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So far, 2018 has certainly had its televisual ups and downs. Headlining his season of The Bachelor, Arie Luyendyk Jr. justifiably became one of the most reviled pop culture figures from a franchise that is no stranger to the human dumpster fire. Over on Starz, Ashy Slashy hung up his boomstick for good when Ash vs. the Evil Dead came to a satisfying conclusion after three seasons of comic-horror mayhem.  The fourth season of iZombie ended its inconsistent and middling run with a finale that was, appropriately, inconsistent and middling. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Silicon Valley aired its best and, somehow, funniest season to date. Vida established itself as a proud voice of the LatinaX community, imbuing an authentic female gaze to a landscape in desperate need of one. Arrow is even still a thing on the CW, I guess? And that’s to say nothing of the glut of shows Netflix* dumped at our feet, a backlog I’ll be digging myself out of for years, it seems.

*New seasons of Santa Clarita Diet, Dear White People, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, as well as the documentary series Wild Wild Country, all rank high on my priority list. Two Netflix shows I did have an opportunity to watch in 2018–The End of the F* World and On My Block–were unequivocal delights.

Along the way, though, I came across 6 series that I found absolutely spellbinding*: a crop of shows that the rest of the TV world will have to work mighty hard to topple from my best-of-the-year list. Here they are, in no particular order.

*Full disclosure: I have yet to watch Killing Eve, which I look forward to with eager anticipation. It’s a show I have a sneaking feeling might have landed on this list–or perhaps bumped this one up to a seven–had I watched it. I feel like one can’t have a list like this without disclosing those water cooler shows that remain unseen, what with the overwhelming volume of content and all.

The Americans (FX)
With its final run of episodes, The Americans secures its place in the pantheon of all-time great shows. What felt truly marvelous was that the fantastically gripping plot over-aching the season — a faction of the KGB attempting to stop Gorbachev’s agenda of Westernization dead in its tracks during a summit held in Washington, D.C. — does not overshadow the very human storytelling that appropriately takes center stage. A three-year time jump to 1987 finds Philip out of the spy game but Elizabeth and Paige still immersed, under the direction of Claudia. But when Oleg returns to the U.S. wary of Elizabeth’s role in the Gorbachev summit, Philip finds himself, inexorably, pulled back into the life he tried to leave when Oleg enlists his help spying on her. This was always a domestic drama that happened to feature spies as its central characters, and The Americans reminds us as it draws to a close that there are no stakes higher than truly personal ones.

The fracturing of the Jennings family and the collateral damage that takes its toll on so many of these beautifully-drawn characters begins to resemble a Shakespearean tragedy as each installment unfolds and it grows increasingly clear that no one will escape unscathed. The final episode is perfect: quietly devastating, utterly impeccable, and brilliantly surprising. Emmys should take note and give this series the clean-sweep it deserves in all four acting categories (Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell, Noah Emmerich, and Holly Taylor), as well as the much-deserved prize for Outstanding Drama Series.

 

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)
The People vs. OJ Simpson was a landmark television event, without question the best work Ryan Murphy had produced up to that point. Yet, when he announced that the second season of his anthology series would take on the assassination of fashion mogul Gianni Versace, I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed. Early trailers suggested we were primed for a show taking on the opulence of the Versace dynasty, so I approached the first episode half-heartedly, expectations lowered. I’ve never been happier to have been proven wrong.

Instead of a straightforward narrative chronicling the rise and fall of Versace, we have a searing indictment of institutionalized and, perhaps even more damning, internalized homophobia. Using Versace’s killer Andrew Cunanan (a revelatory Darren Criss) as the lynchpin, Murphy paints a portrait of a fanatical killer whose emergence we should not be shocked by because he was an inevitable effect of society’s cruelly misguided fears and insecurities. Telling the story in reverse also gives us an opportunity to watch Cunanan’s evolution by way of his frightening regression. The themes are lofty and timely, but at its core, what makes this all work is the excellent writing, acting, and directing that frame ambitions far greater than I ever anticipated. This is one staggering achievement.

 

Atlanta (FX)
Donald Glover delivered a second season even more successful than the first by challenging our expectations with each new episode. Tones varied widely, from the nostalgic and ultimately heart-breaking “FUBU” to the unnerving horror of “Teddy Perkins” (a contender for best episode of 2018). No two episodes were ever quite the same, except that they were all impeccably written, performed, and directed.

Dedicating entire episodes to Darius, Van, and Al allowed Glover and Hiro Murai to expand their world and perspective with these ostensible narrative tangents. Except, when placed within the context of what these episodes reveal about each of these characters, we quickly realize they’re not tangents at all. The two episodes that center most heavily around Al (“The Barbershop” and “Woods”) provide us with deeper insight into his character’s conflicting struggle with fame: to stay true to himself, his history, and his home while also braving the bold new world being afforded to him through his hip-hop success. Nowhere is this conflict more clearly crystalized than in his relationship with Earn, and the show handles the tension percolating between them all season long with surprising and satisfying results by the finale.

Masterfully blending drama and comedy, Atlanta is nothing if not true to its own carefully calibrated sensibilities. I’d hesitate to label it unequivocally with either term, so let’s leave it at this: it’s the best half-hour show on television, bar none.

 

The Chi (Showtime)
I’d like to make one thing perfectly clear: of the shows on this list, The Chi is the messiest and least polished of the bunch. It has a ways to go before it cements itself as the prestige drama is very clearly wants to be, so that begs the question: why have I included it here? The reason is simple: it has the highest ceiling and the most potential, wearing its aspirations proudly. So even when it stumbled narratively (one character’s quest for vengeance against the man who shot his brother twists itself into knots, for instance), I remained riveted.

Comparisons to The Wire and Treme seem the most obvious here because, like those two shows, the city serving as the setting becomes the most clearly drawn character in the ensemble (Baltimore, New Orleans, and, in this case, Chicago). Like both of those shows, The Chi also has a sprawling cast of characters that often overlap in interesting ways; unlike those shows, however, not every character in The Chi feels essential just yet.

If it seems like I’m being hard on this show, it’s because I found it gripping and enthralling in so many ways, falling just short of greatness. But with the pedigree in front of and behind the camera, it has the potential to get there, and I can’t wait to see that happen.

