I do four lists every year now: Songs, albums, TV shows…and then this one is the odd duck. You can certainly find lists of the best episodes, but those other units of entertainment produce orders of magnitude more. But the truth is, going back to an entire show is a lot! What if you want to revisit a show by throwing on that one dynamite episode, a self-contained bit of brilliance? Maybe you’re a freak, and you want to discard continuity and good form and just check out the best episode of a show without actually watching the episodes before it. Do people do that? Is that a thing? (I can only really recommend doing such a thing with #10 here.)
Well, I’ve got the list for you. These wouldn’t all be pleasurable rewatches that represent each show at their most quintessential, of course. A few of the highest rated episodes here are deliriously rich payoffs that do benefit greatly from the buildup. One or two is probably too emotionally intense to revisit. But to me, these were the best moments of TV in a pretty good year for it. In a year where Succession is gone and The Bear stumbled, we had to find those next classic holy-shit moments.
Tomorrow is the top twenty TV shows.
10. “Charlie, Pim, and Bill vs The Alien”
Smiling Friends
season 2, episode 6
stream: Max
Episodes six and seven of the incredible new season of Smiling Friends are a jump up on the insanity scale for the show, but while Spamtopia is probably my favorite thing from the whole season, I have to go with Charlie’s and Pim’s (and Bill’s) trip into outer space. The new setting provides an elevated horror for the show. They meet a couple of mixed media aliens (played by RedLetterMedia’s Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans) who bully them into partying and then instruct them that they’ll push a button to blow up a populated planet, or else. When they finally arrive home, Smiling Friends hits us with an incredible twist. It’s the show’s most concerning and uncomfortable eleven minutes yet.
Also considered: “A Allan Adventure” (season 2, episode 3), “The Magical Red Jewel AKA Tyler Gets Fired” (season 2, episode 7)
9. “Red Dragon I”
Delicious in Dungeon
season 1, episode 11
stream: Netflix
You learn to appreciate the slow-roll, episodic nature of Delicious in Dungeon, learning about the flora and fauna of the titular dungeon via fictional cooking lessons. But our heroes really need to find their way back to the red dragon that swallowed their beloved mage Falin. And this is just an absolutely classic anime battle episode, with Studio Trigger balling out and spending the heck out of the animation budget. Delicious in Dungeon can feel a bit less like Dungeons & Dragons and more like a video game, as the objectives exist in the context of spaces that are very visually defined. And this is never better used than in the big boss battle, as a giant dragon chases the party through an abandoned underground city.
8. “Episode 4”
Baby Reindeer
episode 4
stream: Netflix
By its fourth episode, Richard Gadd’s autobiographical Baby Reindeer is already no stranger to depicting traumatizing events. Martha’s stalking of Donny had already gone to some pretty dark places, but something was plainly bubbling underneath the surface that made this saga all the harder for Donny.
Donny is asked why it took him so long to report Martha, and we’re whisked back to the horrible events of “Episode 4.” There’s no real way around it, “Episode 4” – which is about how Donny (a fictionalized version of Gadd, to whom these things really happened) is groomed and sexually assaulted – is a bad time, and a lot of people who aren’t already sitting out this series that unflinchingly stares into Gadd’s personal trauma might still want to skip it. But it’s a strong and valuable depiction of how these sorts of things can happen, and why people can seem unable to stop it.
Also considered: “Episode 6” (episode 6)
7. “The Red Dragon And The Gold”
House of the Dragon
season 2, episode 4
stream: Max
Game of Thrones sold itself really hard based on its CGI dragons, and people ate that shit up. But I was always pretty unimpressed. Dany’s dragons mostly just hung around occasionally breathing fire on individuals. If dragons ever actually fought each other, it was somehow never cool enough to enter the cultural memory. Well. House of the Dragon is making its bones on hot dragon-on-dragon action, and my mouth hung open for the full final fifteen minutes of “The Red Dragon And The Gold,” which makes clear just how devastating these creatures were to Targaryen-era Westeros. The immediate peril to not only the dragon-riding participants but every living thing on the ground even somewhat near the battle in the sky is so clear in a way that Game of Thrones could never make it, and “The Red Dragon And The Gold” shows that House of the Dragon is going to do some incredible things when it gets around to even crazier events in the source material.
6. “Remember It”
X-Men ’97
season 1, episode 5
stream: Disney Plus
It is simply hard to sell these episodes without just outright talking about the twist events that send them up this list, and it’s never harder than on “Remember It.” X-Men ’97 had already demonstrated that it was ready to take difficult subjects head-on in a way that its nineties predecessor probably wasn’t quite allowed, but when the X-Men travel to the mutant island nation of Genosha as it prepares to join the United Nations, X-Men ’97 goes in about as extreme a route as is possible. Great action sequences ensue, yeah, but the fact that a superhero show goes there and does so at all convincingly is extremely impressive. Here’s hoping that as long as we’re oversaturated with superhero properties, others can figure out how to build up that kind of storytelling credibility.
Also considered: “Mutant Liberation Begins” (season 1, episode 2)
5. “White Mischief”
Industry
season 3, episode 4
stream: Max
Coming unglued from a show that had just been about young talent at a major British investment bank, Industry‘s third season made the great choice to stare extremely deeply into its characters, and never was the choice more aggressive than it was on “White Mischief,” Uncut Gems but with Rishi. You see, Rishi is great at his job because he is addicted to risk, and it’s also why his life is coming completely undone. It’s really an odyssey. Rishi’s marriage is falling apart. Rishi is in deep shit with loan sharks. Rishi gambles, parties, gets the shit beaten out of him, and comes into work the next day without sleeping. Rishi pushes his role as a market maker to the absolute limit. This is all horrible, but also kind of delightful because we hadn’t gotten to glimpse Rishi outside of work basically at all, as he’s not quite a central character.
