Landry Clarke

Landry is Matt Saracen's best friend, a preacher's kid and self-described genius stuck near the bottom of Dillon High's social order. He plays guitar badly and loudly, talks a big game about girls and glory, and mostly gets overlooked in a town that worships quarterbacks and running backs, not the kid on the bench.

He's the show's release valve — the friend who says the too-honest thing at the wrong moment and makes it funny instead of grim. Jesse Plemons plays the bravado as armor over real sweetness, so when Landry's storylines go somewhere heavier later, you believe the vulnerability because the comedy earned it first.