9 scariest mothers-in-law of all time

From the moment Jane Burke met her son’s fiancée, Christina, on Grey's Anatomy, she wasn't shy about voicing her disapproval of their union. Not only did she intimate that Christina was racist, she presumed her future daughter-in-law should give up being a doctor because her cardiac surgeon son was such a good catch. While Jane did end up showing her hidden admiration for Christina eventually, this was only after her son left Christina at the altar.

In Boardwalk Empire, Angela may have suspected that her husband, Jimmy, and his mother, Gillian, seemed a bit too close for comfort and, well, she was right. In a flashback scene we learn that Gillian drunkenly seduced her own son years before, which put in motion a chain of events that led him to flee town, join the army and then get into the family business: organized crime.

Talk about awkward: After Ben gets seduced by Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, Mr. Robinson, unaware of his wife's affair, suggests that Ben date their daughter, Elaine. While Elaine does leave her fiancé at the altar to be with Ben in the end, the future doesn't bode well for this pair given that everyone now knows about Ben's dalliance with her mother.

In Monster-in-Law, Viola Fields gets fired from her TV news anchor job and has a brief stay in a mental hospital, only to discover that her doctor son has, after a whirlwind romance, popped the question to a woman named Charlie. Worried she's going to lose the only thing she has left, her son, Viola tries to drive Charlie away by tricking her into eating nuts, triggering a allergic reaction, and showing up to the wedding in a white dress.

Sansa Stark was thrilled when she became betrothed to Prince Joffrey Baratheon, son of Cersei Lannister, in Game of Thromes. But she realizes her future MIL will do anything to protect her son—she even orders that Sansa's dog, Lady, be killed for nipping at Joffrey's arm while trying to protect a kid he was bullying. Then, when the Starks go to war with the Lannisters, Cersei refuses to let Sansa go home, even after Joffrey proves to be quite the sociopath and has her father beheaded right before her eyes.

It's hard to know just where to start with Bunny MacDougal, Charlotte's snooty, controlling MIL in Sex and the City. First, there was the over-mothering of her grown-up son—Bunny would chat with Trey while he was in the bathtub and take care of him when he had a cold. Then, there was the meddling into Charlotte and Trey's relationship, even insisting on picking out their marital bed. Finally, her close-mindedness: When Trey and Charlotte were having trouble getting pregnant, Bunny vehemently objected to having a Mandarin granddaughter through adoption.

In The Family Stone, when Everett Stone takes his girlfriend, Meredith, home for Christmas to meet his family —and ask his mother, Sybil, if he can have the family heirloom to propose with—it's instantly clear that uptight Meredith doesn't quite fit in with the fun-loving Stones. During a discussion of whether sexual orientation is a matter of nature or of nurture, Meredith ends up offending the entire family (Everett's brother is gay, and also deaf), which prompt Sybil to deem her an asshole to the group in sign language.

Bewitched's Endora disapproved of her daughter Samantha's non-magical husband, Darren, to the point that, through eight years of the series, she continually called him Durwood, What's-His-Name or Dum-Dum. But after her attempts to break the two up failed time after time, she had to concede that Darren's love for her daughter was stronger than her own plots and spells.