The Office's Most Unfairly Hated Character Didn't Do Anything Wrong

There is a huge difference between watching a show at different stages of your life.

There is also a difference between watching it for the first time when the emotions are still raw and re-watching it when you can take a longer look and focus on the details.

It's not entirely impossible to do a 180 on a character in a short period of time, and it seems that's exactly what happened with The Office fanbase's opinion of Karen Filippelli.

Of course, you can argue about the lack of chemistry between Karen and Jim, or that they were never meant to be together, and no one would be able to ignore that statement.

Today, it's obvious that this couple was never meant to be. The chemistry is also very subjective to some viewers, but that was never really a point of criticism.

What The Office fans can all admit today is the fact that the hatred for Karen was purely motivated by her standing in the way of Jim and Pam's relationship.

"Personally, I loved Karen. She treated Jim amazingly and did everything for him, and let's be honest I mean she's just super, duper hot. But, when you're in love you're in love!" Redditor eddiej21 said, standing their grounds on one of the most hated characters in the series.

Like every other The Office character, Karen has had her low points, like calling Pam "kind of a b#tch" at the end of season 3, or being a little too harsh on Michael during his lecture.

But is there really any character who hasn't done something slightly disgusting during the 9 seasons of the show?

One of the many things that made it as good as it was, was how well-balanced the characters were, so there was no reason to love or hate anyone unconditionally.

Unless they inconveniently got in someone's way.

To form your own opinion of Karen years later, you can re-watch The Office by streaming it on Peacock or buying the episodes online from Amazon or Apple TV.