 

Counterpart (Starz)
What’s better than having JK Simmons in a starring role? Why, having JK Simmons in two starring roles, of course! If you’ve been looking for a show to scratch that persistent itch that’s been pestering you since Fringe went off the air, then look no further than this sci-fi spy thriller featuring parallel dimensions, dopplegangers, and one whopper of a mystery.

Revealing anything about the plot would be a serious disservice to those who have yet to watch, so I’ll abstain from highlighting story events here. Instead, I’ll laud the careful pacing, intricate narrative, and excellent performances grounding a show that resists, for the most part, what we might expect from a story like this. Sure, Counterpart recycles a few tropes (there’s a mole because of course), but the joy is in watching Simmons play both meek Howard Silk and alpha Howard Prime so perfectly that you’d swear you were watching two different actors. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that — even in a show replete with assassinations, double- and triple-crosses, and jaw-dropping plot twists — scenes with both Howards simply sitting down and talking are some of the most gripping in the entire season, precisely because of Simmons’ flawless work here. Do yourself a favor and seek this one out.

 

Westworld (HBO)
I seemed to enjoy Westworld in its first season more than most professional critics, but I can still say that its second — even with three of its ten episodes left to air — is an impressive improvement to the narrative and characterization driving this story. This success comes from a two-fold approach: increased engagement with the philosophical conceits underpinning the series, as well as a deeper exploration into Delos’s motivations behind the park.

While last year was sometimes bogged down by narrative threads that weren’t as intriguing as the rest (cough, cough Man In Black), that issue has been fixed. Maeve’s quest to find her daughter takes her into Shogun World with some of the best supporting characters in the show (shout out to my man Felix!); with the William reveal out of its system, the Man In Black’s story is morphing into something more fascinatingly personal; Dolores continues to set Westworld ablaze on her quest for freedom and choice; even Ghost Nation is comprised of characters far more important than the stock stereotypes we feared, in season one, they might be. This raising in stakes and refining of plot threads has given the show a relentless sense of momentum.

If you were confounded by the timelines from season one, then buckle in. This time — thanks to Bernard’s scrambled mind — the show jumps back and forth across more timelines that you can count. If this all sounds more work than it’s worth, rest assured that this is no gimmick. Time, it turns out, lies at the heart of everything. In embracing its inner Black Mirror-esque sensibilities, Westworld has become vastly more exciting: something richer, bolder, and more complex. It turns out these violent delights might have violent ends just yet.

 

Thanks for reading! Let me know if there are any other must-watch shows I might have missed in 2018.

If you’ll allow me the use of an outdated colloquial expression (and I think you will), 2017 needed to slow its roll, television-wise. Attempting to keep up with the glut of shows airing, streaming, or plummeting from the heavens like so much mana proved a Herculean task. Despite my best efforts, I never had a chance to put eyeballs on some noteworthy series like The Handmaid’s Tale or the fourth season of Black Mirror (recently dropped on December 29th) or Queen Sugar’s second season or The Runaways or… You get the point. But even so, even with these gaps, paring this list down to a top 20 was almost as difficult as finding the time to watch all of it in the first place.

I’ll tell you what, though. If nothing else, 2017 turned me into a savage viewer: I’ve never broken up with so many shows in a single year, but the fact is I no longer have the luxury of patience to see if a show will figure itself out. Like, I appreciate your journey of self-discovery and all, but I don’t have the time to match you step for step. That meant cancelled series recordings for shows like Nashville, Empire, and Chicago Med; cast shake-ups for Hawaii Five O disrupted its entire dynamic, so that one’s gone, too; Homeland needed to be put out to pasture for a while now, and this year I happily obliged. Necessary triage in this day and age.

I mean, you know it’s a cutthroat year of television when all of my adolescent dreams came true in Netflix’s revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and its pitch-perfect execution (coupled with heaping bucketfuls of warm and fuzzy nostalgia) won’t land it in my top twenty shows of 2017. Heck, even top 10 staple series like Game of Thrones, The Americans, Veep, and Fargo — while each of them still very good — had seasons that dipped in quality, booting them not just lower on my list but off it entirely. That’s right, folks, “very good” doesn’t cut it any more.

And then there were shows that consistently entertained me this year — a rejuvenated Doctor Who, for instance, and the haunting third and final series of Broadchurch — that narrowly missed inclusion here because the competition’s just too tight. The DC Universe crossover event Crisis On Earth-X (which turned installments of Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow essentially into a — mercifully Zach Snyder-less — 4-hour movie) was the most gleefully fun experience I had with TV in 2017; you won’t see it represented on my list.

That begs the question, then: what did make the cut? Well, look no further, for here they are, my top 20 series of 2017.

 

20. Dear White People (Netflix)

Timely, funny, and inventive, Netflix’s show explores issues like race and identity with sensitivity and insight as it follows the lives of students of color at a predominantly white Ivy League college. Plus, Giancarlo Esposito voices the disembodied narrator, so that’s top 20 fodder right there.

19. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)

Laugh for laugh, this might be the funniest show on television. The cast is, of course, wonderful, but it’s Andre Braugher’s Captain Holt who remains the series’ most hilarious character. Is it reinventing the comedy wheel? No. But, week in and week out, it accomplishes its goal of making us laugh until it hurts. The fact that this show is the on the verge of cancellation is mind-boggling, as its quality has only increased the longer it’s been on.

18. Shameless (Showtime)

We’re only halfway through this latest season, but I can’t get enough of the Gallagher clan. Frank’s transformation into a pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps blue collar worker and PTA-volunteer father has been a comedic joy, while Lip’s devotion to recovery and Fiona’s determination to achieve a better life ground the otherwise wacky situations with deeply felt humanity. Never change, Shameless. Never change.

17. The Crown (Netflix)

This show doesn’t just fill the Downton Abbey-sized hole in my heart but also explores, with impeccable craftsmanship, the price and weight of power. Claire Foy and Matt Smith are wonderful as Elizabeth and Philip, but it’s Vanessa Kirby, bringing a devastating pathos in her role as Princess Margaret, who imbues this entire season with a sense of resounding tragedy that feels, in its way, positively Shakespearean.

