Marissa Benson (iCarly 2007-2012; Sam & Cat)

Marissa Benson, commonly known as Mrs. Benson, is the mother of Freddie Benson, and a recurring character in the Nickelodeon series, the original 2007-2012 iCarly. She also guest appeared in the Sam & Cat episode, "#TheKillerTunaJump".

Note: This page will only cover her appearance in the original series and Sam & Cat.

Why She Sucked

 * 1) She is an overbearing and overprotective mother, as she has a tendency to protect her son way too much, and also overwhelm him as well.
 * 2) She’s also shown to show dislike towards some her son’s friends. While Sam is understandable, giving her sometimes dangerous behavior, she is shown to show some hate towards Carly and Spencer for no apparent reason. Her dislike of Carly goes too far in "iSaved Your Life", where she blames her for her son getting hurt, even though Freddie saved her life intentionally, and even wanted Carly to be the one to get hurt. She even tried to attack Carly in "iCan't Take It", showing how far her hatred is.
 * 3) She can also sometimes be too harsh to her son when it comes to the activities he does, like when he did fencing in "iFence", and didn’t want him to do it, and when he temporarily moved out of their apartment in "iMove Out", and tried to convince him to come back.
 * 4) She is basically borderline psychotic, as she basically does everything to make sure her son doesn’t have anything "bad" on him, even doing some things that embarrass him, as well as not taking kindly to his friends.
 * 5) * While Sam is sometimes psychotic with her dangerous behavior, she at least learns her lesson and becomes a better person for the ones she cares about (during iCarly, and before Sam $ Cat). Marissa, on the other hand, rarely learns her lesson and doesn’t even try to become a better person unless necessary.
 * 6) While she does let T-Bo stay at her apartment, her rude and overbearing traits of personality take a toll on him, to the point where he wants to hang out at Spencer and Carly’s place so he can chill and get away from her craziness.
 * 7) She is also very neurotic and has Mysophobia (fear of germs), and tends to always clean anything she touches.
 * 8) She is revealed to have planted a tracking chip into Freddie’s head when he was a baby, so she always knows where he is, which is very creepy.
 * 9) Her short relationship with Lewbert Sline was not the best.
 * 10) When she appeared in "#TheKillerTunaJump" from Sam & Cat, she thinks her son was staring at Carly’s door again, when he really wasn’t. Also, she said that Carly will never love him, which is not true, since Carly did finally return his feelings with a romantic and heartwarming kiss in "iGoodbye". She also wanted her son to scratch her itchy spot, much to his annoyance. Later in the episode, she calls Freddie because she learned by someway that Freddie said buttocks, even though he's at Los Angeles.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) She does love her son very much, despite her overprotectiveness and overbearingness.
 * 2) She has a good reason to dislike some people, such as Sam, giving how violent and destructive she can be sometimes, which justifies her wanting Freddie to break up with Sam, which they eventually did, as well as Lewbert, when she finally sees his true colors when he didn’t care that her son got hurt.
 * 3) Whenever she’s not being crazy, overprotective and overbearing, she’s actually very nice, and she can be likable in some episodes.
 * 4) She does show kindness to Carly, Spencer and T-Bo on more than one occasion, showing she doesn’t completely hate them.
 * 5) She has some funny moments, such as her conversation with Sam in "iParty with Victorious":
 * 6) * Mrs. Benson: Well, I don't see how a boy could make a girl that happy. Sam: Sure, 'cause you haven't had a date since Seinfeld got cancelled. Mrs. Benson: It wasn't cancelled! Jerry chose not to do another season.
 * 7) She actually does have a fair share of good moments when she actually helps her son and his friends, like when she defeats the cheating fencers Freddie was facing, and when she helps defeat Nora and her family when she and T-Bo came to rescue her son and his friends.
 * 8) Her short appearance in Sam & Cat was still nice, to be fair.
 * 9) She has greatly redeemed herself when she appears in the 2021 revival of iCarly, when she becomes more nicer to Carly and Spencer, as well as a more tolerable mother to Freddie, and a loving grandmother to Millicent.