Like in Uncut Gems, there is a moment of sweet catharsis in “White Mischief.” But how does Uncut Gems end?
Also considered: “Nikki Beach, or: So Many Ways To Lose” (season 3, episode 6), “Infinite Largesse” (season 3, episode 8)
4. “To A Kinder World”
Dandadan
season 1, episode 7
stream: Netflix
“To A Kinder World” doesn’t do anything novel story-wise with its employment of the tragic-anime-backstory trope, but where it really shines is the execution. Firstly, animation studio Science Saru completely goes to town, not just with impressive and detailed animation, but creative art direction and bold visual decisions (although the brutal moment halfway in is a bit indulgently gruesome). But the real winning move is the score during the dialogue-free moments of the flashback, which adapts an incredibly sad chapter of manga and changes the mood just enough to keep that sadness but also inject it with a bit of awe that a show about aliens and spirits should always have. A ridiculously beautiful episode of television, impressively so considering that it begins with the characters recovering one of Ken Takakura’s missing testicles.
3. “III Sommerso”
Ripley
episode 3
stream: Netflix
Ripley starts a little slowly. Tom is clearly cooking up some kind of plan, but it’s unclear what it is or how quickly we’ll see any of it. Well, Tom pieces together that Dickey’s father and girlfriend have convinced him to (rightfully) doubt Tom. Tom’s plan arrives quickly from there, and he wrestles his situation so that he might have some control over it again. What ensues is a comprehensively berzerk sequence of events, so whiplash-inducing after a slow first couple of episodes. Ripley’s pursuit of whatever it is he wants does not get any easier from here, either.
Also considered: “V Lucio” (episode 5), “VIII Narcissus” (episode 8)
2. “And That’s The End Of It. There’s Nothing Else”
Interview With The Vampire
season 2, episode 8
stream: AMC+
The second season finale of Interview With The Vampire, which reaches the conclusion of the first novel in Anne Rice’s series, does begin with an action climax, true, but to my delight, that’s not really what things were building to. You see, Daniel has been listening to Louis’s story and smells bullshit. Louis squirms as Daniel asks him some clarifying questions, uncertain what he’s driving at.
All of the present day stuff in “And That’s The End Of It. There’s Nothing Else” is just so narratively satisfying. I’m totally new to the series, so I can’t comment on how it compares to the novels or the film (I’m aware of a few major differences), but I was blown away by how well this series paid off. This is also the episode where Eric Bogosian can really shine as Daniel, turning in an underrated performance in a series full of great ones. I would be satisfied if this adaptation was finished. But they’re not. There are twelve more books to adapt, after all.
Also considered: “I Could Not Prevent It” (season 2, episode 7)
1. “Green Queen”
The Curse
episode 10
stream: Showtime
I am begging you all to please watch The Curse.
The Curse was my #6 show of 2023, but its two final episodes came out in 2024, and they are both doozies. At the start of finale “Green Queen,” it’s months later, and Whitney and Asher are doing a press tour because Whitney’s Green Queen is finally on HGTV. Whitney is about to have Asher’s baby, and all is well.
The Curse has spent nine painful episodes establishing that Whitney is a hollow person desperate to be seen as good, and Asher is a loser hanger-on who, to put it politely, simply does not know how to behave. Their lives are wrapped in neverending contradiction. Whitney’s thing is building sustainable, energy-efficient homes, but she cannot square that this seemingly-good thing is not only unwanted by her community, but does active harm to it. Her ambition to turn her life into a TV show makes all this harder for her and Asher to plaster over.
So all isn’t really well, but they’ve both made it. The show and the baby are the things they’ve desperately wanted, and they are here.
But then.
“Green Queen” is one of the most memorable and astonishing payoffs in TV history, which feels ridiculous to say when almost no one I know has actually dutifully made their way through The Curse. But it’s just something you have to experience, and then it’s something you have to live with and wonder about, and then it will make you think about The Curse more.
Also considered: “Young Hearts” (episode 9)
Honorable Mentions
“A Breakup,” Mr. & Mrs. Smith, season 1 episode 8
“AGG,” Somebody Somewhere, season 3 episode 7
“Bulletproof,” Hacks, season 3 episode 9
“Cent’Anni,” The Penguin, episode 4
“Chapter Thirteen,” Pachinko, season 2 episode 5
“Crimson Sky,” Shōgun, season 1 episode 9
“Dog Christmas Day Afternoon,” Bob’s Burgers, season 15 episode 9
“Episode 1,” Uzumaki, episode 1
“Growth,” Oshi no Ko, season 2 episode 6
“Jinshi and Maomao,” The Apothecary Diaries, season 1 episode 24
“Journey,” Heartstopper, season 3 episode 4
“Last Attack,” BLUE LOCK, season 2 episode 14
“Looking4Twinks2S**k,” Fantasmas, episode 4
“Napkins,” The Bear, season 3 episode 6
“No Lessons Learned,” Curb Your Enthusiasm, season 12 episode 10
“Pretend Like It’s The First Time,” Arcane, season 2 episode 7
“The Height of Magic,” Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, season 1, episode 26
“The Last Soloist,” Sound! Euphonium, season 3 episode 12
Joey Daniewicz 