16. Catastrophe (Amazon)

Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney’s seriocomic half-hour series went to some dark places as it explored Sharon and Rob’s marriage, and the secrets that can tear it apart. The ending sequence is an absolute gut-punch that leaves viewers contemplating what the future holds for these perfectly matched but deeply flawed characters.

15. Stranger Things (Netflix)

I’ll freely admit that the unadulterated joy that fills me as I watch this show does, in many ways, cloud my critical judgment of it. Sure, episode 7 was a completely failed opportunity to expand the show’s mythology, but in the end, who cares? This second season was funny, tense, and memorable throughout, with a fantastic cast and more shots of rotted pumpkins than you can shake a stick at. For pure entertainment value, few shows rivaled this one in 2017.

14. Mindhunter (Netflix)

This one snuck up on me. I was left unimpressed by the pilot, which seemed more like a David Fincher Greatest Hits album than anything else. But as the show progressed, Ford, Tench, and Carr became a trio of characters I couldn’t get enough of as they toiled to redefine criminal science in the late 1970s. But it’s the manner of characterization — often learning about our protagonists indirectly through their personal response to criminal interviews — that makes this show something dark, twisted, and special.

13. American Gods (Starz)

Bryan Fuller’s ambitious adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s beloved novel is a complete visual marvel. Building off the aesthetic he honed for Hannibal, Fuller created an inaugural season that looked like nothing else on television while also honoring the tone of Gaiman’s book. Most impressively, he had the creative audacity to expand upon the source material and its characters, enriching these stories even further. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Ian McShane is fantastic as Mr. Wednesday because the man is a treasure.

12. Review (Comedy Central)

Andy Daly said goodbye to critic Forrest MacNeil the only way he knew how: with gut-busting humor and devastating pathos. Watching Forrest stumble through his day with the belief that he has awoken from a cryogenics chamber sometime in the far future (despite immediate evidence to the contrary) is a perfect encapsulation of his willful gullibility and devotion to this project. This is a character for the ages, one we should be using in the same sentence as Walter White, Tony Soprano, and Alicia Florick when we talk about the modern age of complex TV protagonists. I give the final season five stars.

11. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)

Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino (the husband-wife team behind Gilmore Girls) have crafted a beautiful ode to female empowerment and feminism with their story of Miriam “Midge” Maisel, a 1950s housewife living in New York City whose picture-perfect life is upended after her husband leaves her and then reimagined after she finds her voice as a standup comedienne. This funny, moving, and insightful show also features two of the best performances this year in Rachel Brosnahan as Midge and Alex Bornstein as her curmudgeonly manager Susie Meyerson. Marvelous, indeed.

10. The League of Gentlemen (BBC2)

One of the darkest, most unclassifiable British sketch shows of all time returned this December for three glorious episodes that returned us to the town of Royston Vasey. Three male performers — Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith, and Steve Pemberton — play most of the denizens of the fictional town and are game to portray them in varying degrees of grostequerie because, more than anything, this is a show about insularity, insecurity, and the ugliness of both. Of course, it’s also absolutely hysterical, even now two decades after it first appeared on our screens. If this doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I don’t blame you. But for me, this was just about perfect, no matter which side of the Pond you’re from.

9. Insecure (HBO)

Issa Rae has crafted a show that is universal precisely because her vision and perspective is so specific to her sensibility. I challenge any millennial — regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation — not to find something about this show with which to identify. It’s blisteringly funny and at times uncomfortably real in its depiction of adult coming-of-age, of finding one’s place and voice in a world that too often does everything it can to prevent that from happening.

8. Better Call Saul (AMC)

The final sequence of this season has haunted me since it aired, the culmination of events that bristled with tension, manipulation, and simmering rage. Jimmy McGill is hurtling toward Saul Goodman as we know him, and Bob Odenkirk’s depiction of that metamorphosis has been transcendent. Now that Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) is in the picture, the pieces of the puzzle that create Saul’s character continue to fall into place. The most significant moment occurred in one of the best episodes in all of 2017, “Chicanery,” a game-changing hour with an impact that will resonate for the remainder of the series.

7. Master of None (Netflix)

Aziz Ansari obliterated all expectations with a magnificent second season that broke free of the form he established so well the first time around. Sure, we’re still getting to know Dev, but Ansari wisely suggests that getting to know our protagonist means getting to know the world around him. This allows Master of None to dispense with convention and, for instance, follow a trio of New Yorkers we’ve never met before (and will never meet again) for an entire episode, or detail with beautiful affection Denise’s coming out story in the touching episode “Thanksgiving.” Few half-hour shows had the ability to surprise me as often as this one did, or to keep the quality so high with these much-needed artistic diversions.

6. American Vandal (Netflix)

If American Vandal had just been content to be a spot-on parody of podcasts like Serial and shows like Making of a Murderer, then this would have still been a top 20 entry for sure due to its eye for detail and hilarious central mystery. But that the story also becomes an exploration of the ways in which outside  perception shapes your sense of self (and no place is more rife with those pressures than high school), this series becomes something brilliant. Crude, funny, captivating, and ultimately melancholy, American Vandal does just about everything right.

5. The Good Place (NBC)

Singlehandedly saving the reputation of network television, Michael Shur’s The Good Place triumphs thanks to its brilliantly executed premise and lovable cast of doofuses. To that end, I would be remiss if I didn’t shout out Manny Jacinto as Jason Mendoza, who is a hilarious breed of moron so dense Michael frustratedly laments early in the season, “Jason figured it out?” But what makes The Good Place so remarkable is that we root for these characters; we don’t disdain them because Shur isn’t interested in satiric ridicule. His aims are much more ambitious for a sitcom, both in format (it’s the most serialized comedy on TV) and content, almost philosophical in nature: what does it mean to be human, and are our flaws the most important aspects of who we are? Throw in counterpoint characters like the demonic deity Michael (a phenomenal Ted Danson) and so-good-it hurts AI Janet (an Emmy-worthy D’Arcy Carden), and you have a show that is reinventing the network comedy while also forcing us to address those big questions we have about life, death, and everything in between.

