User blog comment:ThatGuy456/A Guy's Thoughts: Season 6 - Richard's Rise/@comment-37877191-20190811125913/@comment-30307603-20190817175738

First of all, I'm really sorry about being late. I would have attended to this comment much sooner, but this past week was especially hectic and left me with little time to check on this post. Regardless, I'm glad you were able to find this post so agreeable!

I think it's interesting that you think that the writers were never really sure of what character they wanted Richard to be until Season 6, and to a certain extent, I think you're correct. To me, it seems that at least since Season 2, the writers had a pretty good idea of the kind of character they wanted Richard to be; the problem, at least in my eyes, was more that they really weren't sure how to really make that work until Season 6. Episodes such as "The Job" and "The Man: make it clear that they want to put some distance away from who Richard was in Season 1 and make this new, more endearing Richard, but a some traits from Season 1 occasionally lingered and muddled their intents. Season 6 was when all the small kinks were worked out.

You're right: Richard is a ignorant, weird, and a bit lazy, but he is kind, optimistic, and very sincere in what he sets out to do. The dumb dad archetype is a very hard archetype to work with, but Richard and Season 6 prove that somebody can make it shine.

Again, really sorry about being late!