Best Episodes of the Season | Jmunney's Blog

Best Episode of the Season: 30 Rock Season 7

May 25, 2013

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Season Analysis: Given 30 Rock’s nature as a well-oiled joke factory, it was a pleasant surprise that it spent its final season wrapping up all its character arcs in the most emotionally satisfying ways possible.

“Last Lunch”
If the finale of 30 Rock had a thesis statement, it was represented by the scene of Liz talking with Tracy at the same strip club they visited in the pilot. These characters are going their separate ways, just as they are going their separate ways from viewers. They may promise to reunite with each other, and they may really mean it, but life gets in the way, and so those promises do not always work out. Liz Lemon does mean it when she makes that promise, despite all the grief that Tracy Jordan gave her when they were working together. Her sincerity, gratifying though it is, may do nothing to make a reunion any more likely. So that is why she tells him that she is going to miss him, and she tells him as hard as she possibly can. We already miss you, 30 Rock, and it sounds like you miss us, too.

Best Episode of the Season: American Horror Story: Asylum

May 25, 2013

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Season Analysis: AHS: Asylum had enough intriguing setpieces, probing philosophical quandaries, and stellar acting to offset the (relatively little) nonsense.

“I Am Anne Frank, Pt. 2”
The Anne Frank storyline – like much of American Horror Story – seemed extraneous by season’s end, though it was fun while it lasted. But the storyline that gives this episode its title wasn’t even what made it a great episode. Rather, it was a series of moments that established how the rest of the season was going to spiral outward and forward: Dr. Arden threatens Sister Jude, who falls back to her old alcoholic ways; Dr. Thredson reveals himself as Bloody Face as he traps Lana in his basement; and in the scariest shot of the season, Shelley is discovered hiding in the stairwell by a school playground, a grotesque, mangled abomination of her former self.

Honorable Mention: “Unholy Night,” thanks to the immortal line, “There is no god, but there is a Santa Claus.”

Best Episode of the Season: Parenthood Season 4

May 25, 2013

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Season Analysis: Despite its huge roster of main characters, Parenthood is easier than most shows to jump into at any point, if my experience is to be trusted. Most storylines were perfectly pleasant, but Lauren Graham has had too many messy love life storylines at this point (and I’m saying this as someone who only started watching this season), although at least Ray Romano was brought on board to give a solid performance for that arc.

“There’s Something I Need to Tell You”
Whenever I think about saying, “I don’t know what specific details made this episode so good, but I know I liked it overall,” I make it a point to go back and remind myself of the details. But in the case of Parenthood, I think it is actually appropriate to say that I am not sure what details of this episode made it so good. That is because there is always a multitude of storylines going on, and most episodes do not have a strict beginning or end to any of those storylines, and the same solid level of quality is consistently maintained over each episode. I do know that I enjoyed “There’s Something I Need to Tell You” more than any other episode of Season 4 of Parenthood. That probably had something to do with Kristina telling her family members about her cancer, which was something that had to happen and of course those moments were going to be heartwarming. But other than that, it is hard to say that there was something more than just some ineffable quality that made this episode better than all the others.

Best Episode of the Season: Fringe Season 5

May 25, 2013

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Season Analysis: The final season of Fringe was definitely not for new viewers, but it wasn’t exactly a “let’s just reward long time viewers” situation either. The 2036-set Season 5 was kind of its own thing, and Fringe ultimately proved to be the latest example how a time jump can reinvigorate a TV series.

“Through the Looking Glass and What Walter Found There”
Fringe has always excelled at backstory-filling episodes, and “Through the Looking Glass…” was no exception. Taking visual and thematic cues from M.C. Escher and (as indicated by the title) Alice in Wonderland, this episode finds Walter being led by one of the tapes he left himself to a pocket universe in an apartment building. The use of old videotaped footage in Fringe has always given me a Lost vibe, as the Dharma Initiative videos set the gold standard in that area. This particular episode ramped up that feeling, as the point of this episode’s video was instruction, and like the instruction of the Dharma videos, all the details seem so arbitrary. But the fun of Fringe and Walter Bishop in particular is that each odd detail actually does have a point. That goofy walking actually does lead to opening up the portal to the pocket universe. This episode also sets the chilling tone for the arc of Peter with the Observer implant in his brain, establishing just how much his existence has been affected by that decision.

