Let’s get right into it. My only methodology here was to keep this to one episode per show, because a few series would likely dominate otherwise, and there was an abundance of great episodic storytelling that begged recognition this year, anyway. The 15 episodes below are listed alphabetically. Without further ado…
“208” | The Affair
It’s probably no secret to Affair viewers that the show is at its best when Maura Tierney and Dominic West share the screen. As wounded ex-spouses Helen and Noah Soloway, the two actors bring complicated history, durable intimacy, displaced anger and wistful regret to virtually every scene they perform together. They infuse the show with an aching emotional depth, and as rich a two-person dynamic as is on TV right now. “208” is dedicated to Noah and Helen reflecting on their current, separated lives while recalling their entwined past. Events take them back to the college town where they met and fell in love, and in particular to their favorite nighttime bar. Writer Sharr White beautifully uses the show’s trademark POV device to tackle their reunion and everything lurking underneath, exploring it from both perspectives and illuminating powerful, complex truths in the process. It’s as good as The Affair gets – which is about as good as TV gets.
“Alive in Tucson” | The Last Man on Earth
Here’s a strange, gorgeous, biting little short film, far more inspired and effective than anything in Last Man on Earth to succeed it. It was never clear how this show would work as a series – the answer now seems to be, against all odds, pretty conventionally – but with this pilot, writer Will Forte and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller created something magnificently unique. With the world deserted and lonely, horny, misanthropic Phil Miller left in Tucson, Arizona to entertain himself, “Alive in Tucson” made for a lovely one-person show. The rest of the series may not have lived up to the pilot’s potential, but this is an episode of TV that stands perfectly on its own, stuffed with hilarious set-pieces and bursts of endearing melancholy.
“Charlie Work” | It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
The elongated single-take-shot, which has gone from crafty to trendy a little too quickly, was pulled off expertly (and freshly) by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia in 2015. “Charlie Work” is, above all else, an audacious meditation on Charlie Kelly’s day-to-day at Paddy’s Pub – the cleaning of the toilets, the dealing with the trash, the aversion of potential health crises. With a health inspector on the way, Charlie (Charlie Day) enlists the gang’s help in “preparing” the bar – ergo, in pulling off an elaborate trick to avoid the failing grade they clearly merit – and what follows is an electric, invigorating and intensely comic visual trek. Director Matt Shakman slips in and out of the bar’s darkest, grimiest corners to immaculate effect, totally in-sync with the precise beats of the writing. Part True Detective send-up (Dennis’ “All right, all right, all right” feels like sufficient evidence), part unintentional Birdman homage (right to the stellar percussion score) and part Sunny-at-its-purest, “Charlie Work” is an absolute blast of an episode – and the most ingenious effort of a 10 year-old show in recent memory.
“Eggplant” | Please Like Me
After a near-perfect season two, Please Like Me opened its most ambitious season yet with a sublime slice of rom-com. In “Eggplant,” creator Josh Thomas seamlessly adopted a new mode of storytelling while keeping within his show’s distinct aesthetic. The episode centers on the delicate relationship dance between Josh (Thomas) and Arnold (Keegan Joyce), a new love interest who suffers from high anxiety and is struggling to commit. (Josh, meanwhile, is contending with real, deep romantic feelings for the first time.) As per usual, Thomas’ writing rings cathartically true, from single lines that cut to the bone to scenarios that swell with romantic grace. But “Eggplant” also captures the enormously powerful sensation of new love, intimately depicting the accompanying sexual discovery and emotional agony. The episode ends on an encompassing note, authentically bringing its central couple together in sweet, sugary fashion. It’s a masterful, understated chapter of a masterful, understated series.
“Election Night” | Veep
One of Veep’s more underrated qualities is its knowledge of the system – precisely because of its thorough exploration of American politics does the show manage such scathing, pointed satire. And there’s no better evidence of that than “Election Night,” the thrilling season finale and the last episode ever with creator Armando Iannucci at the helm. Throughout its fourth season, Veep followed Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in her new job as President, inverting its formula while continuing to depict the political system as fallible, absurd and corrupt as ever. Fittingly, then, it ended on election night – and on the bewildering constitutional rule for how to respond to a tie. Inventively bringing the season’s threads together, while also implementing a civics lesson with surprising rigor, “Election Night” was the best of Veep in every way: unexpected, unrelenting and – distressingly – politically informed.
“Five-O” | Better Call Saul
A devastating showcase for Jonathan Banks and his indefatigable Mike Ehrmantraut, “Five-O” departed from the usual Better Call Saul formula and was all the better for it. As an origin story for the character, the episode was as contained and controlled as an hour of TV gets, eventually evolving into a darkly-realized morality tale. Saul could often feel a little aimless, getting by on its exquisite compositions and sturdy lead performance from Bob Odenkirk. But here was the reminder of what Vince Gilligan and his Breaking Bad team were capable of: rich, dynamic and gripping storytelling. “Five-O” vividly mixed suspense with emotion, with Adam Bernstein’s direction a tense invocation of Albuquerque noir. Right down to Banks’ harrowing delivery of the line “I broke my boy,” this was mesmerizing stuff.
