Joey’s Top Ten TV Episodes of 2023

This has been an absolutely stunning year for television, and in fact it has been especially stunning when it comes to individual episodes. This entire list, especially the top half, is full of deliriously great episodes that frankly dwarf the previous editions of this list.

10. “How To Clean Your Ears”
How To With John Wilson
season 3, episode 2
stream: Max


John Wilson dedicates this episode to the sounds of New York City. There’s an awful man with large cannonlike features on the back of his pickup truck who fires them off all day and sometimes at night (he also often shoots a massive flamethrower), and all of his neighbors despise him. There’s a couple who can’t conceive that other apartments might not appreciate the loud birthday party they’re throwing for their one-year-old (at one point John asks them to give them an example of what music they play, and the smash cut to the music kills me every single time). A lady claims to have dated a serial killer. You know, the usual How To fare. But then, John flees to Green Bank, West Virginia, a town with no wi-fi or cell phone service due to the nearby massive radio telescope. Here John meets a bunch of weirdos who think they have electromagnetic hypersensitivity, who all seem to hate each other and all have to deal with the same shitty slumlord. “How To Clean Your Ears,” unlike many How To episodes, is really pretty focused on its theme of sound, and it draws out some of the weirdest, most annoying people you’ve ever dreamt of. Peak How To.

9. “Jerry”
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake
season 1, episode 8
stream: Max


One of the great joys of Fionna and Cake‘s trip through the multiverse was finding other versions of Adventure Time‘s crazy cast of characters, and in “Jerry,” we stumble upon the motherlode. Fionna, Cake, and Simon end up in a version of Ooo not unlike the one we’re familiar with, except the Lich won and wiped out all life. Only BMO is left, and BMO spends the entire episode being extremely fucking weird and talking about their good friend Jerry. The vibes are cursed all episode, and everything goes haywire by the time BMO finally introduces us to Jerry. Fionna and Cake has a great core idea for each episode, but none is so striking as the apocalyptic wasteland of “Jerry.”

8. “Episode 1”
Pluto
episode 1
stream: Netflix


Pluto is wildly interesting out of the gate. Right away Europol Detective Gesicht learns of the deaths of renowned robot rights activist Bernard Lanke and the powerful but gentle and beloved robot Mont Blanc. Right away, Pluto is intensely psychological and enrossing.

However, this entry is here not just for the strong start but for its second half, where we follow another of the earth’s most powerful robots, North No. 2. North No. 2 lives a life as the butler of a famous blind musical composer Paul Duncan, and North No. 2’s attempts to understand and replicate creativity offend Duncan to no end. However, their relationship evolves as North No. 2 begins to genuinely catch on to not just Duncan’s music, but the inner workings of Duncan himself. And then it reaches a climax that finally ties back into the main story. Pluto, which is an unconventional anime that sports an hourlength runtime per episode, starts things off with a bang, and while there’s nothing else like this North No. 2 story, the show never relents.

Also considered: “Episode 6” (episode 6)

7. “The Fairy Isle”
Hilda
season 3, episode 8
stream: Netflix


Hilda’s father, recently back in the picture, has gotten trapped in the “fairy mound” that Hilda’s mother had a bad experience in as a child. By venturing into this dangerous territory, Hilda learns about her mother’s past and the true nature of the dangerous and mysterious “fairies” in her great aunt’s town.

In this era of Western all-ages cartoons, most shows are going the Gravity Falls and Steven Universe route of motivating the usual cartoon hijinks with a serialized story. Sure, Amphibia might have a bunch of episodes that don’t matter, but there’s always a pretty clear story goal. And shows like Amphibia, Infinity Train, and The Owl House are all great, but Hilda gives itself a distinct-in-this-era flavor by not going anywhere in particular. Its big moment episodes – “The Midnight Giant” in season one, “The Fifty Year Night” and “The Deerfox” in season two – have not really had implications on the way things are moving forward. Sure, Hilda still often builds to these things by gently inserting little beats in leadup episodes, but its greatest moments are stories that stand on their own.

This finale’s implications for Hilda and her family are enormous. It bowls you over like no other Hilda episode, including the one about Twig that makes you cry. But while Hilda‘s third season does tee up its wonderful series finale, this does not feel like a culmination of the series so far, nor does it need to. “The Fairy Isle,” like the great Hilda episodes before it, focuses squarely on telling a great story unto itself. It’s a refreshing approach we don’t see as often, and it’s always been a perfect vehicle to capture the protagonist’s sense of wonder in the natural world.

6. “Cary & Brooke Go To An AIDS Play”
The Other Two
season 3, episode 5
stream: Max


The moment you really fall in love with The Other Two is the gay brother song. Since then, its satire on the entertainment industry’s use of and regard for gay men has consistently been at the heart of its best material. “AIDS Play” is the apotheosis of this strength. I can’t comment on how successfully it satirizes Matthew Lopez’s similarly ambitious play The Inheritance, but watching the cast sit through 8 Gay Men With AIDS: A Poem in Many Hours, The Other Two‘s world has kind of a cynical reverence for gay prestige and mostly only has room for AIDS stories when it comes to that. There’s plenty going on in this episode – Chase is set up with Kiernan Shipka but falls in love with an ordinary teenager instead while Brooke tries to put a stop to it, Cary tries to set up his always-method actor boyfriend with a role that will finally allow the two of them to have sex – but the play itself is probably the funniest gag the show has done (tied with the gay brother song). As the curtain falls on the first day of 8 Gay Men, AIDS and HIV have not yet been named or even discovered, and a scientist declares, “We finally know what it is: a great big mystery!”

5. “Their Choices”
Heavenly Delusion
season 1, episode 8
stream: Hulu


In post-apocalyptic Japan, tensions come to a head between an activist group and the hospital they think is conducting human experiments. But inside, the doctor leads our heroes to the so-called experiment: a quadruple amputee woman only kept alive because in death she would become a monster. The doctor requests that Maru use his power to help her go peacefully. All the while, the protesters break into the hospital.

“Their Choices” is a wildly emotional gut-punch of an episode. It also gives us a brief glimpse into the Takahara Academy storyline that makes up the other half of Heavenly Delusion, which doesn’t curb the sadness of the episode but at least makes it emotionally satisfying.

Also considered: “Kiriko and Haruki” (season 1, episode 3)

4. “Connor’s Wedding”
Succession
season 4, episode 3
stream: Max


I’ve tried hard to ride for “America Decides” as the peak of this season of Succession, and while that is an incredible episode of television that deserves exactly this place on this list, I must concede that “Connor’s Wedding” is likely the defining moment of this entire show, a television event so epochal that, for a moment, we returned to that horrible 2019 atmosphere when Twitter ruined every new episode of Game of Thrones for you.

Unlike Succession‘s discourteous online fans, I will be vague and just say that this episode perfectly captured the way a bombshell piece of news travels and reverberates. This is also probably the most appropriate thing to ever happen to actually-eldest boy Connor Roy.

Also considered: “America Decides” (season 4, episode 8), “Church and State” (season 4, episode 9)

3. “Mother and Children”
Oshi no Ko
season 1, episode 1
stream: HIDIVE


It’s really hard to know how to write about a series premier when it’s a real home run (see my To Your Eternity write-up from the 2021 list), as that usually means there’s some incredible twist that comes with the entire premise of the series. “Mother and Children” has about five of those, so here’s my best attempt to set the stage without ruining anything: Gorou Amamiya is a young doctor specializing in gynecology, but he’s also a massive nerd, so he’s shocked when his favorite pop idol, Ai Hoshino, shows up at his hospital secretly pregnant. Gorou spends the next few months caring for Ai, but on the eve of her delivery, Gorou’s encounter with a stalker of Ai’s sends his life careening upside down.We are still several plot twists away from explaining the basic premise of the series.

This oversized premier, a whopping 90 minutes instead of the standard 22, is an ambitious approach to adapting the short opening arc of the manga, and while the general thrust of the series’ plot only solidifes by the episode’s end, “Mother and Children” is still an intense tour through the insanity and façade of the Japanese entertainment industry.

