Christina McKinney

Christina works in Mode's fashion closet, a plainspoken Scottish seamstress surrounded by the magazine's glamour and cruelty. She takes an immediate liking to Betty, offering blunt honesty and genuine warmth in a building full of vanity and knives. Unimpressed by status, she treats people as people, which makes her rare there.

Ashley Jensen plays her with a dry, unhurried wit that cuts straight through Mode's polish, and the writing uses her as the show's moral thermostat — whenever the satire threatens to curdle into meanness, Christina's friendship with Betty reminds you what the show actually cares about. She's funny without ever being a joke.