YEAR IN REVIEW: Five great episodes in 2014

Continuing in our "Year in Review" series...

Within the next few days, I'll have listed and written on twenty television programs. Ten of these will be ranked as my favorites of the year; five will be unranked honorable mentions; and five (below) will be discussed in the context of a single, exemplary episode.

Below are five series that vary in quality and in my overall opinion of them, but each episode discussed is excellent. In the case of some, these episodes reflect what these shows can (and, in this critic's opinion, should) be. For others, they're relics, demonstrative of what certain veterans on the air remain capable of even if, for whatever reason, it can't be replicated on an episode-to-episode basis. Mostly, though, this is a chance for me to engage with five programs that weren't necessarily among the best of the year, but have exceptional qualities and maintain an important place in the television landscape.

Scroll down for five great episodes in 2014...

“Pilot” of The Affair 

written by Sarah Treem; directed by Mark Mylod

I haven’t had the chance to catch up on The Affair, which has been generating a fair amount of backlash after a rollicking start. I was intrigued by the show mainly because of its pedigree – I’ve long loved the work of leads Dominic West (The Wire) and Ruth Wilson (Luther), and creator/showrunner Sarah Treem was arguably the best staff writer on HBO’s brilliant In Treatment – seeing as its principal interest in infidelity felt well-trodden and its framing device could easily slide into gimmickry. But regardless of where the show goes or has already gone, the pilot of The Affair is a worthy piece of storytelling in its own right. It demonstrated a fascinatingly perceptive eye in the way men and women, old and young, recall and deconstruct events, how we see ourselves and choose to relate to those around us. Director Mark Mylod expertly used the series’ Montauk setting, surrounding the pilot’s absorbing uncertainty with a rich, dreamlike atmosphere – and the performances, for that matter, were uniformly terrific. I could see The Affair turning excessively humorless or melodramatic, but its pilot sits well in memory with a legitimately unique – and very welcome – perspective on love, sex and everything in between.

“The Lion and the Rose” of Game of Thrones

written by George R. R. Martin; directed by Alex Graves

George R. R. Martin penning a Game of Thrones episode is as good an indicator as any that you are in for it. And despite a rough season for HBO’s fantasy epic, both in publicity (more on that in a minute) and qualitatively, Martin’s “The Lion and the Rose” ranks among the series’ very best. Like every great GoT episode, the series’ many disparate parts are whittled down to one extraordinary, game-changing event – in this case, the “Purple Wedding” and the murder of Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson, a tremendous find). With gorgeous and expansive set-pieces, a long list of compelling characters and a deliciously-twisty narrative, this is a show that thrives in focus. Here, the episode’s climax is preceded by the culmination of years of inter-Kingdom politicking, with some great Lena Headey reactions and droll line-readings from Diana Rigg appropriately tossed into the mix. Episodes like this reignite the series’ infectiousness – but just as its capacity for greatness came roaring back, so too did its increasingly-archaic sexual politics. As similar genre programming like Outlander leaps around it, and as other shows including Transparent and Masters of Sex start a dialogue that inevitably puts Game of Thrones in a negative light, the work of creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss is being met with closer scrutiny – and it’s not suiting its messy construct and varied quality of acting especially well.

 “Fight” of Masters of Sex 

written by Amy Lippman; directed by Michael Apted

Masters of Sex features brilliant performances, beautiful writing and ambition to spare – and yet its second season, cumulatively, was sorely lacking in centrality. The show is always at its best, even in its much more consistent debut season, when the focus is squarely on Bill (Michael Sheen) and Virginia (Lizzy Caplan) – and, thus, “Fight” emerged not just as a peak for the series, but easily as one of the year’s very best episodes of television. Like Mad Men’s “The Suitcase” or Breaking Bad’s “Fly,” it placed its two protagonists in a room for sixty minutes, confronting massive issues of identity, sexuality and love. Amy Lippman’s peerless script was so dense and yet so pleasurable, as the ongoing elusion that had characterized Bill and Virginia’s relationship over 15 episodes came to an explosive head. They revealed themselves, baring themselves physically and emotionally, and underlined their great shortcomings as sexual beings, as parents, as husbands and wives. The hour works as a scintillating study in masculinity and femininity, and yet, its power derives from the series’ meticulous character work, from Lippman’s perfectly-measured dialogue to the astonishing work done by both Caplan and Sheen. Masters of Sex wasn’t nearly as good as “Fight” holistically; even if the series never recaptures that magic, “Fight” will long stand as exemplary television.

 “Looking for the Future” of Looking 

written & directed by Andrew Haigh

Looking is one of the few major works out right now – by “major,” I mean on a popular network (HBO) with a recognizable cast – to have a principal interest in gay life and identity. Created by filmmaker Andrew Haigh (the great Weekend), the half-hour worked splendidly in its visual communications; narratively, however, it was a needle-thin mess. Outside of Jonathan Groff’s warmly dorky protagonist, Looking’s construct considered egregiously uninvolving and inconsequential characters and stories, rarely if ever nailing down an authenticity or levity to justify its focus on such banalities. “Looking for the Future” narrowed the focus to Groff and his fling (played well by Raul Castillo), and it indicated a show with texture and point-of-view. It’s an evocative half-hour that surveys San Francisco with sweeping romanticism, and again, what it puts on-screen can startle in the best ways – for instance, sex scenes that are erotic, intimate, genuine and taken very seriously all at once. Unfortunately, Haigh and his team fancy Looking as an ensemble piece, one that lacks the rigorous experimentation of Girls or the depth of character in You’re the Worst. I greatly admired “Looking for the Future” and finally got the function and importance of having something like Looking on-air. As such, I can only hope that it will serve as its template going forward.

“Beach House” of Girls 

written by Jenni Konner & Judd Apatow & Lena Dunham; directed by Jesse Peretz

Girls will never quite get where it got in its freshman run – it had this sumptuous initial energy and stamp of audacious uniqueness that can’t really be sustained – but Lena Dunham’s work remains strong, and occasionally reclaims its former vitality. This season, it was unquestionably “Beach House,” a dark acknowledgment of friendships that change and eventually fade as we grow in different directions, which hit that mark. Dunham has always had a lot to say about groups drifting apart as individuals grow into themselves, and in “Beach House,” her planted seeds sprouted intensely and instantaneously. Girls is cumulatively a portrait of four substantially-different friends, each stuck, each motionless, each ready to move forward. There’s a probing resonance to the show at its best (one that seeps into Beach House) – the familiarity of the unsolvable conflicts between friends trying to shorten an ever-expanding distance between them – that gets at friendship and connection in a way few others do. Girls can be indulgent or feel aimless, but Dunham has a voice and, contrary to common sentiment, consistently demonstrates very worthy and important perspectives to convey. 


Previous YEAR IN REVIEW Entries:
The Best TV Performances of 2014