Also considered: “Egosurfing” (season 1, episode 6)

2. “Long, Long Time”
The Last of Us
season 1, episode 3
stream: Max


Despite the greatest strength of The Last of Us being Joel and Ellie and the performances behind them, they’re largely absent from what’s easily the show’s finest hour. Though Bill and Frank are present in the source material, “Long, Long Time” is a complete reinvention of their story, instead foregrounding the beautiful life these two manage to have in the very worst of conditions. Nick Offerman is obviously a natural at playing Bill’s survivalist weirdo, and Murray Bartlett gives an equally strong turn as Frank. It feels rare for gay men to be at the front of such an important moment in television, and even rarer for it to be in a video game-related series (indeed, check out which episodes didn’t sit as well with the gamers that tuned in). In that respect, “Long, Long Time” is probably easily the most important episode of 2023.

Also considered: “When You’re Lost in the Darkness” (season 1, episode 1), “Left Behind” (season 1, episode 7)

1. “Forks”
The Bear
season 2, episode 7
stream: Hulu


This could just as easily be “Fishes,” but while that pressure cooker of an episode could just as easily top this list, it’s “Forks” that really got me. Richie has been the confounding factor on The Bear, the one asshole who has not decided that he wants to become a happier person. So he exists as a walking tornado of anger management and volume control issues.

So when Carmy sends him off to refine his hosting duties at a very highbrow restaurant for a week, Richie perceives this as Carmy getting him out of his hair. He’s made to clean forks for the first several days, and he hits rock bottom when he calls his ex-wife to tell her he got an extra ticket to the Taylor Swift concert so that she could join him and their daughter only to find that she’s gotten engaged to her boyfriend.

Someone calls out Richey’s shit when he’s putting no effort in cleaning the forks, and from this point, he completely turns around and learns to love what he does through the power of self-respect. And then comes a needle drop so wild and perfect that I just didn’t know what to do with myself. Something about it just shifted me into another dimension.

Some of my other favorite TV moments involve assholes waking the fuck up. Tsuki’s big block in Haikyuu!! comes to mind. But The Bear built an entire transcendent episode of television around this previously slow-burning character development. In a bewilderingly great year for TV and an even greater year for TV episodes, “Forks” stands out as the finest.

Also considered: “Honeydew” (season 2, episode 4), “Fishes” (season 2, episode 6), “The Bear” (season 2, episode 10)

Honorable Mentions

“A Connected Bond: Daybreak and First Light,” Demon Slayer, season 3 episode 11
“A Powerful Mage,” Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, season 1 episode 10
“Elora’s Dad,” Reservation Dogs, season 3 episode 9
“Episode Six,” Happy Valley, season 3 episode 6
“Episode #1.3,” Telemarketers, episode 3
“Freedom Day,” Silo, season 1 episode 1
“I Am A Cage,” BEEF, episode 7
“It’s Been A While,” Invincible, season 2 episode 4
“Joan Is Awful,” Black Mirror, season 6 episode 1
“Local News,” What We Do In The Shadows, season 5 episode 5
“Oath,” Vinland Saga, season 2 episode 9
“Qui,” Yellowjackets, season 2 episode 6
“Rest In Metal,” Poker Face, season 1 episode 4
“Return of the Sword King,” Ranking of Kings: The Treasure Chest of Courage, episode 10
“Sunflowers,” Ted Lasso, season 3 episode 6
“The Fall,” Scavengers Reign, season 1 episode 6
“To Ed,” Somebody Somewhere, season 2 episode 7
“Watching and Dreaming,” The Owl House, season 3 episode 3
“Wonders That Cannot Be Fathomed, Miracles That Cannot Be Counted,” The Righteous Gemstones, season 3 episode 9
“wow,” Barry, season 4 episode 8
“2 Scott 2 Pilgrim,” Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, episode 7

Joey’s Top Ten Albums of 2023

This list is the whole reason I do any of these features. This is the big event, the Academy Award for Best Picture. Yet I usually don’t have a ton to say by the time I have to introduce these. I thought 2023 was a bit of a down year, but not that down. There was no Renaissance to carry the year, and that’s fine, there isn’t always. There were about seven or eight consensus album of the year contenders, and the ones from that group that went all the way with me are my #1 and #2 here, so it’s not really like I’ve rejected consensus (other than that extremely boring Lana album).

Anyway, 2023? Fine. It was fine. Here are 100 albums from 2023 (plus one that doesn’t count).

Oh, a final note, Speak Now and 1989 are top ten albums of their respective years, but I don’t need to highlight them again, especially because the Vault tracks this year were pretty disappointing and I thought both didn’t do that hot at replicating the originals closely enough to render them irrelevant. I’m frankly already talking about them too much! Anyway.

Ineligible But Worthy

Tim: Let It Bleed Edition
by The Replacements


I haven’t really ever seen people so bowled over by a remaster of a great rock album. The last time was maybe 2003’s remaster of Iggy Pop’s Raw Power, which I wasn’t really around to witness. And while The Stooges are around as interesting as The Replacements, Raw Power was never close to as good as Tim, so it really says something that everyone has collectively thrown Tommy Ramone’s original mix in the trash in favor of this Ed Stasium mix that just came out this year. They’ve actually tried this before, a few years back the similarly botched production job Don’t Tell A Soul was given another try, and while that was interesting enough, it’s another thing entirely to do it with an already-beloved collection of songs. The guitars just hit way better here, and it’s great to not feel like each song is drowning in a shallow puddle. It does have a sole misstep, its “Here Comes A Regular” is massively overproduced to the point where I think I strongly prefer the original closer. But though 1984’s Let It Be remains strongly superior, this Tim becomes an even strong contender for the finest album of 1985.

Listen: “Left of the Dial (Ed Stasium Mix)”

Top Ten

10. Water Made Us
by Jamila Woods


LEGACY! LEGACY! was a pretty insane sophomore album. It was a meticulously crafted tribute to a number of Woods’ Black heroes. It was a pretty heavy text, and the problem with doing something like that (and doing it very well) for your second album is that you probably have to dial it back for your third.

And for Jamila Woods, that’s actually fine. Her debut Heavn was just as good as LEGACY! LEGACY! anyway. This actually renders Water Made Us as her weakest album thus far despite it also being completely awesome. Water Made Us dives into intimacy, with sex and romance usually discussed with the same approach and care. Woods’ sound has always sounded so cleansing, so this subject matter is natural for her.

The album’s most fun song: “Practice” featuring Saba, which would be a funny postscript to LEGACY! LEGACY! if you renamed it “IVERSON.”

Listen: “Tiny Garden” (ft. duendita)

9. 1988
by Lori McKenna


It’s hard to deny that Lori McKenna is trotting out a few of the same old horses. The first two tracks on 1988 are called “The Old Woman In Me” and (I hope you have) “Happy Children.” Her most common trope has certainly been that of looking at generations past and future and noting how that perspective changes just a little bit all the time, and that was probably most successfully explored on 2021’s Christmas Is Right Here, actually. But gosh, her arrangements have never sounded prettier, her heart has never sounded quite so full (and it wasn’t much wanting for fullness in the first place). By the time you hit the happy-anniversary title track, McKenna’s relentless positivity might be a little suffocating. A decent tonic: “The Town In Your Heart,” a song about a lover who’s passed on. It’s still warm and loving in the way everything she touches is, yeah, but it helps anchor the album, and it’s probably the song here that I’ve reached for the most often.

Listen: “The Town In Your Heart”

8. Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor
by Emperor X


We really should have seen this coming. Something about last year’s “Freeway in Heaven” really teed up this six song dive into six separate hyperspecific transit ideas in the Northeast US. The finest is an incredulous look into a Philadelphia megamall whose entrance is elevated away from the street that provides public transportation to it. By the time Chad Matheny gets to the bit about the grocery store only accessible through the parking garage on the highest floor, he’s ready to launch into the guitar solo of the year (possibly excepting “Black Earth, WI”), and the EP’s lo-fi approach makes it sound just that much more awesome. Two other favorites are a journey through time refracted through poorly planned train routes in Maryland and DC and another that daydreams, well, a bullet train to Worcester. In case you’re wondering what kind of transit guy Matheny is, on another song he simply reads the Wikipedia page for the Passaic–Bergen–Hudson Transit Project in New Jersey and frustratedly concludes, “occasionally it is useful to vote.”

