Rhoda Morgenstern

Rhoda Morgenstern lives upstairs from Mary Richards, a sharp-tongued window dresser from the Bronx who has moved to Minneapolis and still feels like an outsider among the polite, blond Midwesterners around her. She's funny, self-deprecating, and armored with one-liners about her weight, her love life, and her mother, deflecting before anyone else can wound her first.

Valerie Harper turns Rhoda's self-mockery into something defiant rather than sad — every crack about herself lands as a joke she's telling on her own terms. The writing gives her the best zingers in the room, and Harper delivers them with a New York rhythm that makes the whole show feel funnier and less polite whenever she's on screen.