4. Big Little Lies (HBO)

Based on Liane Moriarity’s bestseller of the same name, David E. Kelley’s adaptation is a masterclass in storytelling. This is a story about women: about the secrets they shelter, the hurt they hide, the facade they put out to the world for fear of being dubbed imperfect. Sure, there’s also an overarching murder mystery stitching it all together, but that’s just the hook, the window dressing. It comes down to the amazing performances, chiefly from Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern (though there’s not a slouch in the bunch), and the way these actresses infuse real humanity into their characters. Framing this all within the confines of an upper class California beach community — a setting best described as idyllic — only reinforces the show’s thesis about the ways we trap ourselves in the lives we imagine others perceive us living. From opening frame to closing shot, I watched in enrapt fascination, and it’s a show I won’t soon forget.

3. Better Things (FX)

Much like the aforementioned Catastrophe, I would call Pamela Adlon’s brilliant series a half-hour seriocomic. There are definitely laughs to be had throughout this show, as we follow single mom Sam Fox raising three daughters and working as an actress in Los Angeles, but what I treasure most are the moments of emotional truth: from Sam’s daughters staging a fake funeral for their mom to tell her how much they love her in the excellent “Eulogy” to the dance Sam choreographs as a gift to her eldest daughter in “Graduation.” There’s not a detail, not a line, not a moment that doesn’t ring one hundred percent true; this is authentic, character-driven storytelling at its absolute finest. I savored every second of this excellent sophomore season because, despite the title, there’s not much else better on television right now.

2. The Leftovers (HBO)

After a rocky start to our relationship with the hit-or-miss first season, The Leftovers left a lasting impression on me with its all-time-great second season and carried through on that promise here in its third and final run. There are no easy answers to be found here; this is a show about grief, about loss, about the nihilism of everyday life, after all. The impending threat of another Departure casts a pall over these eight episodes as characters careen off one another in a desperate attempt to make meaning of their lives, now so fraught with loss. The final scene is the perfect distillation of the show’s underlying conceit: do we chose to believe in the otherworldly, or do we dismiss it out of hand? What is insanity if not blind faith? Despite these heavy questions and often somber tone, The Leftovers also imbues these last episodes with bonkers weirdness that never once feels, somehow, anything but organic. Guiding us through it all are two magnificent performances: Justin Theroux mesmerizes as Kevin Garvey, but it’s Carrie Coon as Nora Durst, whose series-long struggle to accept her family’s Departure comes to a heart-rending and surprising conclusion, who delivers a performance that will go down as one of the all-time greats, in a show that stands as one of the finest televisual achievements of the decade.

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime)

Come on, as if there were any other choice? David Lynch and Mark Frost quite simply redefined the TV landscape with this third season of the seminal series. I can’t ever remember being so challenged, gripped, frustrated, amused, disturbed, or haunted by a show in the entirety of my television-watching life. Suffice it to say that familiar faces return, an entirely new (but still related) mystery unfolds, and Lynch dials the Lynch-factor up to 11. If you’ve been reading about television at all in 2017, then you’ve likely heard about the surrealist experimentation of “Episode 8,” which emerges as the best episode of television this year for its pure audacity and singularity of vision. The same can be said of the entire season: an unexpected, often harrowing, journey with few clear answers by the story’s end. Through the tale of Laura Palmer, Lynch means to paint in broader strokes about the unavoidable nature of trauma, the cruel cyclical trap of time, and the suppression and expression of our truest selves. Also, there is a talking teapot. For 18 mind-boggling episodes, I simply sat back, drank full, and descended. In the end, I emerged from Twin Peaks: The Return with a newfound understanding of what television storytelling can accomplish, which in and of itself is revelatory in this age when it seems we’ve seen it all. Lynch and Frost begged to differ, creating a singular experience that is easily the best series of 2017.

 

Thanks so much for reading! What do you think? Am I off-base here, or right on the money? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

“I hope I see all of you again. Every one of you.” ~ FBI Agent Dale Cooper

For the past three months, Twin Peaks: The Return has, rather quietly, not just been revitalizing the glut of televisual continuations overwhelming our programming (ahem Will & Grace) but redefining what a television show can accomplish with its storytelling. It has challenged, frustrated, delighted, terrified, and disturbed me in ways I’m not a gifted enough writer to convey, often because these eighteen episodes struck us repeatedly in the gut and heart, even when our brains struggled to keep up with the dream logic and Lynchian turns of narrative. While so many viewers clamored this summer to watch the battle for the Iron Throne unfold over on HBO, they missed the best show of the year and one of the most uniquely singular series I have ever watched.

Whether we’d like to admit it or not, the original run of Twin Peaks was always about darkness. Sure, Lynch and Frost prettied that up with small-town nostalgia, humor, and quirkiness, but if you strip those layers away, which the show did carefully over the course of those first two seasons, then the darkness lurking beneath was unavoidable, suffocating. Said darkness takes center stage during this third season. In fact, that’s the central motif of the series: the macabre lurking beneath the veneer of quaint normalcy. But, as Gordon Cole revealed in the opening minutes of the two-hour finale, there’s always a negative force out there, desperate to replace the good with terror and chaos. In Lynch’s world, this incomprehensible evil is called Judy, a commonplace name masquerading an almost Lovecraftian horror. The Coopers of the world, the Gordon Coles, the Major Briggses, they fight against it, however futilely. It’s the only choice we have.  It’s like Phillip Jeffries says to Gordon, Albert, and Coop in the Philadelphia field office: “We’re not going to talk about Judy. We’re not going to talk about Judy at all. In fact, we’re going to leave her out of this.” What choice do we have? We can give into it, harbor it within us as Sarah Palmer seems to have done, to drink full and descend. Or we can cross the very planes of space, time, and reality, in the name of goodness and strength, as Cooper has done, despite the inevitability of the outcome.