Listen: “Bullet Train to Worcester (for MBATA)”

7. Everyone’s Crushed
by Water From Your Eyes


This blurb is a bit of a challenge. It feels too much to call Water From Your Eyes truly experimental, but their songs aren’t about anything in particular and their music isn’t much like anyone else’s. I sort of hear a cooler, more serious Moldy Peaches thing going on with “True Life.” That’s about all I got. But I haven’t received many kicks in the ass this year as powerful as “Barley,” its “I count mountains” line taking up permanent residence in my brain. I love the new way each song digs into me: the way “Out There” scoots around, the way the title track stumbles about, the way “14” just floats in space. Then the guitars send these basic setups to some wild places. Everyone’s Crushed scratches an itch I didn’t even realize was there.

Listen: “True Life”

6. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
by Chappell Roan


Chappell Roan likes women now, and her big gay album about it is the most fun collection of music this year. While her coming out isn’t entirely a party – the excellent “Casual” shows the flipside of “Red Wine Supernova,” and on “Pink Pony Club” her mom is tortured to see her daughter is a pink pony girl – this still somehow outmuscles GUTS in the fun category, probably thanks to the girl on the opener screaming in Roan’s ear to “PLAY THE FUCKING BEAAAAAT.”

It’s just infectious how excited Roan is to be who she is and do the things she’s doing: “Touch me, baby, put your lips on mine/Could go to Hell, but we’ll probably be fine,” “She was a playboy, Brigitte Bardot/She showed me things I didn’t know,” “I kinda wanna kiss your girlfriend if you don’t mind.” The opening half is phenomenal, and while I think the latter isn’t quite as good, it still gets memorably silly and peculiar, and “Pink Pony Club” is pretty iconic. A massive debut, and she feels so self-assured. Here’s hoping she becomes as big a deal as she believes she will be.

Listen: “Red Wine Supernova”

5. Lucky
by Megan Moroney


Despite its abysmal representation at the top of the song charts this year, this was probably the most plentiful year for great country music in a long while. And while Ashley McBryde, Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, Kelsea Ballerini, Jelly Roll, and of course Lori McKenna all made great albums, it was Megan Moroney’s debut that sat best with me. And indeed, the approach is pretty reminiscent of my recent country favorites like Miranda Lambert or Carly Pearce, never more apparent than on the title track. But often there’s a lack of edge that makes this different. It’s obviously ideal for titanic love ballad “Tennessee Orange” but also perfect for something more introspective and lonely like “Girl in the Mirror.” There are a few concepts later on I’m not sure about, pretty sure I could leave “God Plays A Gibson,” but Moroney’s more gentle vocal and thematic approach is a great slight variant on the type of country album that goes furthest for me.

Listen: “Lucky”

4. Sundial
by Noname


A Noname album is a pretty low risk prospect. Both Telefono and Room 25 were great, but what made Noname III especially tantalizing was that she’s spent the last five years hard pivoting to socialist politics, and what little she’s given us since Room 25, like “Rainforest” or the brief but eviscerating J. Cole diss track “Song 33,” has been awesome. The vibes were nearly ruined by a pointless decision to include a verse by Jay Electronica – who’s been dogged by antisemitism allegations since his 2020 An Unwritten Testimony – and a pretty bad response from Noname about the whole thing.

But a few months removed from all that, I can recognize that while the Jay Elec verse is there and it’s bad, Sundial has become my favorite Noname album. Something about the hard-edged crown jewel “namesake” ties down the pleasantly soulful music familiar to Noname’s albums. A favorite moment is “gospel?,” which features $ilkmoney and billy woods, and Noname’s usual sound forces billy into sounding about as optimistic as I’ve ever heard him.

Listen: “black mirror”

3. 10,000 gecs
by 100 gecs


Debut full length 1,000 gecs was the more complete sonic tour, a revelation more squarely of its time. After a nearly four year wait for 27 more minutes of music, 100 gecs may have missed striking again while the iron was truly hot, but they’ve returned as more remarkable tunesmiths. The last album was, outside of its obvious standouts, simply not as deliriously infectious and overall lighter in effect. But herein lies a funhouse of heavy guitar sound, from the butt rock schlock of “Hollywood Baby” to the ska encore “I Got My Tooth Removed” all the way to whatever is happening on “One Million Dollars.” The gecs remain as menacing as ever, striking anxiety and dread into us all the way the Animaniacs do to those in the Warner Bros. studio. Their next foray outside the tower can’t come a moment too soon.

Listen: “Hollywood Baby“

2. Rat Saw God
by Wednesday


In retrospect, it’s pretty weird how sure I felt that Wednesday was about to radically ascend the indie rock echelon in 2023. 2021’s Twin Plagues was greeted with a warm but muted reception, and last year only featured a solo album from guitarist MJ Lenderman and a covers album. Both mighty fine albums, but on their own not really a sign of what Wednesday was about to do. So the first taste last December, the swirling vortex “Bull Believer,” showed that Wednesday was about to show off. The eight minute titan sends the band nearly teetering into shoegaze before the band shakes things so hard it nearly shatters. My god. Contrast that with “Quarry,” a relatively easygoing song whose verses remind me an awful lot of “Waterloo Sunset.”

Even aside from “Chosen To Deserve,” Hartzman litters Rat Saw God with gnarly images that reflect her upbringing: “There’s a sex shop off the highway with a biblical name,” “guns and cocaine from the drywall wrapped in newspaper,” “someone died in the Planet Fitness parking lot.” Hartzman sings and stitches these stories together and makes them sound especially strange and dreamlike, and the band’s muscle makes them come off as demented and dangerous as they really are. With Rat Saw God, Wednesday have immediately launched themselves from lovable underdogs to the absolute benchmark for indie rock in the 2020s.

Listen: “Bath County”

1. Guts
by Olivia Rodrigo


I wondered how Olivia’s second outing would be. Maybe she wouldn’t find anything as interesting or compelling as the breakup in SOUR. Had it been that she just had the one pouring of her guts?

I appreciated “vampire,” but it was “bad idea, right?” and “get him back!” that made me really thrilled about Rodrigo’s new era. She’s opened up her sophomore album with an incredibly loud Avril-type chorus. An awesome dream pop guitar sound supports “pretty isn’t pretty.” And “love is embarrassing” is a sugar rush of frantic electric guitar. Olivia Rodrigo has broken free of being a great Tayloresque singer-songwriter and has pushed “brutal” a step further to become the next great rock star. If the ballads ever feel like they drag the album down, it’s really only because the faster songs are really just that good. And the slow ones do have their place. Both “the grudge” and “logical” could sit alongside similar SOUR tracks, and the other two paint a pretty bleak picture about Rodrigo’s feelings about her life.

It’s unfortunate that GUTS largely points to Rodrigo being pretty unhappy. Other than “all-american bitch,” the most fun moments on the album all involve assholes or feeling out of place or making bad decisions. “making the bed” and “teenage dream” in particular sound like she is really struggling with her place in life.

Largely, it sounds like she’s asking questions of herself that don’t need to be answered by twenty-years-old, but it’s good that she’s asking these questions this early and seeing clearly enough to consider remaking her bed. But with GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo avoids the sophomore slump and then some. Maybe she’s having a bad time, but GUTS has given us a great one.

