His current lifestyle is the result of being disillusioned after attempting to denounce illegal trafficking at the harbour where he worked, only to be told to keep quiet by his union, his bosses, and the judicial system.
Although she spends a minimum amount of time cooking and cleaning, she maintains an unconditional love for her family and adopts the same defiant attitude as her husband.
As the aspiring star of the family, obese "Junior" fervently puts his father's teachings into action and attempts the most outrageous stunts he can think of.
One of the reasons for his lower level of intelligence and his learning difficulties could be that Rita smoked and consumed beer throughout her pregnancy, as she explains later to a pregnant Dolorès.
Despite how much the family dislike him, they still manage to show him their affection at appropriate times, such as when Paul, after reading his suicide note, scolds him and tells him that he "won't take away his only brother."
She has a reputation for bringing work home after her shift; a running gag is that she's always followed by a different man (or, on one occasion, a woman) as she comes out of her bedroom each morning.
We learn in the second season that she was lovingly adopted by Paul Bougon when he worked the night shift in the Port of Montréal.
One night, he heard moaning and gasping from a ship container arriving from China and discovered fifteen Chinese stowaway refugees dying or dead from asphyxiation and starvation.
He never spoke, in fact spending all his time in a wheelchair in a state of vegetation, usually hunched over, eyes nearly always closed, and mumbling incomprehensibly.
Ben is a little dusty white dog (whose name is derived from Osama bin Laden) who isn't really appreciated by anyone but Paul Senior.