I don’t blame you if the last hour of Twin Peaks: The Return infuriated you. Twitter exploded in a conflagration of ire, as fans felt they deserved more definitive closure after being left with the season two cliffhanger almost three decades ago that seemed as if it would never find resolution. How could Lynch do that to us again, they cried? Well, the short answer is this: he didn’t leave us hanging, not really. Sure, he compounded his mystery (The Fireman’s tease of “Richard and Linda: two birds one stone” from the premiere finally found a cryptic payoff here, and the Palmer house seemed to once belong to an old gal named Tremont, a figure flitting in and out of Twin Peaks over the years with ties to the Black Lodge). Lynch never did get around to telling us what happened to Audrey or why Shelly’s new dirtbag boyfriend could suspend coins in midair. But what he did do, surprisingly and with the deft touch of a true artist, was tackle the cosmic questions always underpinning this series, even when we pushed them out of our minds to focus on the more fathomable murder mystery throughline.

But let’s not forget that there was a generosity to this two-part finale, too: episode 17 depicted a conclusion to the overarching plot machinations, finally bringing Cooper to Twin Peaks to have a showdown with BOB, or the floating orb he now embodied. Naido really was the new Diane. Lucy overcame her paralyzing confusion over cell phones. Freddy fulfilled his gardening-gloved destiny. The tie-ins with Fire Walk With Me and the Twin Peaks pilot provided a lovely cyclical closure to this story, as we watched the iconic image of Laura Palmer’s body wrapped in plastic fade from sight. Pete Martell never found Laura’s body because Agent Cooper, with the help of teapot Phillip Jeffries and the one-armed man, traveled back in time to prevent Laura from ever meeting up with Ronette, Leo, and Jacques, thereby preventing her death. It seemed, as the final minutes of the seventeenth hour loomed, that Cooper had fulfilled his mission: he’d found Laura, and he’d saved her.

Except, as he’s leading her through the woods, there is a bloodcurdling scream, and Laura disappears. Across town, in their living room, Sarah Palmer destroys the famous picture of her daughter with her bare hands. It seems Laura has escaped Judy’s grasp, that Cooper has triumphed and good has won out once and for all, even at a major cost (that is, Laura cannot escape her fate, not fully). Heck, even Julee Cruise croons over the end credits, her song wrapping us up in a warm, sonic hug. Not a bad way to end the series.

But Lynch and Frost know there’s more to it than that; such resolution to this wildly ambitious series, though deeply satisfying on one hand, would have betrayed not just this third season but the original episodes as well. In many ways, the dance between good and evil is an unending cycle. Look at the number 8 that floats from Jeffries’ teaspout (a nonsensical statement unless you’ve seen the series, I understand); turn it sideways, and it’s an infinity sign, an unending loop. Whether she’s trapped in another dimension or an institution as the result of her coma and assault, Audrey is stuck in a loop. Shelly left behind the abusive relationship with Leo all those years ago only to break up with the father of her child (a rehabbed Bobby Briggs) and fall back into old relationship patterns with another lying, criminal dirtbag. Heck, poor Jerry Horne spent most of the season lost in the woods. Other Twin Peaks characters broke their cycles: Nadine absolves Ed of his marital duty, and he finally proposes to Norma; Becky’s psychotic and abusive husband retreats to the woods, where he kills himself; Cooper breaks free of Dougie. So, while several of the plots didn’t have narrative closure, their connection to this theme provides them a closure of a type.

Which leads us to Cooper’s series-ending interdimensional travel, to his tracking down the Maybe-Laura in Odessa, Texas and whisking her back to her erstwhile hometown and childhood home. Sarah Palmer is not waiting for them there, just a confused woman (played by the real-life owner of that actual home). After the failed homecoming, Cooper and Maybe-Laura return to the street where they’ve parked. Cooper asks, “What year is it?” Maybe-Laura hears the wails of Sarah Palmer coming from inside the house, which promptly goes dark, and Maybe-Laura screams that bloodcurdling scream again.

Sure, it’s not a traditional ending, and it left me baffled upon initial reflection. But this is the true journey and responsibility of Cooper: whether future or past, reality or dream, his — and ours — is to fight on behalf of goodness and virtue. It’s a disorienting battle; grief, tragedy, and horror threaten to knock us off course, to make us question who we are out our cores because defeating these forces is impossible. So, no, we haven’t been left hanging. This isn’t in the same ballpark as Coop getting shot at the end of Season 1 or the chilling taunts of “How’s Annie?” in Season 2. This ending posits that the evil this show has confronted and explored isn’t contained within the confines of Twin Peaks though it does seem to emanate from there, so we must all be vigilant as we wage the war of good and evil that surrounds us and even threatens us from within.

Is it possible to break the cycle? The realist in us says no. But Coop isn’t a realist. He’s a romantic in the best sense of the word, and he won’t stop, no matter what the Black Lodge throws at him. He’s crossed realms of existence to try to save Laura Palmer. Just consider the title: Cooper returns, but Jeffries’s figure eight reminds us that to return is to start again. Maybe with a new face and a new name, not a thumbs-up or a hand outstretched for that next hot cup of black coffee this time, but a stalwart of goodness nonetheless, even when faced with certain failure. There’s comfort in that, despite an otherwise bleak, and perhaps nihilistic, ending. And that is Lynch’s genius. He provides us with a closure we never saw coming, but it’s one that, ultimately, feels just about perfect.

I know Coop hopes to see the Twin Peaks denizens again, but I for one (despite my obsessive love and adoration for this show) hope we do not. Lynch and Frost have created something special here, something as tragic and beautiful and profound as a dream. I’ll never forget it.

“This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within.”

It’s a tale as old as time: a soot-smeared Abe Lincoln type stalks into a radio station and chants some esoteric poetry in order to lull his listeners to sleep (duh) so that a recently-hatched frogbug can squeeze through an open window and crawl down the throat of a sleeping teenage girl. I mean, is it just me, or has TV just become so predictable lately?

I’m speaking, of course, of the eighth episode of Twin Peaks: The Return, which aired this past Sunday and featured David Lynch at his absolute Lynchiest: obtuse symbolism, chilling sound design, and a frolicking squad of ghost hobos abounded. The conventional plot–in as much as this show, in its original incarnation or its current one, has ever abided conventionality–was abandoned entirely in favor of an experimental film that depicted the origins of BOB and the White Lodge’s attempts to counterbalance his evil (I think?). Twitter had an absolute field day as audiences found themselves confronted with an episode of television so utterly baffling that was unlike anything that had come before it.