Listen: “ballad of a homeschooled girl”

The Next 15

11. Corinne Bailey Rae: Black Rainbows (Listen: “New York Transit Queen”)
12. Spiritual Cramp: Spiritual Cramp (Listen: “Talkin’ on the Internet”)
13. billy woods & Kenny Segal: Maps (Listen: “Soft Landing”)
14. Sufjan Stevens: Javelin (Listen: “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”)
15. Ratboys: The Window (Listen: “It’s Alive!”)
16. Ashley McBryde: The Devil I Know (Listen: “Light On In The Kitchen”)
17. Alex Lahey: The Answer Is Always Yes (Listen: “Congratulations”)
18. boygenius: the record (Listen: “$20”)
19. JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown: SCARING THE HOES (Listen: “SCARING THE HOES”)
20. Morgan Wade: Psychopath (Listen: “Phantom Feelings”)
21. NewJeans: Get Up (Listen: “OMG”)
22. Militarie Gun: Life Under The Gun (Listen: “Do It Faster”)
23. Blondshell: Blondshell (Listen: “Joiner”)
24. Victoria Monét: JAGUAR II (Listen: “Good Bye”)
25. Tyler Childers: Rustlin’ in the Rain (Listen: “Rustlin’ in the Rain”)

Further Top 50

Armand Hammer: We Buy Diabetic Test Strips (Listen: “Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die” (ft. JPEGMAFIA))
A. Savage: Several Songs About Fire (Listen: “Elvis In The Army”)
Avalon Emerson: & the Charm (Listen: “Astrology Poisoning”)
Bully: Lucky For You (Listen: “All I Do”)
Carly Rae Jepsen: The Loveliest Time (Listen: “Shy Boy”)
Caroline Polachek: Desire, I Want To Turn Into You (Listen: “Pretty In Possible”)
DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ: Destiny (Listen: “Honey”)
Fever Ray: Radical Romantics (Listen: “Shiver”)
Janelle Monáe: The Age of Pleasure (Listen: “Phenomenal” (ft. Doechii))
Jeff Rosenstock: HELLMODE (Listen: “LIKED U BETTER”)
Jessie Ware: That! Feels Good! (Listen: “Pearls”)
Jess Williamson: Time Ain’t Accidental (Listen: “Time Ain’t Accidental”)
Joanna Sternberg: I’ve Got Me (Listen: “I’ve Got Me”)
Kelsea Ballerini: Rolling up the Welcome Mat (Listen: “Penthouse”)
Liv.e: Girl in the Half Pearl (Listen: “Find Out”)
Lydia Loveless: Nothing’s Gonna Stand In My Way (Listen: “Sex And Money”)
Maisie Peters: The Good Witch (Listen: “Body Better”)
Mitski: The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We (Listen: “Bug Like An Angel”)
Paramore: This Is Why (Listen: “Running Out Of Time”)
Romy: Mid Air (Listen: “She’s On My Mind”)
Sexxy Red: Hood Hottest Princess (Listen: “SkeeYee”)
Speedy Ortiz: Rabbit Rabbit (Listen: “Cry Cry Cry”)
The Tubs: Dead Meat (Listen: “Wretched Lie”)
Troye Sivan: Something To Give Each Other (Listen: “Got Me Started”)
Zach Bryan: Zach Bryan (Listen: “Overtime”)

Honorable Mentions

Aesop Rock: Integrated Tech Solutions (Listen: “Mindful Solutionism”)
Algiers: Shook (Listen: “Irreversible Damage” (ft. Zack De La Rocha))
Baby Queen: Quarter Life Crisis (Listen: “We Can Be Anything”)
Bethany Cosentino: Natural Disaster (Listen: “My Own City”)
Be Your Own Pet: Mommy (Listen: “Worship The Whip”)
Billy Nomates: CACTI (Listen: “vertigo”)
Danny Brown: Quaranta (Listen: “Jenn’s Terrific Vacation” (ft. Kassa Overall))
Earl Sweatshirt & Alchemist: Voir Dire (Listen: “Vin Skully”)
Empty Country: Empty Country II (Listen: “David”)
feeble little horse: Girl With Fish (Listen: “Freak”)
Genesis Owusu: STRUGGLER (Listen: “Stay Blessed”)
Gloss Up: Before The Gloss Up (Listen: “Bestfrenn” (ft. GloRilla))
Home Is Where: the whaler (Listen: “everyday feels like 9/11”)
Hotline TNT: Cartwheel (Listen: “I Thought You’d Change”)
Hudson Mohawke & Nikki Nair: Set The Roof (Listen: “Set The Roof” (ft. Tayla Parx))
Ice Spice: Like…? (Listen: “In Ha Mood”)
Indigo De Souza: All Of This Will End (Listen: “Younger & Dumber”)
Iris DeMent: Workin’ on a World (Listen: “Workin’ on a World”)
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit: Weathervanes (Listen: “Death Wish”)
Jelly Roll: Whitsitt Chapel (Listen: “Halfway To Hell”)
Jlin: Perspective (Listen: “Fourth Perspective”)
Kelela: Raven (Listen: “Contact”)
K. Michelle: I’M THE PROBLEM (Listen: “YOU”)
Kylie Minogue: Tension (Listen: “Tension”)
McKinley Dixon: Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? (Listen: “Run, Run, Run”)
MIKE: Burning Desire (Listen: “Burning Desire”)
MIKE, Wiki & The Alchemist: Faith Is A Rock (Listen: “Mayors A Cop”)
No-No Boy: Electric Empire (Listen: “Little Monk”)
Nourished By Time: Erotic Probiotic 2 (Listen: “The Fields”)
Overmono: Good Lies (Listen: “Good Lies”)
Palehound: Eye on the Bat (Listen: “Independence Day”)
Pangaea: Changing Channels (Listen: “Installation”)
Parannoul: After The Magic (Listen: “북​극​성 (Polaris)”)
Penelope Scott: Girl’s Night (Listen: “Gross”)
Rid of Me: Access To The Lonely (Listen: “Rid of Me”)
Robert Forster: The Candle and the Flame (Listen: “Tender Years”)
Ruth Garbus: Alive People (Listen: “Mono No Aware”)
Sampha: Lahai (Listen: “Spirit 2.0”)
Screaming Females: Desire Pathway (Listen: “Mourning Dove”)
Samia: Honey (Listen: “Kill Her Freak Out”)
Snõõper: Super Snõõper (Listen: “Powerball”)
Sofia Kourtesis: Madres (Listen: “Madres”)
The Hold Steady: The Price of Progress (Listen: “Sideways Skull”)
Veeze: Ganger (Listen: “GOMD”)
Withered Hand: All Of This Will End (Listen: “Crippled Love”)
Yaeji: With A Hammer (Listen: “For Granted”)
yeule: softscars (Listen: “sulky baby”)
Yo La Tengo: This Stupid World (Listen: “Aselestine”)
Young Fathers: Heavy Heavy (Listen: “Rice”)
Yumi Zouma: EP IV (Listen: “KPR”)

As always, here are two Spotify playlists. The first has my highlighted track from this article for each album mentioned (except Emperor X). The second has the top ten albums in their entirety (except Emperor X).

Joey’s Top Ten Songs of 2023

It’s rather disturbing to think that we’re less than a year out from seeing half-decade lists. I write contracts for my job and keep seeing “1/1/25,” and it really doesn’t seem real. Seems like a fake year. I often feel like there’s no way it’s been almost four years since mid-March of 2020, but at the same time so much has happened that only four years seems fortunate.

I’m just not ready for 2024. It’s going to be so mentally taxing to go through another presidential election. I finally moved to Minneapolis at the start of October, and almost the entire time since then, the IDF has been flattening Gaza.

Snow didn’t finally stick in the Cities until probably December 30, and while I really don’t like the snow and my mood’s been better, it does feel all the time like we are swirling down into something terrible.

But there is still music! The year in music was okay. Most people liked it better than I did. But even in a down year, there’s so much music that the absolute cream of the crop is just tops blooby. So once more we return to this. Happy new year. Perhaps if we say it enough, it’ll come true.

