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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Welcome home, Carl. Glad to be back? You haven’t forgotten about us, have you boy? | „ |
| ~ Frank Tenpenny "welcoming" Carl back to Los Santos. |
| “ | Come on, assholes. I'll take you all. You're mine! Mine! I run this town! [coughs] Hey, over here! Hey! Officer down! Come on! HEY! [coughs] Assholes! You never understood what I did! Fifty of me and this town would be okay. [coughs] I took the trash out! I DID! [coughs] And I'd do it all again... (coughs) | „ |
| ~ Officer Tenpenny's last words |
Officer Frank Tenpenny is the main antagonist of the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the seventh installment of the Grand Theft Auto franchise.
He is a corrupt senior police officer of the Los Santos Police Department and serves as the leader of the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (C.R.A.S.H.) unit. Throughout the course of the game, Tenpenny consistently orchestrates events to accumulate more power in Los Santos, as well as eliminating any individuals or evidence that would expose his corrupt activities. He is the archenemy of the game's main protagonist Carl "CJ" Johnson, who he coerced into fulfilling his dirty work after threatening to frame him for the death of Officer Pendlebury.
He was voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, who also played John Mills in Twisted and Mr. Barron in Miss Peregine's Home for Peculiar Children.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- Although he has many comedic moments, his actions are taken seriously and do not detract from his heinousness, with him being universally hated by everyone (apart from Pulaski) in the game, even Big Smoke. In addition, those moments only emphasize how sadistic and unpleasant he is.
- He comes across as affably evil when he is smoking a bong, civilly speaking to and addressing "Mr. Truth" and CJ, but it must be noted just how high Tenpenny is, not to mention he is amiably discussing having people killed and framed with CJ; and returns to his awful personality when stone-cold sober, as he sets CJ up to be killed and blows the whistle on The Truth, forcing him to burn his marijuana crop.
- Even though he protects Pulaski from being revealed to be corrupt, it is primarily for pragmatic reasons to remain inconspicuous as he shows himself apathetic to his death, casually joking that CJ cannot be stopped.
- Had CJ not killed him, it is highly possible that Tenpenny would have killed Pulaski himself to tie up any loose ends, just as plausibly foreshadowed by CJ.
- He also further proves his own callousness towards Big Smoke's death after CJ had kills him, still seeing him as nothing more than a “fat fuck” despite having him, and to an extent Ryder, betray the Grove Street Families.
- Despite similarly protecting Big Smoke and helping to keep his reputation intact, it was because Tenpenny was using him to gain more power, and would have killed him if CJ didn't beat him to it.
- He was a corrupt police officer who trained rookies into being like him, most likely doing so with Eddie Pulaski and trying the same with Ralph Pendelbury and Jimmy Hernandez, while also implying that he regularly kills cops who turn against him.
- He and fellow corrupt C.R.A.S.H. officers already had a history with CJ even before the events of the game, given that in his first appearance, Tenpenny wryly asked Carl if he hadn't forgotten about them and Carl immediately asks why it took Tenpenny so long to find him, showing that the two already had a rivalry well before Carl left for the East Coast.
- He partnered up with the Ballas to take control over San Andreas by selling crack cocaine, turning people and rival gang members into addicts, which is seen as horrible even by other gangsters.
- He managed to get Big Smoke, a member of the Grove Street Families, to betray the gang, which indirectly caused Big Smoke to corrupt Ryder into his side.
- He ordered the murder of Carl Johnson's brother Sweet, which resulted in their mother Beverly being killed in the process, which he felt no remorse for.
- He and fellow corrupt C.R.A.S.H. officers, including Pulaski, touched and groped Beverly Johnson's dead body at the crime scene in a sexualized manner.
- This was confirmed by Pulaski in a dialogue in the mission "High Noon".
- He forced Hernandez to kill fellow Officer Pendelbury for having dirt on him and Pulaski, threatening to kill Hernandez if he refused.
- With Pulaski's help, he planted false evidence that linked CJ, who had just returned from Liberty City mere minutes before they confronted him, to Pendelbury's murder and forced him to do their dirty work to avoid jail time before dropping him off in a place controlled by the Ballas.
- Throughout the game, he instigates several gang wars, which claimed numerous victims, in order to be more powerful, with him having no qualms about getting his allies, the Ballas, killed in the process and having apparently been doing this for a while.
- Throughout the game, he orders CJ to:
- Rob a train alongside Ryder while killing all the Vagos and Ballas that also tried to do it.
- Burn an entire building to kill one gangster, resulting in numerous Vagos being killed and an innocent woman almost burning to death.
- Interrupt a deal between Ballas and the Russians, which caused lots of deaths from both side, notably including the Russian arms dealer Andre.
- He sets up an ambush that results in Sweet being wounded and put in jail before kidnapping CJ and driving him miles away from Los Santos, where he and Pulaski order him to stay away from them, and Smoke or Sweet will be put in a Balla cell block, where he would be raped and possibly murdered.
- In addition, he makes particularly nasty comments about CJ's sister, her boyfriend Cesar Vialpando and taunts him about Big Smoke's betrayal and his brother’s death on said occasion.
