Horace and Pete

Synopsis

Cast and characters

Main cast

• Horace Wittel VIII is 49 years old and divorced. He is estranged from his son Horace Wittel IX, who refuses all contact with him, and has a frosty relationship with his daughter Alice. Formerly an accountant, he inherited the bar one year prior to the start of the series after the death of his abusive father Horace Wittel VII. He carries on the tradition of the family bar but with little enthusiasm for the role. He is prone to bouts of depression, but nevertheless is quite successful at attracting women. He has good people skills and frequently becomes the peacemaker in conflict situations. However, he also has a callous streak.
• Pete Wittel is 52 years old and is co-owner of the bar. He was raised with Horace and Sylvia as their brother, but is their biological cousin; his biological father is Uncle Pete. As a teenager, he was handsome, athletic, and outgoing, but he was later crippled by a severe mental illness and institutionalized for several years. He is now dependent on an expensive drug called Probitol to function, and on the family bar for his livelihood. He is generally kind and concertedly respectful towards other people, especially women, but struggles with the limitations and consequences of his condition, making him sensitive to perceived criticism, especially where Horace is concerned, leading to frequent minor spats between the two.
• Sylvia Wittel is in her early fifties and is Horace's older sister. She was a rebellious and unhappy teenager, and is tough and assertive as an adult. She has a son, Franklin, who is at school, and a daughter, Brenda, who is emotional and protective of her, much to her irritation. She hates the bar and all the misery associated with it, and wants to shut it down and claim her share of the inheritance to help pay for her chemotherapy, as she has just been diagnosed with cancer. Despite this, she has a good relationship with Horace, who persuades her to become involved in the bar's management. She can also be startlingly blunt when she finds cause to criticize someone, to the point of cruelty.
• Leon is in his sixties and has been a regular at the bar for many years. A recovering alcoholic, he continues to visit the bar for companionship, drinking only apple juice. He speaks infrequently, is laconic and has a dry sense of humor. He is chivalrous and believes a man should never be rude to a woman regardless of the circumstances.
• Kurt, a regular at the bar, is an opinionated loudmouth in his thirties. He has a nihilistic world view, and believes it would be good idea to elect Donald Trump in order to destroy the current political system. It is unclear what he does for a living or what his source of income is. He is crude and insensitive.
• Uncle Pete is about 80 years old and was the co-owner of the bar before handing over the reins to Pete after Horace VII's death. He continues to tend the bar and in effect runs it, bullying Horace and Pete and drawing his own indeterminate salary from the bar's takings. He is an acerbic, foul-mouthed bigot who insults everyone and is particularly abusive towards his family, but his rants are often a source of some entertainment to the bar's patrons. He reveals in the first episode that he is Pete's biological father. He is the only Wittel who treats Marsha as family and he sometimes shows other patrons, particularly women, a degree of warmth and respect, but is hostile towards anyone who challenges his bigoted views. Horace VIII's father Horace VII was Uncle Pete's first cousin.
• Marsha is in her sixties and was Horace Wittel VII's last sexual partner before his death. Subsequently Uncle Pete has continued to give her a share of the bar's takings and give her free drinks. She is a chronic alcoholic and has been drinking since her early teens, relying on her sex appeal to attract men to support her habit. She is loud and often very rude, speaking her mind without social filters.

  Recurring cast

• Alice Wittel is Horace's daughter. She is 23 years old and is nearing the end of her law studies. Horace was absent from her life for most of her childhood, and she still bitterly resents him for causing the family to break up. Unlike her brother Horace Wittel IX, who refuses all contact, she meets with her father on several occasions, but rebuffs all his attempts to bond with her. She is emotionally cold; however, she is on friendly terms with her uncle Pete.
• Tricia is a pleasant young woman who has Tourette syndrome, causing her to involuntarily make offensive utterances. She befriended Pete during his stay at a psychiatric hospital. When she attempts to renew their friendship Pete initially doesn't want to see her, associating her with the worst period of his life, but he relents and they eventually become romantically involved.
• Nick is 49 years old and is an assistant DA. He is not particularly enthusiastic about his job and sees no prospects for advancement. He is politically conservative and often argues with other bar patrons. He is a semi-regular at the bar and sometimes picks up women there for one night stands.
• Tom, a regular at the bar, is a lugubrious man in his 60s who is a failed musician and actor. He sometimes plays the piano.
• Melissa
• Carl
• Rhonda
• Dom
• Mark
• Ricardo
• Horace

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