Best Episode of the Season: The League Season 4

May 25, 2013

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Season Analysis: Having never watched The League before this season, but having been familiar with Nick Kroll, Paul Scheer, and Mark Duplass, it was surprising to discover that Jon Lajoie is the best member of this cast. The other revelation of this season was that Brooklyn Decker is a talented – and scary – comedic actress.

“The Anchor Baby”
To further my argument that Jon Lajoie is the best member of the cast of The League despite being the smallest name, I present as evidence “The Anchor Baby,” in which Taco moves into a dead psychologist’s apartment and keeps his practice running. Taco is such a brilliant character because he fits the archetype of the wise fool. Nobody else would think to take over a dead doctor’s practice, because its sounds like a horrible idea, but when Taco does it … it still proves to be a horrible idea, but at least he got everyone involved and a good time was had by all. Besides, the pinnacle of success comes after many failures, and if one wants to succeed, one cannot be afraid of that failure, and Taco represents that perspective perfectly.

Best Episode of the Season: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 8

May 25, 2013

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Season Analysis: I had heard that Season 8 of Sunny was heavy on callbacks to previous seasons, which I wouldn’t really know, because I didn’t watch the show back then. And I’m not sure what the point of all that would have been anyway. Anyway, I don’t know if I’d go out of my way to recommend this show at this point, but it’s definitely still enjoyable and may have even hit a series high point this year.

“The Gang Gets Analyzed”
The Always Sunny gang is obviously the gift the keeps on giving for armchair psychologists, and “The Gang Gets Analyzed” is a pinnacle of the series for acknowledging as much. Like my pick for the best of the previous season (“Chardee MacDennis”), Season 8’s tops is also a bottle episode. It is fun to watch people from the outside world deal with the insanity from Paddy’s Pub, but when you stick them in a room just the five of them – or in this case, one other person – that is when the crazy sparks really start to fly. Of course the reason for a grand psychoanalysis of the gang actually happening would not be because these people actually realize they need help and the real reason would be something trivial like forcing Dee’s therapist to decide whose job it is to do the dishes. Each session serves as a showcase for each of the principal actors (helped along by the vastly underrated Kerri Kenney Silver as the therapist) – Rob McElhenney strikes at the bizarre with Mac’s truly unique body issues, Charlie Day displays legitimate psychological growth in a perfectly Charlie fashion, Glenn Howerton shows that he is the master at playing your friendly everyday psychopath, and Kaitlin Olson proudly presents her acting (that is, lying) skills. But it is Danny DeVito who gives the most masterful performance, as Frank goes from spitting pistachios to show his disdain for therapy to then, essentially unprompted, spilling his guts about his first love – a girl “who thought she was a spaceman with a plastic bag for a helmet.” This episode serves as the ultimate statement on the truly wild psyches of these individuals, not because it does anything to fix their issues, but because it clarifies how doing so would be essentially impossible given the fact that how they live their lives is so far beyond any normal human interaction.

Best Episode of the Season: Gossip Girl Season 6

May 21, 2013

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Season Analysis: I have never watched any other show that declined in quality as dramatically as Gossip Girl did in its final season.

“New York, I Love You XOXO”
Much of the series finale of Gossip Girl chose to ignore what had happened in Seasons 3-6, and it was one of those rare cases in which that was actually the right decision. A lot of Seasons 3-5 was awful, as was all of Season 6 prior to the finale. To enjoy the finale required forgetting all those low points, which I was perfectly willing to do. The revelation of Dan as Gossip Girl made a good deal of sense, despite probably making hardly any sense if held up to scrutiny. But it was a much more intriguing, and entertaining, decision than something along the lines of “Gossip Girl was nobody” or “Gossip Girl was all of us.” At least Dan’s Great Gatsby-esque explanation of how Gossip Girl allowed him to insinuate himself into the Upper East Side was thematically consistent with the series as a whole. Much of the finale made little to no sense – the final romantic pairings, for one thing, felt far from earned – but it least it all had an air of ridiculousness to it. And the reactions of various New Yorkers to the Gossip Girl revelation were gold, particularly due to Michael Bloomberg’s mere presence and Kristen Bell’s mere on-camera presence.