- Tenpenny also makes sure that CJ, who surrenders at the ambush spot with Sweet, isn’t arrested or recorded at the scene, and thus is still at large. However, this is for pragmatic reasons as Carl proves useful to eliminate any threats to Tenpenny's power.
- After he arrests CJ and takes him out of Los Santos, Tenpenny cruelly puts a bag over CJ's head so he could not breathe. He only takes it off when Carl asks him "Please?"
- He and Pulaski force CJ to do multiple jobs for them, such as:
- Killing a man who had evidence of their corruption.
- Framing an attorney for taking drugs because he investigated them.
- Killing two DEA and FBI agents who had dirt on Pulaski, before which he assaulted CJ for cracking a joke.
- Murdering a journalist who was going to expose Pulaski along with a fellow cop who was telling the journalist about the duo's corruption.
- While the scene where Tenpenny has to talk Carl into framing the attorney has a slightly comedic moment when Tenpenny reveals the man he is framing is a district attorney, the comedy is mostly from CJ being enthusiastic about framing the DA. However, all of the comedy is from Carl, who makes it very clear to Tenpenny he hates him, and often is very sarcastic with them and Tenpenny is only heard over the phone for two lines, meaning it doesn't mitigate Tenpenny's evil for one second.
- He assaults and knocks out Hernandez with a shovel for betraying him before asking CJ to bury him alive and leaving Pulaski to kill him once he's done, resulting in both Hernandez and Pulaski being killed, which Tenpenny knew about but didn't care.
- After he is acquitted in his trial due to all of the prosecution's witnesses dying or going missing, a large riot breaks out over all of Los Santos, and although Tenpenny couldn't have known this would happen and had no intentions of starting a riot, he still remains apathetic and plans to leave San Andreas by plane with his drug money instead of fixing the problem, explicitly admitting that he wanted to flee to avoid getting killed.
- After CJ kills Big Smoke, Tenpenny tries to kill him while mocking him, saying that he has two recruits he will train into being like him, which would've worked if it wasn't for CJ distracting him that Sweet was with them.
- He sets Big Smoke's crack palace on fire in an attempt to kill CJ, while endangering dozens of Balla members inside it.
- He tries to escape from CJ and Sweet in a Los Santos-wide chase in a fire truck, endangering civilians in the process.
- During his final moments, he shows no remorse for his actions, as he firmly believes that he was right and that he "protected" Los Santos, insisting that more officers like him are necessary.
- He shows no regard for Pulaski's racism and generally looks away from how his awful actions have a negative impact on the public. In addition, Tenpenny previously uses the Truth as a contact for CJ, but the second the Truth is no longer useful, Tenpenny betrays the Truth by revealing the Truth's large amount of illegal marijuana to the feds, which nearly gets the Truth and CJ killed.
- In addition to his prior actions, Tenpenny seems to have more personal villainy towards Carl than anyone else in the game, as shown by repeatedly using him to commit crimes throughout the game, implicitly because Carl left San Andreas for five years and couldn't be used by him to further his own ambitions.
- It is implied that he has racist views towards Latinos, as he frequently insults Hernandez at every major scene he has, and when he has Carl captured and starts to blackmail him, he explicitly says that Carl's sister Kendl is only dating Caesar, before calling him a racial slur. This is further insinuated when he furiously yells and swears at Hernandez for betraying him and talking to the feds.
- On several instances, when he gives Carl his orders, he does not hesitate to subtly threaten Carl if he fails to comply, and often will also reveal other issues that could complicate Carl's job at the last minute, often in a sadistic way, showing that Tenpenny is fully aware his orders to Carl are likely to get Carl killed, but Tenpenny doesn't care since all that matters is any evidence and witnesses against Tenpenny go away.
- While it’s possible that he does have a wife, he doesn’t seem faithful to her, as shown by him being said to have committed sexual assault several times.
- In addition, his wife is only mentioned in a few throwaway lines, meaning she has no bearing on Tenpenny.
- It's also possible that he might not even have a wife at all actually, as he only backhandedly mentioned "my wife loves this" in reference to Ryder's drugs, and also since the possible fake marriage of his may have been an excuse he used for committing adultery multiple time and becoming despised by nearly everyone even further, and the evidence of this is that Tenpenny doesn't even have his wedding ring on him.
- In addition, his wife is only mentioned in a few throwaway lines, meaning she has no bearing on Tenpenny.
- Although the Heinous Standards of Grand Theft Auto is very high, Tenpenny still stands out due to being just a cop who still managed to cause dozens of deaths and city-wide riots.
- Additionally, he lives in the 3D Universe and thus doesn't have to compare with Dimitri Rascalov, Eddie Low, Trevor Philips, Peter Dreyfuss, and Avon Hertz in the HD Universe and Hans Nemesis, Jerkov, and Claude Speed in the 2D Universe, only having to be compared to Catalina, Donald Love, Asuka Kasen, and Toni Cipriani, who have far more resources than Tenpenny.
External Links[]
- Frank Tenpenny on the Hate Sink Wiki
- Frank Tenpenny on the Villains Wiki
- Frank Tenpenny on the Grand Theft Auto Wiki
[]
 Pure Evils
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