As the episode’s credits rolled and our favorite homicidal Abe Lincoln lookalike/emerging beat poet trudged into the desert darkness, I uttered only one syllable: “Whoa.” I struggled to make sense of what I had seen. The Giant floating in mid-air and shooting a ray of light from his head? A glowing orb with Laura Palmer’s face inside it? A Norman Rockwell-inspired nascent relationship between two teenagers? A frogbug? I couldn’t fathom how all of these visuals united into a coherent story. What did Lynch mean for us to take from this episode? At the time, I couldn’t answer any of those questions.  All I knew was that I had been riveted, disturbed, haunted, and invigorated in equal measure, to say nothing of my complete sense of befuddlement.

But that’s what I love about Lynch overall and his work here in particular: even if the narrative seems impossible to penetrate, I’m never not feeling. The mere sight of the Giant calmed me; the incantation at the top of this post unnerved me; the sight of the frogbug crawling into the girl’s sleeping mouth disgusted me. But if we step back from the traditional narrative and let our emotions lead the way, that’s when meaning emerges, if meaning is something you insist upon, that is. For Lynch, story and emotional response aren’t just synonymous; they’re inextricable.

Even in this era of peak TV, the best series are dependent upon some tropes. We expect an episode to connect in some way to what came before it, a discernible character to follow all the way through, a plot that abides the laws of nature and logic. Lynch denies us all of these things after baiting us with those opening minutes that do pick up with Evil Cooper and Ray driving after having blackmailed their way out of prison in the previous episode. But then those hobo ghosts show up, Trent Reznor performs at the Bang Bang Club, and our understanding of TV figuratively explodes before our very eyes. 

I’m not here to insist that you love Episode 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return (although I hope you did). I know many people won’t, and that’s the beauty of Lynch’s art: he’s polarizing in the singularity of his vision. But let’s set aside enjoyment for a second and just step back and appreciate that this episode aired on TV at all. When was the last time you felt legitimately challenged by an episode of television? I’m not talking about a show that traffics in the moral grey area of an antihero or dares to kill off its ostensible central character. I’m talking about an episode that, by its very existence, challenges your understanding of what episodic television can and should be. An episode that explodes your expectations of narrative storytelling. An episode that uses your emotional register to connect a series of seemingly disconnected images. Prior to this episode, I can’t cite another example. As a lover of television, I can’t think of anything more exciting than that.

In the absence of anything else, I think it’s best to heed Lynch’s advice: drink full and descend.

Twin Peaks: The Return airs on Showtime on Sundays at 9 pm. It is off for the upcoming holiday weekend and will air a new installment on Sunday, July 9th.

So you might have been wondering, as you hungrily devoured my latest post, where I had gone for so many months like a bear retreating to its cave to hibernate.  Rest assured, there was no hibernation.  In fact, just the opposite: I’ve been busy writing.

Most recently, a short story of mine called “Comfort Food” was accepted for publication at the amazing literary magazine One Teen Story.  It is currently available for Kindle download on a little website you may have heard of called Amazon.  Follow the link below to check it out, or you can wait patiently for the paper copy to ship in just a short while.

https://www.amazon.com/One-Teen-Story/dp/B00CA6BWOA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1476014651&sr=1-1&keywords=one+teen+story

As you can see by the wonderful cover art of the issue, I have a name and — spoiler alert — have had one this entire time.  I am neither, contrary to popular belief, a robot nor a C.H.U.D.  This is my blog, where I will continue to muse on the state of television, but if you’re interested in following my other writing, you can go to:

http://eddoerr.com/

So what did you think of my unveiling?  Dramatic enough for you?  What am I doing still writing? I have a DVR threatening to bust its veritable buttons.  Toodles!

Friends, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?  The calendar days might have changed, but one thing remained constant: my DVR stands at a mind-boggling 88% with no sign of shedding those extra pounds.  But what can I say?  It’s been an excellent fall television season already, and I can’t be the only one with a serious case of #tvfomo.  The next great series might be tucked away in some remote corner of the television landscape, and far be it from me to turn a blind eye to it.  The result is an almost voracious devouring of any- and everything my DVR can store.  Also, I still watch The Strain because I think I secretly hate myself.

We have so much to talk about, don’t you agree?  While I could devote a great deal of space to the pure enjoyment I’m finding in this second cycle of Scream Queens, or the complete bewilderment I felt after watching — and, for the first time in two years, genuinely enjoying — Arrow‘s premiere episode, or the hilarity of Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s opening Florida arc, I’m going to hone in on the new shows that I have added to my growing list.  Guys, am I a TV show hoarder?

Rather than contemplate the psychology behind my TV obsession, let’s get to it!

Atlanta – Donald Glover’s wholly original new series is a must-watch. He plays Earn Marks, whose cousin Alfred starts blowing up the hip-hop scene as Paper Boi.  The series is so specific and nuanced that Glover’s performance and world feel lived-in from the first frame.  Earn’s desire to manage his cousin might be the driving plot in these opening installments, but this show already aspires to be so much more than a standard sitcom, as evidenced by the brilliant second episode that finds Earn in jail after the events of the pilot.  Don’t miss it.

Better Things – If you loved Pamela Adlon in Louie C.K.’s masterful series Louie, then you will adore her brand-new show.  This time, it’s Adlon in front of the camera and C.K. serving behind it as she plays Sam Fox, a single mother raising her three daughters in L.A.  It’s a tough series to explain beyond that because, like Louie, it’s impossible to pin it down to a certain genre.  The tone varies almost from comedy to pathos to drama as it moves from scene to scene.  If you’re looking for a laugh-filled yuckfest, look elsewhere.  But, if honest and insightful storytelling is more your speed, then you’ve got to add this to your list.  #sorrynotsorry

Designated Survivor – In these tumultuous political times, we can derive so much comfort in having Kiefer Sutherland back on television.  This time, he becomes the President after an act of terrorism decimates the entire U.S. government, leaving him at the helm.  There’s not much else to say because if that premise doesn’t hook you immediately, then I’d advise you to see a doctor so that said doctor can confirm you have a pulse and are in fact a real-life human being.  Because KIEFER vs. TERRORISTS. #triedandtrue #presidentbauer

The Good Place – As far as I’m concerned, Michael Schur can film a psychotic toddler frying ants with a magnifying glass for twenty-two episodes, and I’ll be there.  Fortunately, his latest series is a tad more ambitious: Kristen Bell’s Eleanor winds up in an afterlife known as The Good Place, only to confess that she was selected for eternal bliss purely on accident.  The emotional core of the series is Eleanor’s attempt to learn how to be good in order to keep her place in paradise.  The show is inventive, wacky, and just a delightful way to spend twenty-two minutes each week.  Plus, Ted Danson.  Ted.  Danson.