Best Episode of the Season: Up All Night Season 2

May 20, 2013

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Season Analysis: Before the behind-the-scenes mess that was Up All Night’s hiatus that never ended, the show itself was already a mess during Season 2. Doing away with “The Ava Show” removed all reasons for the existence of Maya Rudolph’s character and led to the departure of a perfectly decent supporting cast member in Jennifer Hall. And it’s not like Will Arnett and Christina Applegate’s storylines were anything special, either.

“Jerry Duty”
This episode was the rare (perhaps only) Season 2 episode of Up All Night that wasn’t about nothing. Not about nothing in the good, Seinfeld sense, but in the worst possible sense of that description. As in, nothing ever happened on this show in its ultimate season. “Jerry Duty” was about Reagan never being able to see her brother as anything besides her screw-up baby brother and Chris and his old college roommate Jerry similarly not being able to see beyond their set images of each other. That is an issue of human nature worth exploring (a comment I would not be able to make in regards to much else of Season 2). It also helped that Jerry was played by guest star Rob Huebel, whose skill at playing actual human beings is underestimated, probably due to his being mostly associated with caricature roles such as in Childrens Hospital and Burning Love.

Best Episode of the Season: NTSF:SD:SUV:: Season 2

May 17, 2013

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Season Analysis: I did not watch Season 1, but from what I’ve heard about it, it sounds like it polished itself up for Season 2. It is presently a solid parody of acronym-ed procedural action dramas and thus the perfect parody companion piece to Childrens Hospital.

“16 Hop St.”
Considering how many movies (and a few TV shows) feature going-back-to-high-school plots, it’s a bit of a shock that it’s taken this long for them to be targeted for skewering. This episode takes that trope to its logically absurd conclusion, wherein the NTSF crew poses as students for a case at a high school in which the popular kids are being kidnapped. They soon discover that all the students are undercover adults save for one. You’ve got the guy who’s travelled back in time to make sure his parents end up together, the girl working on an article, and the cops busting up a drug ring. Paul Rust is an inspired casting choice as one of the undercover characters, as he simultaneously looks too old to be a high school student and much younger than he actually is (he’s 32).

Key & Peele: Season 2 Sketch of the Year

May 17, 2013

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“East/West Bowl”

“East/West Bowl” has been continuously growing in popularity since its initial airing back in October, as it has been linked to and discussed (often as it were a real thing) on football fan forums. This sketch takes one of the simplest, but also one of the most reliable, comedy premises around – a list of silly names – and makes it so much more brilliant than one would think such a thing could ever possibly be. Clearly it is more than just a silly list. It has caught on because there are a lot of actual football players whose names are hardly any less ridiculous than the ones in the sketch. It was just a matter of time before they would be called out on their ridiculousness. Unlike most silly list-based sketches, “East/West Bowl” is filled with details. It is quite intricate despite how simple it appears to be on first viewing. Not only are the names silly, but so are the hairstyles, the voices, and the background photos. Each member of the silly list gets his own unique characterization. You don’t get all that out of most silly lists.

Runner-Up: “LMFAO’s Non-Stop Party”

The lyrics of this parody LMFAO dance-pop ditty are hilarious (and rhythmic) enough on their own without the sketch needing anything more. At one point, the song just becomes a list of random crap (iPad, Facebook, party time, skintight jeans…) and the roll call of cities where the party is taking place eventually grow to include more unusual options such as Newark, Plano, Lincoln, and Lubbock until ultimately it could be any destination as they simply repeat “city, city, city, city.” That would all be good enough, but this sketch is also about the existential crisis that LMFAO face when they realize the party they are at is a Groundhog Day-style endless loop. This is why we have Key and Peele – they give us scenes inspired by Sartre featuring today’s biggest pop stars.

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