Pickman

Pickman is a "lost character" who appears briefly in the first episode of Season 18, then disappears for the rest of the season. In the season premiere, he is depicted as the editor for the children's show Just Kidding. He has some vaguely defined relationship with the occult.

## Appearance and Personality

### Appearance

Pickman wears a long black overcoat over black dress pants and dress shoes. Underneath his overcoat, he wears a blood-red dress shirt, the collar of which is popped upwards in a manner reminiscent of a Victorian high collar. He wears red-tinted round spectacles and black leather gloves. He speaks in an old-timey nasal dialect.

### Personality

Due to the brief amount of time he's on-screen, it's difficult to get a read on Pickman's personality. He's very jovial and at times borderline vaudevillian, with a constant underlying layer of sinister intent. He displays a fascination with the macabre and appears to be a practitioner of the occult. His fashion sense and several of his lines seem to imply that he's much older than he looks, and in fact, older than anyone probably should be. At one point he makes reference to "The Old Gods."

## Biography

### Just Kidding

Pickman first appears while Blair, Holly, and Doctor Niles are discussing the new station managers. After Holly states that she doesn't see anything wrong with a change of leadership, Pickman slithers out from underneath a table accompanied by whispers and cockroach hissing sound effects. After working out some cricks in his neck, he agrees with Holly and voices his doubts that Jean Pierre is actually French. Seeing the confusion and revulsion on the crew's faces, he apologizes and explains that he was doing his daily "slitherings" throughout the station, and he happened to overhear their conversation.

The next time we see Pickman is in the editing bay, where he's admiring some rather disturbing pictures. Jean Pierre enters and introduces himself, and Pickman responds in French, which seems to catch Jean Pierre off guard. Pickman explains that he speaks fluent French, as his associate "Louis" used to invite him over all the time. He goes on to describe his friend as "a dreamer of a man, with his head always in the clouds...right up until it rolled into the gutter." Finally, Pickman introduces himself and offers Jean Pierre his hand, which he declines. Jean Pierre explains that he has to get photos of Pickman for Instagram. Pickman seems to find this idea tiresome and asks if he'll lose his job if he refuses. Jean Pierre assures him that he will, and Pickman reluctantly complies.

After posing him, Jean Pierre takes several snaps of Pickman before showing him the results and asking him for his opinion. Pickman is delighted by the photos, referring to them as "uncomfortable," "scary," and "art." Jean Pierre takes this as a compliment. Pickman proposes that with Jean Pierre as the photographer and him as the editor, they could "make some magic together...literally." Pickman then begins whispering about a "visual incantation" he's designed involving "scorpions and teeth," and asks Jean Pierre if he's interested. Jean Pierre, thoroughly disturbed, politely declines.

Pickman appears one more time in the group photo line up at the end of the episode before skulking offscreen.

### Season 19

Pickman taking a break from his daily slitherings.

In S19E03, when Daisy is going over her plan, the words "Pickman's dead" can be seen scrawled in red in the margins of the whiteboard behind her, with a question marked tacked onto the end in a different color.

In S19E04, when Wyly learns that Nikolai is out of blood, he offers to call their "hookup." Pulling out his phone, he dials "666" under his breath, then brings it to his ear. When the call finally goes through, he cheerfully exclaims "Hey, Pickman!" However, his expression changes, and it becomes clear that he is talking to a police officer. After assuring the officer that he wasn't looking to buy any blood or teeth, Wyly hangs up and informs Nikolai that, apparently, selling organs on the black market is illegal.

## Background and Explanation

Pickman was intended to be a regularly occurring side character in season 18. The character was originally pitched as a "Lovecraftian Gomez Addams." The basic idea was that Pickman was an immortal sorcerer who would hide subliminal occult messages in episodes of Just Kidding that ranged from "eat your veggies" to "worship Cthulhu." He was not intended to be a villain, just a bit of a charming, ghoulish weirdo.

Unfortunately, as a result of confusion in the writers' room, a general breakdown of communication, and Henry Williams' sudden departure from the show, the character was scrapped after his first appearance and never brought up again. Only after Henry Williams returned to the show did references to Pickman begin to appear.

## Notes and Trivia

An original costume test for the character.

* Although the character's full name in the show bible was "Algernon K. Pickman," Henry Williams messed up the character's introductory line and ended up only saying his last name, meaning that the character's full name is never spoken in the episode.

* The name Pickman is a reference to the character of Richard Upton Pickman from Pickman's Model, a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. In the story, the titular character is a mad artist descended from a witch who draws horrifying paintings of humanoid creatures that live in the tunnels below his house.
	+ Pickman's first name, Algernon, is a reference to Algernon Blackwood, a famous horror writer and one of H. P. Lovecraft's largest inspirations.
* Later in the season, It was going to be revealed that Pickman was in a healthy marriage with a perfectly normal man. This unnamed man would be "completely unfazed" by the fact that his husband was a freaky ghoul-man. This means that Pickman is the second LGBTQ character in a row that Henry Williams was meant to play who didn't make it to a canonical reveal (the previous character being Joey).
* Because he is referenced in season 19, Pickman is one of only two characters from season 18 who is actually a canon character, the other being Trusting Toni.
* The song that plays during the scene with Pickman and Jean Pierre is "That Syncopated Boogie Boo" by American Quartet, and it's one of the few times public domain music is used on the show.
* Pickman was a bit of a patchwork character, slapped together quickly after the unexpected cancelation of season 17. Henry Williams has listed numerous character and aesthetic inspirations, including Gomez Addams, the Cryptkeeper, and Crowley from Good Omens.
	+ Williams has also attributed Pickman's voice to his own childhood when he grew up on old recordings of radio-plays, particularly Vincent Price's performance of "Three Skeleton Key," which he would listen to every Halloween.
* As part of a promotional campaign for Season 19, Down to Film "leaked" NBN suspect profiles on all the main Cryptids. In Nik's and Wyly's, there is an addendum that notes their "possible association with Person of Interest #065, "ALGERNON K. PICKMAN," and warns agents to proceed with caution.