Hmmm, this is a hard one! Neither character actually makes my ‘top 10 favorites’ lists for either show, but I also don’t dislike either character.

Jimmy Darmody is a pretty interesting character, and at times I really felt for him…especially after learning more about his past. I liked him in season one, and I especially liked his friendship with Richard Harrow, but for some reason I just never intensely clicked with him on an individual level. I liked watching him in group settings, and, as I said, I loved him with Richard, but he just wasn’t a personal favorite of mine, and I’m not really sure why. I think that he definitely lost some steam in the middle of season two and started meandering too much, and whether that was intentionally done by the writers or just weak writing, it just made me lose some interest in Jimmy. Overall, though, he’s an interesting character, and definitely a unique one on the show. I don’t paint him as an innocent baby martyr as some people like to (despite the fact that, yes, he DID go through some serious shit, and I feel for him for that), and I acknowledge the bad things he’s done, and he’s just another example of why I love Boardwalk Empire for its lack of black-and-white characters. He’s neither all ‘good’ nor all ‘bad,’ and I love seeing those gray areas.

Jimmy McNulty is sort of your typical blow-hard, drunken cop in some ways, but he’s good at his job, and I think that he really cares about his work, about justice, and about the people he gets to know on the streets (Bodie, Omar, etc.), and I especially like that last one about him. He’s an asshole sometimes (which people never fail to call him out on!), and he definitely has taken some shortcuts or made his own paths (like…all of season five), but it’s usually been for the greater good. He’s not my favorite of the cops, but he had some fantastic moments. I loved his lunches with Bodie, his various drunken antics, the way he took riding on the boat with stride, his interactions with Omar, and so on. In this case, he’s a character that I do like…but there are a lot of other characters I happen to like more, so that’s why he doesn’t make the ‘top 10’ for me.

Anyway, I’ve rambled a lot (as I tend to do), and I still haven’t really answered the question!

I guess, on a purely individual level, I’d have to go with Jimmy McNulty. That’s not a slam against Darmody or Boardwalk Empire, because god knows I love that damn show to pieces, but I think I like McNulty on an individual level more than I like Darmody on an individual level. They’re both very good characters, though, and I’ve enjoyed watching them both. Thanks for the question! :)