“Hank After Dark” | BoJack Horseman
There were a half-dozen or so episodes of BoJack Horseman season two that could have been chosen, but none epitomized its special kind of greatness better than “Hank After Dark.” A despairing allegory of the Bill Cosby controversy, the episode envisioned the pop culture icon as a creeping hippopotamus celebrity – Hank Hippopapolous, to be exact – voiced with menace by Philip Baker Hall. Not only did “Dark” acutely and brazenly capture the events’ cultural essence, but it also built into a textured, intelligent exposition of sexism, with Diane (Alison Brie) facing backlash simply because of her effort to uncover the truth. Plus, the episode also tangled a complicated web of institutional alliances, explicating what keeps people like Cosby protected despite their unforgivable crimes. It’s a heavy, bleak half-hour of television, but I promise it’s plenty funny, too – and has what might be the most quietly penetrating ending of the year.
“Lens” | The Leftovers
This was a season of television that doled out classics by the week, and in the end I was left to choose between the searingly biblical “No Room at the Inn” and the visceral character study “Lens.” I chose the latter, if only because I’m a sucker for good acting. “Lens” features a ravishing two-hander between Carrie Coon and Regina King, one hauntingly lensed in extreme-close-ups by director Craig Zobel and scribed with exacting tension by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta. It puts two women – both grieving and guilty over the inexplicable disappearances of their loved ones – face-to-face, left to search inward and extract their innermost demons and fears. “Lens” builds methodically, reaching a crescendo with King’s breathtaking “We are not spared” declaration, and ends by bringing many of the season’s loose threads together. It’s superbly constructed, but that doesn’t really matter – the work from Coon and King is so astonishing, so unsettling and so, so powerful that comparison is futile. Over a month later, they’re still giving me chills.
“Man on the Land” | Transparent
Transparent had been building to this episode for two seasons. As a sort of spiritual sequel to season one’s “Best New Girl,” “Man on the Land” fuses the past with the present, and melds religious and gender inquiries for a sweeping expression of personhood. The penultimate episode of Transparent’s remarkable sophomore run, it brings Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) and her daughters Ali (Gaby Hoffman) and Sarah (Amy Landecker) to Idyllwild (based on the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival), complete with fetish stations, bare breasts and terrible vegan cuisine. Jill Soloway, the episode’s director, fascinatingly situates her characters within contemporary debates about what it means to be privileged, and in turn, what it means to be a woman. It’s decidedly inclusive and exclusive, volatile and intimate, with each character discovering something deep within themselves by episode’s end. And like “Best New Girl,” Soloway ends “Man on the Land” on a disorienting, enthralling and heartbreaking sequence, visualizing the past with a present-day urgency and burning it all up with a roaring blast of fire. She leaves you exhausted – and in awe.
“Mornings” | Master of None
Master of None went from inquisitive to declarative in the second-to-last episode of its debut season. As written by creators Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang, “Mornings” spans a year of the blossoming romance between Dev (Ansari) and Rachel (Noel Wells). It’s a delicate, smart and deeply compassionate episode, poignantly but also honestly chronicling how love can splinter, fade and build at once, and how our expectations and perspectives of our partners change over time. There’s a sadness to it, as well as an impressive degree of procedure in the construction – but a streak of hope runs through it as well, as Dev and Rachel gradually adjust to their evolving dynamic. “Mornings” marks Master of None at its wisest, exploring a universal experience with evocative cinematography, while also keeping close to Ansari’s specific voice.
“Salang Pass” | The Americans
The Americans can be difficult to watch, and “Salang Pass” represents the Cold War drama at the apex of its ability to provoke. Let that not detract from its brilliance, though: this is an extraordinary episode of TV’s best show, one that ruminates with queasy commitment on the nature of the Jennings’ livelihood, and accordingly, on human nature itself. “Salang Pass” juxtaposes Phillip’s (Matthew Rhys) forced flirtation with a teenage girl and Elizabeth’s (Keri Russell) mandated interactions with a Northup employee who can help their cause. Both slip into disguises as per usual, but they adopt personas truer to themselves than they’d normally allow, or ever show to one another – Philip, as a father figure keeping an ugly secret from his real daughter, and Elizabeth, able to convey her marital anxieties by playing chatty divorcée. It’s a contemplative episode that drifts into startling territory with masterful patience. In exposing the central conceit of the series, “Salang Pass” reveals what makes The Americans such a stunning work of art. It shows people switching out identities and appearances, how they are able to confront their emotions and traumas by shifting into different modes. As the episode so subtly demonstrates, that’s a process embedded in all of us.
Series Finales | Getting On, Justified & Mad Men
Three great shows ended with finales as individually excellent as they were holistically fulfilling. Getting On, HBO’s hospital half-hour, brought its characters to the emergency ward, sensitively espousing the value of mercy in a world often devoid of justice. Capping off a stellar closing chapter, Justified’s “The Promise” was a muted affair, wrapping things up and giving characters a chance to say goodbye – right to the tender closing line from Boyd, to Raylan: “We dug coal together.” And, most impactfully, Mad Men finished out its landmark run with a jaw-dropping ode to Coca Cola, inviting endless controversy and limitless analysis as Matthew Weiner surely intended. All three shows were brilliant, beginning to end – you can read my in-depth thoughts on the legacies of each show, and their finales particularly, here, here and here.
“Trust No Bitch” | Orange Is the New Black