Ineligible But Worthy

“The Ick”
by Panic Shack

Panic Shack is awesome. Hopefully they’re about to produce a great debut this year, but I missed 2022’s Baby Shack EP, which peaks with single “The Ick,” which capitalizes on the recently popular phrase by having lead singer Sarah Harvey take great exception to a date who puts the milk in first and another who shushes her in the cinema. I’ll admit I’m a little curious what Harvey did to earn her shush in the first place, but her ensuing tantrum about it is one of the best punk vocal moments I’ve heard in a damn while.

“Tennessee Orange”
by Megan Moroney

It probably says something that the other best country song of the decade, Carly Pearce’s “Next Girl,” was also something I only got around to hearing when its album released the next year (perhaps that something is about my ability to authoritatively call something “country song of the decade”). Well, this song is quite the opposite (or simply about an earlier stage in the same cycle). Moroney’s softer vocal is just right for a love song, and it turns out that college football is the ideal vehicle for a modern Romeo and Juliet tale. My favorite moments are the bridge (“I’m learning the words to ‘Old Rocky Top'”) and that final kicker: “I still want the Dogs to win.”

Top Ten

10. “Shakira: BZRP Music Sessions #53”
by Bizarrap & Shakira

It’s already pretty random that Shakira scored her first top ten hit in sixteen years with, as the title denotes, an entry in a YouTube series, but that it’s the best diss track since “The Story of Adidon” is a development no one could have expected, though it makes sense given her personal life. Her recentish split from Spanish footballer Gerard Piqué is the context, and while it’s fun to listen to her roast him (and his new girlfriend) throughout the song, the success of “Music Sessions #53” is more because it’s all about Shakira asserting her power and value. And hopefully that attitude persists. It would be great if this was a sign of a resurgence for her.

9. “The Window”
by Ratboys

The heart of Ratboys’ breakthrough The Window is its towering title track, a heartbreaking song about how COVID kept frontwoman Julia Steiner’s grandparents just apart in her grandmother’s final moments. Not only was the sixty-year marriage cut short by the pandemic, but they were robbed of the proper dignity that had usually been allowed in those last days. But “The Window” doesn’t linger on this injustice and treats the window as matter-of-fact, no time for worrying about the particulars. Steiner’s affected vocal elevates “The Window,” and it climaxes with “Sue, Sue, you’ll always be my girl” repeated on the bridge. In 2020, I said “marjorie” was a perfect anthem for a year when we lost too many grandparents to COVID. With “The Window,” unfortunately, a fantastic song literally about that actually exists.

8. “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl”
by Chappell Roan

The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is largely about Chappell Roan embracing her queerness, specifically her love for women. There are plenty of great songs about this on the album, but “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl” is easily the bluntest, swearing off “all these hyper mega bummer boys” (in case you were confused about exactly what she was saying in the chorus). The evisceration of this man in the first verse actually reminds me of “The Ick” above (“not overdramatic, I know what I want” might as well be that song reduced to a single line), and the chorus is absolutely enormous, rendering “SGUMG” the banger of the year. Here’s hoping it warms up the Olivia fans in the spring. Speaking of.

7. “bad idea right?”
by Olivia Rodrigo

What originally came off as a pretty weird second single quickly embedded itself deep into my brain. “bad idea right?” is Olivia Rodrigo’s most infectious song yet, and it’s made more insidious by her most inadvisable moment also sounding like the most fun she’s ever had. Like, yeah, maybe two people can reconnect. But it’s fairly clear that’s not really what’s being proposed here. It’s a bad idea, fucking duh, and Olivia knows it, but most importantly, she really loves it. We hear her delight turn her talk-singing nearly into a whistle by “but I really can’t remember when,” and her brain goes “ah” so hard by the end that instead of a third verse or final refrain, we get a weird Jack White-esque guitar solo.

6. “Shit Talk”
by Sufjan Stevens

Man. I mean, first things first, if you haven’t read Sufjan Stevens’ Instagram post dedicating Javelin to his late partner Evans Richardson, do that. And then try to listen to this, his most glorious composition ever (credit to Bryce Dessner on guitar and Mina Tindle on backing vocals), the sort of climax albums seldom reach and usually never even aspire to. I wince at trying to guess what all is implied by Sufjan’s two verses. “I will always love you, but I cannot live with you.” “Our romantic second chance is dead.” The one clear theme is that obviously bickering is pointless when mortality is in the room, but “Shit Talk” is still hinting at further pain beyond even the death of a partner. But even so, “Shit Talk” feels very clear when it hits “hold me closely.” The ears perk up, the eyes go wide, the ducts fly open.

5. “Super Shy”
by NewJeans

Longtime readers will know that K-pop is not generally something I’ve made myself hip to. So please realize I’m not holding up “Super Shy” as the only K-pop single in years that’s worthy of one of these features, but instead as a come-to-Jesus moment (and no, I’m not given any credit for already loving “Gee”). Anyway! “Super Shy” feels distinct. It’s airy, breezy, lightweight. Its backing track has propulsive little video game sounds. Actually, that all sounds kind of like another song still to come on this list. But that song comes from an artist who, despite it feeling like she broke through this year, has not had much additional resounding chart success. That other song is lightning striking. NewJeans, a recent development in the K-pop hierarchy that you will absolutely need to pay attention to, tries the sound on in a more real-deal pop machine vibe, and the mopey-on-paper “you don’t even know my name, do ya?” hook sounds more like confidence. Is the consequence of shyness that this guy has to wait a minute? So A/Bing this with Steve Lacy, my belief that NewJeans are authentically super shy is rather shaken. But authenticity is for losers, and “Super Shy” is a fresh context for these enduring concepts.

4. “namesake”
by Noname

Look, this is a pretty good song for a lot of it. Then Noname brings up the NFL and Jay-Z. And look, yeah, the NFL’s promotion of the military industrial complex is a pretty fire thing to bring up in a rap song. And yeah, sure, fuck Jay-Z, not really a shocking guy to hate on, he’s pretty content to be a punchline. But Noname brings in Rihanna. She brings in Beyoncé. And she brings in Kendrick. These are three of the most beloved names in music, and it’s not really just that she disrespects them. Noname makes them sound small. Unimportant. And she is hypnotically gleeful about it, her smile bouncing around the end of this song like the Cheshire Cat’s. You’ll see “propaganda for the military complex” quoted in a lot of blurbs about this song, but for me it’s more about the way she hits those syllables.

Also, that bit about “the same gun that shot Samir in the West Bank” hits a little harder since release.

3. “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2”
by PinkPantheress & Ice Spice

This is about the most you’ll catch me stretching my strict year-of-release rules. Around half of “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2” was already figured out in the November 2022 release “Boy’s a liar.” That part one actually peaked at #38 on the UK charts but didn’t appear on the Hot 100. You’ll note that the difference between a modest chart success and the out-of-nowhere smash of 2023 (non-country division) is Ice Spice. Her more self-assured verse contrasts PinkPantheress’s more devastated sincerity: “Bet he blowin’ her back/Thinkin’ ’bout me ’cause he know that it’s fat.” It’s just a crazy moment of pop alchemy that hasn’t just worked, but worked wonders.

PS: I might actually like this song better if it was like it sounds and PP is telling us “that boy’s a Leo,” tapping into the recent online astrology craze. That said, I have no idea if the song’s subject is actually exhibiting Leo-like behavior.

PPS: “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2” is the second song in the Joey Daniewicz canon featuring two women who finally realize some guy doesn’t care about them, the other being what I called the #1 song of 2020, Bree Runway and Yung Baby Tate’s “DAMN DANIEL.” Despite being about basically the same thing, the two songs could not possibly be more different.

2. “Not Strong Enough”
by boygenius

“Not Strong Enough”‘s first verse (courtesy Phoebe) introduces a pretty standard “running into poor mental health in the standard everyplace” setup but pulls the rug out in the second (courtesy Julien): “I lied! I am/Just lowering your expectations.” It’s a delightful betrayal in the moment, but it raises a pretty knotty question about the possibility of taking space giving way to lack of accountability in a partner. And while it’s unclear if this thought is turned squarely inward or outward, that epic, repeated bridge line, “Always an angel, never a god,” hints at a gendered dynamic. That bridge and the finale (courtesy Lucy) feel cleansing, like a heightened moment of awareness (“there’s something in the static, I think I’ve been having revelations”). “Go home alone” is framed as a new development, perhaps the manipulator from the second refrain has been dropped.