Queen Sugar – Ava DuVerney’s operatic and cinematic series is a revelation, centering around a group of siblings who relocate to Louisiana in the wake of their father’s death in order to claim their inheritance: a sugarcane farm.  True Blood‘s Rutina Wesley leads a wonderful cast of characters, each affected in his or her own way by the loss of the patriarch while also managing the messiness of their own lives.  In its exploration of grief, loss, and moving on, this feels like the spiritual successor of Six Feet Under, just about the highest compliment I can pay a show. Impeccably paced and brilliantly written and performed, do yourself a favor and get lost in DuVerney’s instantly-excellent show.

This Is Us – I never thought I would come across a series that would fill the hole in my heart left behind when Parenthood signed off last year, and then along comes This Is Us.  The feels, you guys.  So many feels.  I’m not going to spoil anything here (the first two episodes end with great, attention-grabbing twists) beyond the fact that this funny and emotional series has, only two hours in, claimed my top spot for Best Network Drama on Television. So what are you still reading this for?  Grab your box of tissues and watch already!

 

Sorry for the additional DVR-related angst, but if I’m feeling it, it’s only right that you would be too!  Stay tuned for my next blog post, where I make a pretty big announcement!

At long last, my friends, the time has come to place the crown atop the head and a scepter in the hand of one lucky series.  You ready?

It might interest you to know that, while many other entries on this list caused significant deliberation on my part, this show’s place was a foregone conclusion. So, without further delay, the best series in my #top20in20 goes to…

 

#1: Fargo

Ya, you betcha this is the best series of 2015, don’tcha know? Brilliantly written, impeccably performed, and consistently unpredictable, Fargo absolutely blew me away.  While the labyrinthine plotting commanded my attention, I attribute the runaway success of this second season to the memorable characters Noah Hawley created, with Nick Offerman’s Carl and Bokeem Woodbine’s Mike Milligan standing out as all-time greats.  For a show that hinges on operatic depictions of violence, the attention to character — from the pitch-perfect dialogue to multidimensional treatments of even secondary players — becomes the show’s ultimate takeaway.  It also elevates Fargo to a level of storytelling reserved for the finest works of literature.

If you remember (and obvi you do because you have committed all my blog posts to your photographic memory duh), I also named Fargo the best series of 2014, but this second cycle managed — somehow –to improve on the first year in virtually every way, despite the fact that there were no discernible places where we detected the need for improvement in the first place. Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst as Ed and Peggy Blumquist serve as excellent centerpieces, while Patrick Wilson turns in maybe his finest performance as Lou Solverson, and I’ve never felt more endeared to Ted Danson as I did here.  These people, and so many more, ricochet off one another in surprising ways, which is yet another of Fargo‘s strengths: allowing the characters to dictate the direction of the plot.

But, lest you fear that the increasingly complicated and intersecting plot doesn’t leave time for the wonderfully weird diversions we saw in the first season, rest assured, Fargo still retains its strangeness: Bruce Campbell as Ronald Reagan, for instance, or those symbolically recurring UFOs, the meaning of which we could debate at length in future blog posts. Oddly enough, these fit in perfectly with the world the show creates.

The confidence Fargo exudes is infectious.  While season one acted like a jazz riff on the original film, with winks and nods to the source material peppered throughout, Hawley used all he’d learned from the outstanding first cycle to tell his very own crime story and, in so doing, has created a television masterclass.  Funny, moving, surprising, and completely satisfying, Fargo claimed my top spot because there’s not a single misstep or moment I would have changed.  It was, in short, the closest thing to television perfection we saw in all of 2015.  Ya, you betcha!

 

Thanks so much for sticking around for my little project here.  I hope you enjoyed!

I never thought I would utter this sentence, but here it goes: I’m prepared to announce the television equivalent of Joe Biden. #tvpolitics That’s right!  The reveal of the second best series of 2015 has, at last, dawned, so get ready to have your mind blown.

And the silver medal goes to…

 

#2: Review

Television’s best kept secret (unless you know me personally, which means I have harangued you until you agreed to watch so I would go and take my crazy elsewhere), Andy Daly’s Review has perfected the serialized sketch show. He plays Forrest MacNeil, a critic doling out up to five stars for real-life experiences — suggested through viewer write-ins — rather than films or restaurants.  Last year, his dedication to his show ruined his life: when asked to review divorce, for instance, he divorced his wife — then ate a triumphant thirty pancakes.  But this year, we get even deeper inside Forrest’s head, and — in getting to know what makes him tick — we come to understand him as well as TV heavyweight characters like Walter White and Tony Soprano. Daly’s created one pathological dude here, and we should all be so, so thankful.

The deeper down the rabbit hole Forrest tumbles, the more darkly hilarious Review gets.  In the premiere episode, Forrest and his assistant A.J. Gibbs introduce a season two wrinkle: the veto.  In a moment of atypical reflection, Forrest reveals that there are some reviews even he should have the option to pass on, so when the veto gets its reveal in the premiere, we know it’s bound to pop up later in the season. To no one’s surprise, Forrest’s squandered vetoes force him to ultimately review “murder,” and we’re laughing hysterically at the depths this show and character will plumb.  What makes Review such a miracle is that it is both the darkest and funniest show on television, a near-impossible balancing act pulled off flawlessly.

