A few honorable mentions: I almost included Evan Peters’s shocking death in “Mare of Easttown,” but felt conflicted; while that was certainly the most shocking murder of 2021 TV, I just felt too bad for his character (one of my favorites) to really include it as a “Best” moment. Likewise, I enjoyed “Yellowstone”‘s no-fuss, no-muss episode one murder of Josh Holloway’s meddlesome executive (Rip shakes a cooler with a rattlesnake in it, then throws the contents at his face), but not quite enough to unseat any of the others listed here.
10. The post-credits scene of “Hawkeye”‘s final episode, “So This is Christmas?”…Somehow, Marvel brainwashed the nation’s critics into thinking it offered up some of the year’s best TV shows (the wildly overrated “Wandavision,” the muddled nonsense of “Loki,” and the undercooked “Falcon and Winter Soldier”). Yet the best moment of all came at the very end of “Hawkeye,” where we see a bombastically over-the-top musical based on the “The Avengers” NYC exploits. We’re treated to delightfully cheesy lines about “New York strong” and the resilience of NYC while watching a pitch-perfect parody of the unlucky “Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark” musical. Maybe it’s saying something about my Marvel-fatigue that I would rather watch this throwaway scene than any of the actual movies and TV shows they’re producing lately (I also consider it to be just as consequential).
9. “Only Murders in the Building” goes dialogue-free in the episode “The Boy from 6B”…Other shows have done “silent” episodes before, but it’s especially surprising with “Murders,” since this is a series that prizes itself on acerbic wit and rapid-fire zingers by a cast that knows how to deliver them (is there a better comedic ham on this Earth than Martin Short? No, there isn’t). “Building” strips itself of its best assets (the verbal interplay of the cast, Nathan Lane’s deadpans, and Short’s deliciously florid line-readings), and the result reveals a series that can do no wrong by a group at the top of their game. Sometimes, it’s just great to be in the presence of skilled people doing what they do best, and “Murders” shows us they can do it without uttering a word.
8. Sandra Oh’s Ji Yoon-Kim explaining modern academia to David Duchovny in “The Chair”…In the episode “The Last Bus in Town,” you’re treated to arguably the most surprising celebrity cameo of the year: David Duchovny playing himself as a clueless celebrity ready to guest lecture a college class solely for the academic credentials he’ll receive. The chasing of meaningless titles and accomplishments by the wealthy has been a big theme in the real world (Jeff Bezos wanting to be the first billionaire in space, his meaningless feud with an increasingly-deranged Elon Musk over who can become the world’s first trillionaire, Trump pretending he’s still President) while the other 99% of the world suffers mightily. Oh has to explain to Duchovny that an actual professor is being passed over for him, and “Chair” handles this with humor, empathy, a beautiful lake house, and the always-game Duchovny.
7. “1883”‘s second episode “Behind Us, a Cliff”…Let’s be honest, a lot of critics don’t really “get” Taylor Sheridan’s beloved TV series (also including “Yellowstone” and the perhaps unfairly-maligned “Mayor of Kingstown”) or why they’re such ratings blockbusters. It’s easy to underrate Sheridan’s populism or take it for granted (so many TV shows survive with such a narrow niche, they probably don’t care if they’re remotely satisfying for an audience), but the second episode of “1883” is a perfect illustration of why audiences go nuts for Sheridan’s unique craft: it delivers on every level.
In only one episode, we’re treated to a Tom Hanks cameo (Tom Hanks!), an excellent Billy Bob Thornton in gun-slinger mode, shoot-outs, chases, beautiful landscapes juxtaposed with dire circumstances, Sam Elliott’s effortless soul, and the death of the show’s most annoying two characters. That’s right, Sheridan killed both of the show’s worst characters in only the second episode, not content to drag out their plot lines for several years the way most series would have. Sheridan knows what an audience wants, and gives it to us ten-fold, and that is a beautiful thing in a year desperate for escapism.
6. “Invincible”‘s father/son struggle for the Earth in the last episode “Where I Really Come From”…The first season of “Invincible” is building to the inevitable moment when J.K. Simmons’s “Omni-man” finally reveals his world-conquering plan to his budding-superhero son Mark, a.k.a. “Invincible.” Just imagine if Superman had a super-powered son who found out his father was actually there to takeover the Earth rather than defend it, and how he might illustrate humanity’s inferiority to their super-powered species. “Invincible” the series doesn’t disappoint by having the two engage in a bone-rattling fight that shakes everything Mark knows about his entire existence, complete with having “Omni-Man” illustrate humanity’s frailty by using Mark’s own body to tear apart passengers on a speeding subway train.
