Anna notes that there are more female-fronted series than ever before across a range of genres, allowing space for female leads to play a diverse range of roles.

“There’s Annalise Keating in How To Get Away With Murder, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, Villanelle in Killing Eve, Big Little Lies, Good Girls and a very long etcetera,” Anna continues.

The list is ever-growing, and it’s not surprising, with the stats to back it up. In ReFrame’s report on gender in TV, 54% of the season’s top scripted TV series starred a woman in the lead role.

Shows in this study included Daisy Jones and the Six, Bad Sisters, Beef, The Handmaid’s Tale, Obsession and Swarm, all of which featured deceitful, vengeful or self-destructive lead female roles.

So what’s the appeal? For Professor Rachel Moseley, who lectures in Film & Television Studies at the University of Warwick, this more expansive landscape for female actors “demonstrates a more nuanced portrayal of decision-making, ethics and morality”.

Anna agrees, arguing that “antiheroines are characters with agency, flaws, doubts and drives. We talk about them as anti-, but aren’t they just fully-formed women?”

Essentially, we love these characters because they’re doing everything we wish we could do.

They’re loud, demanding, controlling and uncompromising. They take up space and get what they want without apologising for it.

In praise of the antiheroine: how female leads became more complex and why we’re here for it ​

In praise of the antiheroine: how female leads became more complex and why we’re here for it