Great TV shows about everyday people who turn to a life of crime

Not only is “Breaking Bad” the defining show of this ilk (and so successful it probably bears responsibility for the greenlighting of half these shows), it’s one of the best TV dramas, period. Series creator Vince Gilligan used the descriptor “Turning Mr. Chips into Scarface” so many times when talking about “Breaking Bad” even he came to be weary of it, but that is essentially what the show did. Walter White went from high school chemistry teacher with lung cancer to the meth kingpin of the American Southwest. Bryan Cranston became an Emmy darling, careers were bolstered across the board, and we also got a spinoff.

“Better Call Saul” deserves its own entry on this list. It’s a wholly different experience from “Breaking Bad,” including the fact it’s one of the best legal dramas ever. In “Breaking Bad,” Saul Goodman is already fully in the world of crime, and committing plenty of crimes himself. For much of “Better Call Saul,” though, he’s Jimmy McGill. He’s pulled off some cons in his past, but he spends much of this show trying to break good, in a sense, before the pull of the dark side proves too tempting.

With its dark color palette and stark set designs, “Ozark” sort of looked like a parody of a dark drama, but there was quality in the show. It was nominated for the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy three times, and Julia Garner won for Supporting Actress thrice. Technically, when the show begins, the seemingly unremarkable Byrde family has their toe dipped in crime. Jason Bateman’s Marty is laundering cartel money. When things get complicated there, Marty moves the family to the Ozarks, where they get ensconced in the world of crime to a greater degree.

Here’s a premise that doesn’t quite pop in the same way these days. Nancy Botwin, get this, deals pot! In “Weeds,” a suburban widow turns to selling marijuana to help make ends meet for her family. And the show has so many keen and subtle insights to make. Like, did you know that everything in the suburbs isn’t so perfect and idyllic? Also, did you ever think about how, like, alcohol is legal and caffeine is legal but weed isn’t? We’re poking fun at the Showtime show, but to be fair, it’s only because it’s bad.

Where “Weeds” is thuddingly, eye-rollingly obvious, “The Wire” thrives in nuance and gray areas. It considered the sociocultural, economic, bureaucratic, and legal reasons that lead to the proliferation of crime and place some in the position to consider criminal activity as a money-making pursuit. For every dead-eyed psycho like Marlo there are a half-dozen people put in precarious circumstances through the actions of others. That’s why “The Wire” is still considered one of the best dramas ever.

Hey, think about it. The A-Team are wanted fugitives. They escaped from a military prison! Sure, they were there for a crime they didn’t commit, but nevertheless. The whole crew also work as soldiers of fortune, and their mercenary outings aren’t exactly all above board either. Yes, again, they are on the right side of things, and they avoid killing people by being unusually good at making Jeeps flip in ways that don’t cause any fatalities. This is a list of shows about people who turn to crime. We didn’t say they were all bad guys.

“Good Girls” is a dramedy about the domino effect that can stem from one decision. Three suburban moms, all in financial quagmires, join forces to rob a supermarket. Some quick cash and that’s that. However, things spiral from there. That supermarket was a gang front, for example. Suddenly, a simple robbery becomes a jumping-off point for an entire series of television. After all, “three women rob a supermarket” couldn’t last 50 episodes in and of itself, right?

This FOX drama does put its thumb on the scales a bit. Thony De La Rosa is an immigrant, a former doctor at that, who is staying in the United States even with an expired visa because, well, she has a young son with a rare, fatal medical disorder that needs radical, experimental treatment. So, you know, they want to make it easy for you to sympathize. She’s working as a cleaning lady in Las Vegas, but after seeing a murder she becomes both a mob doctor and cleans up crime scenes for them to cover their tracks and pay for her son’s medical procedure. Now in its fourth season, the show has moved beyond that original premise a bit, but it’s still there to a degree.

If you’re a basketball fan, you surely have both “Claws” and “Animal Kingdom” burnt into your brain thanks to abundant ads during playoff time. The main characters from “Claws” also ease into the criminal world in that common introductory way: money laundering. Then, these garish manicurists delve further into the world of Floridian crime. Though it too involved money laundering, “Claws” had the polar opposite color aesthetic from “Ozark.”

“Queen of the South” is a classic story of somebody pulling themselves up by the bootstraps as a self-made success. Of course, in this case it is in the illegal drug trade. Teresa Mendoza is a poor girl who starts dating a cartel member, who is then murdered. She flees to the United States, but this becomes the first step for her in building up a cartel of her own. Harkening back to when USA was doing original programming (but after the “blue skies” era), “Queen of the South” ran for five seasons.

“Fargo” is an anthology series. Sometimes it’s about ordinary folks turning to crime. Sometimes it isn’t. Once there was a UFO for no reason. That was in the good season. A couple other seasons were okay. Two were bad. Noah Hawley seems like an exhausting guy. Anyway, “Fargo” does often carry on the spirit of the Coen Brothers movie which, lest we forget, is built upon a car dealer who stages a kidnapping of his wife to pocket the ransom money. A no-rough-stuff type of deal.

“Leverage” is kind of like, “What if ‘The A-Team’ was 10-percent dumber?” but that’s not to say it lacked charm. A group of people with disparate skills, including a Face-style grifter, skirt legality in order to right wrongs for people. They exist as soldiers of fortune, in essence, though with less guns and more basic-cable hacking. After five seasons on TNT, “Leverage” returned a decade later as “Leverage: Redemption.” Now an Amazon show, it's produced three seasons for the streamer.

It’s a drug-centric crime drama set in the 1980s, so you know crack cocaine is involved. This FX show is largely centered on a young man in South Central Los Angeles trying to make a go of it in the burgeoning distribution of crack during the so-called crack epidemic. Also “Snowfall” is kind of about the CIA in Nicaragua? There’s a lot of stuff going on, but it’s pretty interesting.

Speaking of USA’s “blue skies” era, “White Collar” is a breezy procedural that embodies that ethos. Matt Bomer’s Neal Caffrey is a forger, con artist, and thief extraordinaire, but after years of a nemesis relationship with FBI agent Peter Burke, he’s finally caught. Neal makes an offer to Peter that, in exchange for early release, he will work as a consultant and informant for the FBI under Peter. The two become friends, and solve many a case together, but of course Neal is supposed to be on the straight and narrow. There are times though, usually when he’s pushed into it, that Neal does return to criminal activity behind Peter’s back.

Here is a show about selling marijuana from the pre-legalization days that is less heavy-handed than “Weeds.” Beginning as a web series before gaining popularity and moving to HBO, show co-creator Ben Sinclair stars as “The Guy.” He’s the only regular character on “High Maintenance.” The Guy’s job is to deliver marijuana all over Brooklyn, which naturally means running into eclectic characters and New York weirdos. It’s a look at the illegal marijuana industry that is, which heightened for comedy, more realistic.

Here is a fresh addition to this subgenre. Plus, it stars a Bryan Cranston-esque icon of AMC drama, Jon Hamm. “Your Friends and Neighbors” sees Hamm starring as a well-to-do hedge fund manager. So, basically, the show is doing the opposite of “The Cleaning Lady” in terms of framing the main character’s actions. He has an ex-wife, and he has kids, and they are all used to living at a certain level of ease and luxury. Thus, when Hamm’s character loses his cushy gig, he turns to illegality to keep up appearances and to keep those around him living comfortably.