5. “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson”‘s Corncob TV’s Coffin Flops sketch…The second season of Tim Robinson’s beloved sketch series had several standout sketches (a terrible hat getting skewered in a courtroom, an awkward lunch with an old teacher), but this was my personal favorite. The brilliance here isn’t just the hilarious premise, but the premise-within-a-premise; in only a couple of minutes, we’re watching Robinson masterfully skewer “outrageous” up-the-ante reality shows, obscure cable channels trying to enlist us in their “fight” against Big Cable, and the bizarre, true fact that people will watch literally anything if it’s unusual enough (there’s not a thing on TikTok that is worth watching, yet millions of people are watching it).
4. “Squid Game”‘s Red Light, Green Light challenge…When many people click on an article like this, the first thing that pops into their head is the terrifying mechanical doll from “Squid Game”‘s first challenge. I can’t sit here and pretend that “Red Light, Green Light” works on multiple levels–some might reach by describing it as the perfect metaphor for competition in late stage capitalism’s daily horrors–but sometimes you don’t need something to work on anything but visceral fear. This is a hellish game of freeze tag that will sear itself into your memory banks; what else do you need? [Other challenges like the marbles game and a literal tug-of-war are also highly memorable.]
3. Bo Burnham’s “Inside”…I wasn’t sure whether to classify Burnham’s one-man epic as a movie or a TV series (I’ve seen other outlets do both), and even if it was to be classified in the TV category, then how can I compare it to shows that had multiple episodes and…well…full, professional crews? Putting “Inside” in the “Best TV Episodes or Moments” column seems right, since it would doubtlessly qualify as one of the best, most impressive TV episodes of the year if it were part of a recurring series.
Burnham’s solitary odyssey is one of the year’s most impressive technical achievements, a hall-of-mirrors dissection of “CoVid culture” (most of it overlapping with Internet Culture) that includes scathing songs (“White Woman’s Instagram” may be the definitive take on performative, shallow social media activism), bruise black “comedy” on everything from extreme isolation to a climate-led apocalypse, Burnham playing a depressing version of his life as a Twitch streamer, a commentary track on a throwaway song that goes dangerously awry in a way that takes self-referential douchery to ego-busting extremes, and half a dozen other excellent set-ups you should see for yourself. I’m not sure a work of art this year captured more of what most people are actually feeling.
2. “The People vs. the Klan” final episode…I’ll admit that part of my inclusion of this excellent 4-part CNN miniseries is because I wanted to include it in the “Best TV Shows” of the year, but couldn’t find room for it. Well, the 4th and final episode is what we came for anyway: to see an elderly, seemingly-powerless Alabama black mother (whose young son–Michael Donald–has been horrifically lynched in the 80’s as one of the last major, Klan-backed lynchings in America) sue the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy, and significantly wound their reign of terror and strangle-hold over Alabama. This is exactly what we needed to see in 2021, as real-life white supremacist groups have never seemed less accountable for their destruction–including a Republican congress that seemingly has no interest in prosecuting a mob’s attempts to kill them in the Capitol building. Well, the odds were pretty stacked against our heroine in this miniseries as well, and she was able to get the job done; don’t lose hope. Speaking of…
“Top” Moment: The Capitol is stormed in the final episode of “Q: Into the Storm” simply titled “The Storm”…This HBO miniseries is too long with too many extraneous details (it would’ve been better as 4 episodes instead of 6), but the final episode contains the most surreal moment of 2021 television, and that’s saying something. In it, we see the Capitol insurrection set to the tune of Jefferson Airplane’s iconic 60’s mind-bender “White Rabbit,” which is absolutely perfect since “Storm” has already taken us far enough down the rabbit hole to realize that “Q-Anon” isn’t a “government insider,” but a weird message board runner/millennial-loser named Ron Watkins, who was actually living in the Philippines the entire time he spread Q’s lies, stirring up gullible conservatives an ocean away. We join his even stranger father Jim Watkins as he cheers on the insurrectionist destruction, and this might the perfect encapsulation of everything that’s gone so “off the rails” in the last few years: a pair of internet charlatans who don’t live in the United States fomenting misinformation that gains such a following, people are ready to attempt a coup that itself almost looks fake. “Down the rabbit hole” or “into the storm” indeed…
Another great article. Love reading the reviews.