Or, I dunno. That’s what I got from this song. Thank you for humoring me. You might have gotten something else entirely. It’s a tough one to penetrate. I really just think the guitars and harmonies hit in just the perfect way to totally justify the boygenius project, which has somehow massively raised the profile of each individual artist. My favorite moment in their well-deserved banner year.

1. “Chosen to Deserve”
by Wednesday

Couples aren’t really obligated to report to each other if they, say, were present for a friend overdosing on Benadryl when they were a teenager, but Karly Hartzman clearly holds some shame she’d be relieved to unload in her relationship. But there’s still no doubt in her framing. Her partner was chosen. She’s saying “thank God” in the same breath she’s remembering pissing in the street.

And if this is the extent of Hartzman’s rap sheet, she’s right not to worry. Still, it’s all a little gross, right? The Benadryl, the piss, the…sex underneath the dogwood tree sounds almost romantic without the details about the cul-de-sac and the SUV. And that she teaches at the Sunday school during all of this?

The Benadryl verse is what really stays with me. First of all, it sounds like a pretty pathetic way to get high. Secondly, Hartzman’s voice is scary, like the way she rises into “he had to get his stomach pumped.” But I really linger on the way she sings “they took him,” something about Hartzman’s delivery setting in my mind that her friend was practically a bag of meat before medical intervention.

“Chosen To Deserve” is the best song of the year not just because of its novel concept and vivid origin stories, but because Hartzman’s vocal delivery slowly crawls over every detail and, it must be mentioned, that guitar riff is incredible. There has been absolutely nothing this year that I’ve enjoyed listening to more than those meaty guitar bursts, and that takes “Chosen To Deserve” from a great song to my favorite of the year.

The Next 15

11. Alex Lahey: “You’ll Never Get Your Money Back”
12. Chappell Roan: “Casual”
13. Olivia Rodrigo: “get him back!”
14. Olivia Rodrigo: “love is embarrassing”
15. Water From Your Eyes: “Barley”
16. Troye Sivan: “Rush”
17. Kylie Minogue: “Padam Padam”
18. Maxine Ashley: “Somebody Else”
19. Emperor X: “An Objection to the Location of the Entrance to the Girard Ave. ACME (for SEPTA and PRA)”
20. Maisie Peters: “Watch”
21. Sufjan Stevens: “Goodbye Evergreen”
22. Megan Moroney: “Sleep On My Side”
23. Victoria Monét: “On My Mama”
24. Armand Hammer (ft. El-P): “The Gods Must Be Crazy”
25. Carly Rae Jepsen: “Psychedelic Switch”

Honorable Mentions

Ava Max: “One Of Us”
Big Thief: “Vampire Empire”
Billie Eilish: “What Was I Made For?”
billy woods & Kenny Segal (ft. Danny Brown): “Year Zero”
Björk (ft. Rosalía): “oral”
Blondshell: “Salad”
Jeff Rosenstock: “FUTURE IS DUMB”
Maisie Peters: “Lost The Breakup”
Mannequin Pussy: “I Got Heaven”
Mitski: “My Love Mine All Mine”
Nourished By Time: “Daddy”
YAOSOBI: “IDOL”
100 gecs: “Frog on the floor”
100 gecs: “I got my tooth removed”

And as always, here are Spotify playlists to go with this feature, first of all the songs listed and then of just the top ten.

Joey’s Top Fifteen TV Shows of 2022

I know I tend to stick to ten with these, but I was too heartbroken by the things I’d have had to leave off this list that I’ve expanded to fifteen. This is in part because I watched a crapload of TV this year – I watched well north of forty shows from this year – but also because 2022 wildly surpasses 2020 and 2021 to the point where it felt unfair to feature 2021’s #10 but not 2022’s #15.

Before I begin, let me mention a few shows that wrapped things up in 2022. The Expanse finished its run with two episodes this year, and while it ended well it’s a shame they’re not continuing to the final third of the source material. Station Eleven and Yellowjackets each had three episodes this year, with Station Eleven finishing its limited run spectacularly and Yellowjackets setting things up for its return this coming March. Ranking of Kings narrowly missed this list wrapping up its fantastic first season, but I mostly wanted to mention it because its 2022 OP is so cool. Check that out.

Finally, 2021 made me think that the future of television would be defined by the miniseries. Then 2022 proceeded to have almost zero miniseries. Go figure! Long live the long-running series.

This is the last of my 2022 lists. Thanks so much for reading. If you haven’t, be sure to check out my top songs, albums, and TV episodes of the year. See you next year for the next round.

15. The Rehearsal
season 1
6 episodes
stream: HBO Max

The Rehearsal‘s first episode, in which Nathan Fielder helps a guy have an uncomfortable conversation through extravagantly realistic rehearsals, is enthralling, but The Rehearsal quickly pivots to deeper scenarios. The show can feel a little stuck in the mud with Fielder’s parental rehearsal, making all side plots feel greatly refreshing. But the A-plot still goes to some pretty confounding places, and the finale properly interrogates the ethics of the show even if the announcement of a second season might cheapen that a bit. Problems aside, there is nothing like this show, not even close, and I’m fascinated to see how it manages to disappear up its own ass even further next time around.

14. The Owl House
seasons 2 & 3
22 episodes (41 total, 12 in 2022)
stream: Disney+

Finally. For so long now, The Owl House, essentially Gravity Falls if it was an isekai into a wizarding world, has been promising pretty big things, and while it’s been a joy to watch it chip along, it’s withheld its deepest secrets and taken great care to not reveal the obviously dark places it was sure to go. No longer. The Owl House has finally lined up all its dominos and revealed its endgame. It’s just a shame that Disney Channel has contracted its final act. In related news, things continue to get gayer.

13. For All Mankind
season 3
10 episodes (30 total)
stream: Apple TV+

Here we go. This is surely one of the great things they had in mind when they made For All Mankind, a piece of speculative fiction about a space race that never ended. This is where its historical fiction crashes into its science fiction and sees a three-way race to Mars. Though the show has sometimes lacked the perverse delight in twisting history found in its first season, For All Mankind‘s third season is easily its most fun and contains its most brazen historical twist yet.

12. Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
season 3
13 episodes (37 total)
stream: Crunchyroll

Kaguya has spent the last couple seasons establishing itself as one of the strongest still-running anime, but its third season – subtitled Ultra Romantic – elevates the show from great to classic. This show, a romantic comedy where the leads are engaged in a Death Note-like game of cat mouse, can only get away with its bullshit for so long without meaningfully rolling the ball forward. Kaguya‘s epic school festival arc rolls that ball just brilliantly, though it remains to be seen how its hook can survive such a progression. Manga readers promise that Kaguya will remain a classic up until its end.

11. Mob Psycho 100
season 3
12 episodes (37 total)
stream: Crunchyroll

Though One-Punch Man got more eyeballs, Mob Psycho 100 has proven to be mangaka ONE’s masterpiece, its premise fuller and its adaptation more wholly realized. Awkward junior high schooler Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama has the most powerful psychic powers in the world, and instead of seeking to conquer his talent and build his life through that God-given path, he instead chooses to work on his weaknesses, working hard to improve his body and gain social ability. Mob‘s third and final season continues to dazzle with its unique perspective on what it means to really work on oneself. And quite appropriately, the climaxes of its lengthy arcs are less wowing than the ending of a humble, two-episode story. Mob Psycho 100 ends its run as one of the most significant anime of the last ten years.

Also, just look at that intro. One of the finest I’ve ever seen.