Along the way, Forrest reviews, to outlandish and gut-busting effect, having the perfect body, leading a cult, giving something six stars, relinquishing decision-making to a Magic 8 Ball, curing homosexuality, getting embroiled in a conspiracy theory, living as a little person, and more.  All other comedies — network, cable, or otherwise — can and should take note of Review‘s massive accomplishment because, in my mind, no other sitcom is in the same league.  Transforming the very nature of television comedy? Five stars.

 

Tomorrow’s the big one, folks: numero uno!  My apologies for my bilingual diatribe, but I’m excited.  Sorry I’m not sorry!  See you tomorrow!

Can you feel the anticipation crackling in the air?  That’s what happens when bronze medals are on the verge — nay, the precipice — of distribution.

Let me say that the three final shows that top this list are separated only by the slightest of margins, and those margins come down to my personal taste.  The quality of all three is, to my mind, unimpeachable, so you might quibble with my ordering here even more than before, but we’ll get through this.  I believe in the strength of our relationship, tbh.

Anyhow, here we go: the bronze medal winner of my #top20in20 list goes to…

 

#3: The Leftovers

Let me begin by saying that season one of this HBO series was not my favorite.  I appreciated what Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta were going for in their adaptation of Perrotta’s novel  — namely, a  riff on loss and the process of letting go — but the trail they blazed did not grab me.  It seemed self-indulgent in its intentional obtuseness, the symbolism evoking a sense of wtf-ery without any kind of payoff or falling flat in its clumsy execution (that damn bagel, for instance).  When the season ended, I did not intend to pick it up again.

I provide this context to convey to you how much the show’s second season improved over the first, and to assure you that I’ve never been happier to be wrong about a show than I am about The Leftovers.  Transplanting the cast to Miracle and pitting the Garveys against the Murphys gave us a narrative throughline we desperately needed.  But that’s not to say the plot momentum eclipsed the weird symbolism; instead, it gave it context and meaning while still managing to confound us initially (oh, hey there, dude slaughtering goats in family restaurants).  Even the season-opening cavewoman vignette linked to the season’s overarching themes.  I was equally entranced, confused, and excited by each episode — and, just like that, The Leftovers became appointment television and the series I had always hoped it would be.

There was so much to sink our teeth into this year, from the excellent acting by Justin Theroux, Carrie Coon, Ann Dowd, Regina King, Kevin Carroll, Christopher Eccleston, and the rest of the cast to the utter unpredictability of the unfolding story. Speaking of the latter, I would be remiss not to mention my single favorite episode of 2015: “International Assassin.” I refuse to spoil it here, but suffice it to say that I don’t think anyone watching could have predicted that, given the way the previous episode ended, the story would go where it did, but somehow what transpired made perfect sense. Such is the power of The Leftovers when it fires on all cylinders, which it did consistently for ten brilliant episodes.

If “International Assassin” marks my favorite episode of the year, then the season finale “I Live Here Now” captures my favorite scene of the year: Kevin Garvey’s emotionally fraught and off-key karaoke rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound.”  Shot in extreme close-up to achieve a rawness and authenticity of emotion, this scene continues to haunt me.  If you didn’t choke up, then you — sir or madam — are heartless.  Theroux deserves an Emmy nod (actually, a win) for that three minutes alone.

I don’t think this season of The Leftovers will ever leave me.  It has, with its gut-punching pathos, mystical imagery, and haunting meditations on the power of loss, left an indelible mark.  These ten episodes challenged us, provoked us, and moved us in profound and unexpected ways as only the best art can hope to.

 

Silver coming up tomorrow!  Hurray!  Any thoughts?

Remember this week on The Bachelor when Olivia went on a bizarre tirade about her ugly cankles and questionable toe knuckles like minutes after Ben announced that two dear family friends had died in a frigging plane crash?  (Btw that’s a trick question because of course you do.)  Seriously embarrassing stuff, right?

Once your personal “best of” list gets this close to the top, you’re likely to treat a dissenter much in the way Ben treated Olivia: with polite or, more likely, outright scorn.  Things get personal is my point.  Sure, we’re probably going to disagree, but maybe talk about your cankles a little bit from now, if you catch my drift.

I’m not sure about that analogy I just busted out, but any excuse to shoehorn in America’s finest television series is simply one I cannot pass up.  But seriously, Olivia’s a complete sociopath, right? #teamjubilee

 

#4: Transparent

Jill Soloway’s beautifully melancholic, wryly funny series suffered no sophomore slump.  In fact, Transparent exploited our familiarity with the Pfefferman clan to take these characters to new depths, whether that meant Sarah’s spinning out of control after pulling a surreptitious runaway bride or Ali’s coquettish relationship with UCLA professor Leslie.  But amidst the personal disasters that drive so much of the conflict, Josh’s newly minted role as Colton’s father and Raquel’s fiancee showed us new dimensions to that perennially frustrating character: some softened him, others confirmed our suspicions.

But Transparent does not deal in platitudes or soft truths.  Its characters are, by and large, a collection of hot messes doing their best to make sense of their lives, but in so doing, they stumble, they scar, and they disappoint.  Such is life, and the show’s pitch-perfect observation of the human condition makes it a revelatory series.

Much has, of course, been said about Jeffrey Tambor’s turn as Maura Pfefferman, and he carries that excellence into this second season unabated.  This year we find Maura — now that she has come out as trans to her family — struggling to find her place. We knew her cohabitation with ex-wife Shelly was doomed from the start, but seeing Maura branch out from the comfort of that routine makes for fascinating viewing.  My favorite moment — and one of the most telling for her character — occurs at the end of the second episode: Maura, initially uncomfortable out with her friends, finally casts her inhibitions aside and, staring into a mirror, dances alone to the pulsating music.  It’s beautiful and incredibly moving, the kind of small moment that Transparent can, time and time again, extrapolate into metaphor.

Gender and sexual identity lie at the heart of Transparent, but the specificity with which it depicts its characters’ struggles produces a true universality as it explores the very nature of identity to heart-breaking, gorgeous, and transcendent effect.  Do yourself a favor, and don’t miss it.

 

Tomorrow, I will crown the third place finisher with a bronze medal that I don’t have.  Trophy time, folks!  #top20in20