If you’ve ever seen Wet Hot American Summer, you’ll no doubt remember the muse for Trevor Philips’ character sketch: Gene, a perpetually stained, war-ravaged summer camp cook played masterfully by Christopher Meloni of Law and Order: SVU fame. The anarcho-libertarian Philips mediates the most indelible scenes of the game: he’s always waking up in varying degrees of undress in locales like a shit-stained pig stall, the Vanilla Unicorn strip club, or on a Catalina-esque beach surrounded by dead bodies screaming “It wasn’t me!” In a hugely entertaining opening scene that plays out like a cross between Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad, Trevor establishes tyranny over the meth trade in Sandy Shores (which is a thinly veiled Palm Desert) by mowing down the Lost Motorcycle Club’s trailer park, then moving on to torch a rival producers’ lab — a ramshackle house populated by scores of inbred brothers.

You almost want to reach through the TV and hug the script-writers for simultaneously decimating baseless notions of hipsterdom

Like the best characters in contemporary television, Trevor’s never-ending campaign of shock and awe is complemented by a constantly evolving moral compass and a genuine desire for the betterment of the world around him, even if it means burning it all to the ground. As a result, he emerges as the most reliable narrator in all of GTA V. He might find a human eyelid or two in his rancid lunchtime stew, but he’s also the one who discovers drywall packed into a brick of false cocaine, protecting the crew from a bad deal. He’ll tear Floyd’s love life apart spiritually and physically on Tuesday, but on Wednesday he’ll act as an effective marriage counselor for Michael De Santa on a long drive through the mountains.

These commutes to far-flung mission locations can take up to 10 minutes — an eternity in game time. They’d become an exercise in drudgery if it weren’t for the achingly beautiful coastal scenery whizzing by, coupled with Rockstar’s use of these moments to bring us deeper into the emotional arc of the characters — a kind of built-in cutscene scripted as a conversation between passengers. As Michael and Trevor make their way from southern Los Santos all the way to north Blaine County, an analytical Michael admits that he’s “been wondering about some of [Trevor’s] lifestyle choices lately … the weird music, the niche drugs,” and a wardrobe that’s “the opposite of fashion… Trevor!” he posits like a shrink on the edge of a massive revelation, “You’re… a hipster!” It’s an amazingly well-scripted exchange: “I am not a fucking hipster!” is the predictable reply, “I eat hipsters for lunch!” When Michael remarks that “hipsters hate being called hipsters,” you almost want to reach through the TV and hug the script-writers for simultaneously decimating baseless notions of hipsterdom, and for the equally irritating New York Times linkbait of what the concept may or may not mean. As the revealing journey to East Paleto concludes, Michael gives Trevor the credit he deserves: “You’re what a hipster aspires to be. You’re the proto-hipster.” It’s one of the few conversations in which Trevor doesn’t get the last word.