10. Smiling Friends
season 1
9 episodes
stream: HBO Max

Netflix import Tuca & Bertie aside, it feels like Adult Swim’s animated comedy canon hasn’t had any new entries since Rick & Morty premiered… almost ten years ago??? But unlike Rick & Morty‘s high concept Dan Harmon bullshit, Smiling Friends brings Adult Swim back to its basics: realistically awkward conversation, a creative approach that suggests drug-use either on your part or the writers’, and casually-employed insanity. The childrens’ show premise in which our heroes are part of an organization that sets out to put a smile on unhappy faces of course disintegrates quickly and is a fairly loose setup. Smiling Friends is most impressive as a love letter to the age of internet animation that bred it: Newgrounds’ Tom Fulp, David Firth of Salad Fingers fame, and Mike Stoklasa of RedLetterMedia are just a few of the internet personalities that have voice roles in Smiling Friends, and it’s an overdue reminder of the type of show that couldn’t really exist without Adult Swim around.

9. Industry
season 2
8 episodes (16 total)
stream: HBO Max

The hook of Industry‘s first season was that scores of recent graduates, among them our four heroes, were undergoing a competitive intern program at a premier investment bank in London. So Industry‘s second season sees them on the other end and has to find a new way to impress. Each of our main characters is put into a far different context, most notably in Harper’s pursuit of a major, eccentric hedge fund manager as a client that tests both her abilities and her loyalties. It’s hard not to compare Industry to Succession despite the difference in both tone and financial situation of its characters, but the main bit is that Industry‘s craft is around the quality of Succession‘s, no small feat. It’s not quite there, but Industry does provide it sturdy competition for the best show on television built around money and business. In part because its characters, though less monstrously harmful, are every bit as depraved and sick.

8. The Bear
season 1
8 episodes
stream: Hulu

The Bear doesn’t really have a hook. After his brother commits suicide, Carmy tries to use his culinary talent to make something of the Chicago beef restaurant his brother left him. There’s a lot to work with there, but don’t be surprised if The Bear doesn’t grab you right away. Expect the show to win you over on execution, especially in its wonderful final two episodes. The Bear clearly has things to say about the culture of cooking, which makes it very cruel how forcefully it makes you feel the anxiety of that work.

7. Reservation Dogs
season 2
10 episodes (18 total)
stream: Hulu

Though Reservation Dogs arrived last year surprisingly fully-formed, season two came rocking even more freedom and confidence. Our four Oklahoman reservation heroes find themselves in more interesting spots than before: the world’s creepiest man picks up hitchhiking Elora, Cheese is thrown into a Kafkaesque foster home nightmare, Willie Jack gets fed up with dubious decolonization lessons from a city-slicking “Young Elder,” and Bear…gets a job? And as the shows prophecy of California is finally fulfilled, it’s striking how easy things feel for Reservation Dogs. In an era where the best TV comedies have gotten a bit artsier and become a bit more dramatically focused, Reservation Dogs is at the vanguard.

6. Pachinko
season 1
10 episodes
stream: Apple TV+

Pachinko is the story of Korean Kim Sunja’s immigration to Japan in the 1920s and the lives of her family for the next two generations, and the show’s strength in depicting each time period reverberates. Though the show is at its strongest when depicting the Japanese occupation of Korea, this bolsters its 1989 story of Sunja’s grandson trying to convince a woman his grandmother’s age to sell her home to a large Japanese corporation. Pachinko is a wonder, and though I haven’t read its source material, it feels clear that season one leaves a lot on the table for what’s next.

5. Atlanta
seasons 3 & 4
20 episodes (41 total)
stream: Hulu

It’s a shocker to think that Atlanta is definitively over. Unlike other shows on this list that ended in 2022, it wasn’t apparent that this would be it until its fourth season was surprise-announced as its last. But it’s not surprising in retrospect, it had been four years since its fantastic second season, and a full quarter of its final twenty episodes – yes, this year’s offerings doubled the show’s length – shift focus entirely away from its characters. So while Earn, Alfred, Darius, and Van travel Europe, we also see a horror story about a black boy fostered by two white women, some white guy suffering the repercussions of real actual reparations, and a white-passing high school senior taking a flamethrower to his school when he’s denied a college scholarship meant for black teens. Meanwhile, season four takes everyone back to the titular city and gives us some final time with everyone. Atlanta goes out as arguably the most essential and imaginative show of the last decade.

4. Severance
season 1
9 episodes
stream: Apple TV+

Imagine if you could separate your consciousness so you were entirely oblivious to your work self and your work self knew nothing about who you were outside the office. How would your “innie” feel about this reality it did not choose? Severance‘s premise is dynamite, but just so harrowing, and its first season’s nine episodes are psychically brutal. The offices of Lumon Industries are instantly one of the most iconic prisons in all of fiction, and it’s hard not to shake the feeling that something like this is happening to you, too.

Though I liked some shows better, it’s hard to deny that Severance was the show that defined 2022.

3. Barry
season 3
8 episodes (24 total)
stream: HBO Max

Barry was once a show about a hitman who tried to escape his dark past through the joy of acting class. No longer. Barry‘s core relationships have all been a little too disturbed, and through the first half of the season it feels eerie and alarming to feel so disconnected from what once was. Then the show becomes all things: as suspenseful and explosive as Breaking Bad, as artfully contemplative as The Sopranos, and still somehow one of the funniest shows on TV in a style all its own. Its fourth season will be its last, but as with Succession, Barry‘s third season has become a defining moment where the show lifts from one of the best things on TV to outright modern classic status.

2. Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal
season 2
10 episodes (20 total)
stream: HBO Max

I actually wasn’t even excited for Primal‘s second season. Season one was a great showcase of Genndy Tartakovsky doing his silent storytelling even more stripped down than in Samurai Jack, but despite the finale promising something a bit more, I thought its ten episodes, all pretty self-contained, did the job well enough.

The second season’s first episode is really more of the same. But from then on Primal becomes an entirely new animal. Season one was all about caveman Spear and T-Rex Fang, each recently widowed, teaming up to kick some ass in a brutal world openly hostile to their survival. Season two is about love, revenge, saving lives, saving souls, Gods, evolution, slavery, civilization, death, and birth. With Primal‘s second – and presumably final this time – season, Genndy Tartakovsky once again establishes himself as one of the greatest working storytellers in animation. We can only pray that his huge creative deal with WB survived the merger from hell with Discovery.

1. Better Call Saul
season 6
13 episodes (63 total)
stream: Netflix (eventually 🏴‍☠️)

Better Call Saul may not have the dynamite premise of Breaking Bad, and Jimmy McGill’s known destiny might remove a layer of suspense from the proceedings. But Better Call Saul stands as a near-equal to its revolutionary predecessor for two reasons: 1. It plays with your knowledge and makes you suffer even worse than if you didn’t know and 2. Much of the team behind Breaking Bad is simply more learned now at how to make good television. Better Call Saul‘s sixth and final season is the creative team showing off. You’re reminded that even though it’s really not essential for this show, Better Call Saul is the best-looking long-running series there is, the knack for cinematography simply unparalleled on television aside from 18-hour-film Twin Peaks: The Return. The writers creatively approach the need to conclude the stories of both Jimmy McGill and Gene Takovic. Better Call Saul continues to be the most well-acted show since Breaking Bad, with Odenkirk, Seehorn, Mando, Esposito, Banks, and Dalton all giving way to unexpected MVP Patrick Fabian.

Better Call Saul‘s unique approach to its finale is one I’m still processing. It always had a hard job in front of it, by design serving mostly as prequel but also partly sequel. But I think its ending is at least as successful as Breaking Bad‘s great-but-not-all-time-great conclusion. But that’s more than enough to count Better Call Saul‘s sixth season as a wild success, a successor that rose to the occasion set by the titan preceding it and the greatest drama of the last ten years.

