takes you out of the absorbing drama and humour of the show too.
Daredevil - Kingpin does interior design
Fans were reminded of Kingpin’s bizarre status as an unintentional good guy of sorts in Daredevil thanks to this amusing meme created in honour of the Netflix series.
Vincent D’Onofrio was clearly attempting to create a version of Wilson Fisk that is as human and three dimensional as possible. He’s measured and methodical– except when he needs to get nasty, then he’s really nasty.
That doesn’t happen nearly enough in the first season of Daredevil, though, where the character is kept on a leash as much as possible. Take Kingpin’s chance encounter with Matt Murdock during a night at the Scene Contempo Art Gallery, for example.
Fisk is there to chat to and impress possible love interest Vanessa Marianna, but even so, few fans would have imagined the scene that plays out, with Kingpin offering interior decoration tips to Murdock, who is considering buying a painting.
Everyone involved knows the conversation is suspect, including Vanessa. Yet they go through the motions anyway.
It’s an encounter that is supposed to build tension and be strangely reminiscent of Robert De Niro’s encounter with Al Pacino in Heat. However, here it just seems a little silly.
Kingpin as an interior designer, really? Wilson Fisk might be a cold and calculated villain, but this is a stretch.
Stranger Things - What about Barb?
It was the one thing that everyone was talking about in the immediate aftermath of watching season one of Stranger Things: what about Barb?
The supposed best friend of Natalia Dyer’s Nancy Wheeler, Barbara Holland, mysteriously disappeared during a party at Steve’s house. Nancy and Jonathan Byers attempted to track her down but to no avail.
Eventually, Eleven comes across Barb’s disfigured body in the Upside Down. It’s clear that she was slain by the Demogorgon. Later, Chief Hopper and Joyce come across her body in the Upside Down version of the public library.
Yet for all of this, there were still fans out there demanding #JusticeForBarb on Twitter. Maybe it was down to her distinctive dress sense, likeable personality, or Shannon Purser’s winning performance, but fans were left far from happy at the character’s fate and wanted a clearer resolution.
Also, it kind of felt like no one really cared. There was no fallout from the fact Barb was gone, and by the end of the series, no one was mourning her passing or anything.
Fans just didn’t get any closure. Thankfully, they got that with the show’s second season and a return to the character’s likely fate, but the damage was already done by then.
Iron Fist - Oh, you’re Iron Fist are you? You never mentioned it…
Iron Fist was a monumental misfire for both Marvel and Netflix. Coming at a time where on-screen diversity was of paramount concern among actors, directors, and audiences alike, this felt like a misguided throwback.
It was the kind of show that might have been popular with audiences in the mid-’90s, but looked horribly misjudged by today’s woke standards.
Some of the blame has to go on Netflix and Marvel’s insistence of sticking to a back story and character that screams white privilege and white saviour rolled into one.
Not only is Danny Rand a billionaire, back after something approaching a gap year abroad (yeah we know he lost his parents), but he’s full of the kind of ancient wisdom that people coming back from their travels spout.
This is wisdom that he’s constantly attempting to mansplain to Iron Fist’s impressive array of strong female characters– female characters who end up playing second fiddle to Rand.
Finn Jones might not be too popular, but he can’t be blamed for the writing and the show’s insistence on having Rand remind anyone around that he’s the Iron Fist.
Seriously, the guy says it all the time and yet, for the most part, Iron Fist is pretty lame. He barely uses his Iron Fist.
Also, what happened to superheroes maintaining secret identities? Why does this guy insist on telling everyone who he is?
Black Mirror - Hang on, that guinea pig…
Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror really has enjoyed a significant shift up in terms of quality since moving to Netflix. That was kind of the whole point, though. Brooker only opted to take the show over to Netflix because of the promise of bigger budgets and more freedom to explore all of his darkest ideas.
It’s paid off too, with Black Mirror regularly offering up some of the most striking and original sci-fi stories to arrive on the small screen since The Twilight Zone.
Anthology shows are always a bit of a mixed bag, though, and while the quality of Black Mirror has been pretty high since the move to Netflix, there have been occasional missteps here and there. Crocodile boasts possibly the biggest of them, as this meme shows.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the concept, whereby a woman uncovers an accident that took place 15 years ago after using a device that allows her to access people’s memories.
It’s well directed by John Hillcoat while Andrea Riseborough is brilliant as Mia, one of the two criminals desperately attempting to cover their tracks.
It’s just that the ending, which sees Mia come unstuck because of the memories of a hamster witness, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Human brains are pretty complex and capable of storing these kinds of memories, but hamsters? Surely not.