Honorable Mentions

Abbott Elementary, seasons 1 & 2
Amphibia, season 3
Andor, season 1
Blue Lock, season 1
Bob’s Burgers, seasons 12 & 13
Bocchi the Rock!, season 1
Chainsaw Man, season 1
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, limited series
Dead End: Paranormal Park, seasons 1 & 2
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, limited series
Hacks, season 2
Heartstopper, season 1
Pantheon, season 1
Ranking of Kings, season 1
Russian Doll, season 2
Stranger Things, season 4
The White Lotus, season 2
Tuca & Bertie, season 3
Undone, season 2

Joey’s Top Ten TV Episodes of 2022

Honestly, 2022 was such a strong year of television that it’s alarming to think of what little we had in 2020 and 2021. Clearly a lot of the best stuff was saved for the first full year of post-lockdown, and while I’ll celebrate the shows themselves tomorrow, here were the individual episodes that most stood out to me this year.

10. “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”
Euphoria
season 2, episode 5
stream: HBO Max

I’ve mostly found myself poo-pooing Euphoria‘s hype train. Though immaculately crafted, its plot is an absolute train wreck and it just generally leaves me feeling fairly gross. Before Euphoria turned in one of the most inept season finales in recent memory, “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird” was a visceral dive fully back into the plot that really keeps this show moving: Rue’s fight with addiction. Rue frantically running around town to avoid further addressing her struggle is enormously successful and for a moment justifies the large platform this show has found itself.

It does, of course, commit the sin of kicking off the hype cycle of Maddy vs Cassie, HBO’s second Cleganebowl, to put it unkindly.

9. “Shadow of Fate”
Primal
season 2, episode 2
stream: HBO Max

Up until this very episode, Primal had been a string of one-offs, with only very occasional gestures towards continuity. Its second season’s first episode felt like the language-speaker Spear and Fang met would only alter the locations of the action, seeing them struggle while crossing the sea. Then, “Shadow of Fate” proceeds to do absolutely everything. Fang finds herself in a relationship with a red T-Rex while Spear finds himself being taken in by a moderately more advanced civilization. The two plots collide, and it’s immediately apparent how much more complicated the emotions of this show would be from this point forward.

Also Considered: “The Red Mist” (season 2, episode 4), “The Primal Theory” (season 2, episode 5)

8. “The Fielder Method”
The Rehearsal
season 1, episode 4
stream: HBO Max

Nathan gets away from his fake household to teach a class on his method, but in trying to be a better teacher, he finds himself tumbling down a Kaufmanesque rabbit hole. When he returns “home,” he demands that his relationship with his son take on a gritty realism. Two of The Rehearsal‘s most memorable turns are both in this one episode.

7. “Nippy”
Better Call Saul
season 6, episode 10
stream: Netflix (eventually 🏴‍☠️)

There are a lot of ways to go with this slot given Better Call Saul‘s stellar final season, so I’ve chosen the episode most unlike the others: Gene Takovic’s black and white heist in a closed mall. This episode might have been frustrating given how little time they had to still wind things down for the show (only three episodes came after), but this was great showing off by a team that can’t help but make good television, culminating in the most stressful episode of the year in one that had Severance and The Bear. Though Gene sets this heist in motion to satiate the man who’s recognized him, it’s clear that the process sees him slipping back into the man he spent this series becoming.

Also Considered: “Rock and Hard Place” (season 6, episode 3), “Plan and Execution” (season 6, episode 7), “Saul Gone” (season 6, episode 13)

6. “Three Slaps”
Atlanta
season 3, episode 1
stream: Hulu

With “Teddy Perkins,” Atlanta began the trend that would come to define its third season: shoving the main story aside to just be bold. Inspired by the Hart family murders, “Three Slaps” follows young Laquareeous as he accidentally tumbles into the foster system. The white lesbian couple that adopts him puts him and their other black adoptees to work and feeds them like shit. Things deteriorate, and without getting too far into it, Atlanta makes the climactic scene with the van almost operatic. A dizzying episode of television.

Also Considered: “Crank Dat Killer” (season 4, episode 6), “The Goof Who Sat By the Door” (season 4, episode 8)

5. “Chapter 7”
Pachinko
season 1, episode 7
stream: Apple TV+

Though its 1989 plot dovetails so well in its fourth episode, Pachinko‘s strongest mode is when it’s following young Sunja in Korea and Japan in the 1920s. So it makes sense that its strongest episode focuses entirely on that period: “Chapter 7” takes place mostly on the day of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the Kanto Massacre of Koreans in Japan that immediately followed. But “Chapter 7” focuses on the backstory of Koh Hansu, who was up to some mustache-twirling manipulation of Sunja just an episode ago. Pachinko‘s use of the history of the occupation of Korea by Imperial Japan is a large part of what makes it such a great show, and “Chapter 7” sees its strongest foot forward.

Also Considered: “Chapter 4” (season 1, episode 4)

4. “710N”
Barry
season 3, episode 6
stream: HBO Max

Barry‘s third season is on shaky ground, and it knows it. Its status quo has been too upset and all of its characters aren’t in the houses the story had given them. So the moment Barry‘s brilliant third season snaps into place is when shit finally gets maximally chaotic. The motorcycle chase at the end of this episode is the best individual scene this year.

Also Considered: “candy asses” (season 3, episode 7)

3. “Dual Confessions, Part 2 / The Shuchiin Afterparty”
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
season 3, episode 13
stream: Crunchyroll

Kaguya finally gets to it. Up until now, the show has constantly reset to its status quo – that’s kind of its whole thing, really – and this stone is finally split in two. The tension of the moment is really earned, and the show goes all out in presentation, bringing back some key music and making all of its balls in the air crash down dramatically. “Dual Confessions, Part 2” is one of the most well-executed climaxes in all of anime.

2. “Review”
The Bear
season 1, episode 7
stream: Hulu

Oh, god. After a very cool montage of Chicago set to Sufjan Stevens, “Review” begins a single, unbroken shot of the kitchen to throw you into the chaos. The Original Beef trials Sydney’s new ordering system, and the store gets slammed when she fails to turn off the pre-order option. What follows is pandemonium, including two blow-ups and knife. And you’re trapped in the kitchen with all of this for about twenty minutes.

Also Considered: “Braciole” (season 1, episode 8)

1. “The Plight Before Christmas”
Bob’s Burgers
season 13, episode 10
stream: Hulu

Bob’s Burgers in its thirteenth season is a bit like King of the Hill in its thirteenth season: still very good, but no longer special and essential. But “The Plight Before Christmas” is yet another demonstration that this show steps up for its holiday episodes. Bob and Linda are in a pinch: Tina, Gene, and Louise all have Christmas events at the same time, and obviously between them they can only see two. Hearing that Louise just wants to gross out everyone at a poetry reading, Bob and Linda opt for the more wholesome offerings of Gene’s xylophone performance and Tina’s turn as a star – not the star, a star – in the play. But to their horror, they learn too late that Louise’s story was a cover for her doing a reading of a sincere Christmas poem she wrote.

In a year where Bob’s Burgers released a theatrical film, Louise’s moment of sincerity in “The Plight Before Christmas” feels like the show’s biggest landmark in years. “The Plight Before Christmas” makes a serious play for the show’s best holiday episode when there’s already plenty of competition for that, and it might be the show’s best episode. A fantastic note on which to end 2022.

Honorable Mentions

“Chapter Four: Dear Billy,” Stranger Things, season 4 episode 4
“Defiant Jazz,” Severance, season 1 episode 7
“Doomcoming,” Yellowjackets, season 1 episode 9
“Dr. Chaudhary,” Station Eleven, episode 9
“Driftmark,” House of the Dragon, season 1 episode 7
“Go Flip Yourself,” What We Do in the Shadows, season 4 episode 8
“Jerusalem,” Industry, season 2 episode 8
“King’s Tide,” The Owl House, season 2 episode 21
“Mabel,” Reservation Dogs, season 2 episode 4
“Morning Light Falls on You,” Bocchi the Rock!, season 1 episode 12
“Night Family,” Rick & Morty, season 6 episode 4
“Rix Road,” Andor, season 1 episode 12
“The Hardest Thing,” Amphibia, season 3 episode 18
“Transmission 2 ~Encountering the Unknown~,”
Mob Psycho 100, season 3 episode 8