Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am sharing My Top 10 Episodes of 2024 plus thoughts on Netflix's No Good Deed and the series finale of Blue Bloods as well as Shrinking and Silo!
Continuing my Year in Review, this week I have my Top 10 Episodes of 2024. Last year was a banner year for individual episodes. All time great episodes: "Long, Long Time" from The Last of Us, "Connor's Wedding" from Succession, "Four Minutes" from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and "Forks" from The Bear made up the Top 4 and could have all been #1 this year. Despite the fact that none of this year's episodes top those four, there was still much to celebrate!
10. Mr. & Mrs. Smith "First Date" (Prime Video, February 2)
The first episode of Mr. & Mrs. Smith really set the tone for what kind of show it was going be. It was a big-budget, action-filled spy show as we expected but what we didn't expect was a sharp commentary on marriage and relationships and it was clear from the very beginning that it was aiming higher.
9. Ghosts "Halloween 3: The Guest Who Wouldn't Leave" (CBS, March 7)
It aired far away from Halloween due to the dual Hollywood strikes but the third Halloween episode of Ghosts was a laugh riot with a very funny concept that kept building on itself. I was excited to see how they untangled the knot they put themselves in and they did it well.
8. The Bear "Ice Chips" (FX/Hulu, June 26)
The Bear's third season wasn't my favorite but there were two standout episodes, both on this list. "Ice Chips" was a great showcase for Abby Elliot and Jamie Lee Curtis. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and Curtis' character to mess up so when she didn't, it turned out to be a very sweet and cathartic episode.
Easily the best episode of the eight episode run of The Penguin, this episode was a complete showcase for Cristin Milioti. She was equal parts sympathetic and terrifying in a very compelling backstory that was more interesting than the main story.
6. Fargo "The Useless Hand" (FX, January 9)
The penultimate episode of Fargo's excellent fifth season was intense from start to finish. Centered around a standoff at a ranch, the action kept going through the entire episode and the visual flourishes were equally stunning.
5. Ripley "V Lucio" (Netflix, April 4)
I adored Ripley but it was hard to pick out an individual episode since it was really the whole series I was captivated with more than an individual episode. But the fifth episode was easily the most tense of the series and the closest it seemed to all falling apart for the titular character. The drama built and eased and built and eased through the hour and it was captivating from start to finish.
I really liked the first season of English Teacher (where's that renewal?). The funniest episode of the season was "Kayla Syndrome" for two reasons: the ridiculous scene where Kayla claimed she had "asymptomatic Tourettes" and a truly hilarious guest turn from Jimmy Fowlie as a very overbearing waiter (I said it before, but his "I literally have Covid" is the line reading of the year).
3. Hacks "Yes, And" (Max, May 23)
I wasn't totally sold on the season finale of Hacks until the final third or so of the episode. Then it became one of my final episodes of Hacks of the entire series. The show finally led Ava (Hannah Einbinder) get the upper hand over Deborah (Jean Smart) and teed up a fourth season that I can't wait for in the process.
2. Shrinking "Last Drink" (Apple TV+, November 26)
I have been loving the second season of Shrinking and it has peaked (to date) with the "Last Drink" episode where every story was both funny and a little bit of a tearjerker. The ensemble is gelling so well that it was interesting to go back in time (an overused device in general but well used here) and see how far they have come as characters and an ensemble of actors.
1. The Bear "Napkins" (FX/Hulu, June 26)
As mentioned above, The Bear was very inconsistent in the third season. But the episode of the year came about halfway through its third season. "Napkins" was a long awaited deep dive in Liza Colon-Zayas' character and she rose to the occasion with a dynamite performance. Throw in a really great return guest appearance from Jon Bernthal and it was The Bear with its second best episode of its entire run (can't beat "Forks" which came in 4th last year - just proving how many incredible individual episodes there were last year).
I've watched the first four episodes of Netflix's new dark comedy No Good Deed which hails from Dead to Me creator Liz Feldman. At its best, Dead to Me was a really sharp and compelling comedy that was made for the binge era because almost every episode ended on a cliffhanger that made you want to watch the next episode right away. No Good Deed is definitely swimming in the same waters, but it's not quite as addicting or propulsive even though there are good things.
It has an exceptional cast. Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano lead the show but there's a murderer's row of supporting actors (Linda Cardellini, Denis Leary, Abbi Jacobson, O-T Fagbenle, Poppy Liu, Teyonah Parris, Luke Wilson). Despite a pretty large cast for a comedy, the show does a good job of making each character pretty well defined. The standout is Linda Cardellini, who seems to be having a field day with her role and makes the most of her scenes. Lisa Kudrow is also rock solid as always.
The rest of the cast (and even Cardellini and Kudrow) are let down a bit by the material. While there's certainly some intriguing elements and some good mysteries, it feels a little bit lacking in the satirical side. It's just not as funny as I want it to be or even as dark. By that, I mean that there are definitely dark plot points but the show doesn't seem to want to go as far as it could with the darkness of the relationships and the characters. So what we're left with is somewhere between a sunny, fun comedy and a truly dark comedy. It's like a lukewarm comedy and that doesn't always work. But I'll definitely keep watching because I'm enjoying the cast and I do want to see where the story goes. It's just a little underwhelming despite a fun premise and cast.
Blue Bloods said goodbye this week after 14 seasons and 293 episodes, almost all of them airing in the usually tough slot of Friday at 10pm. Blue Bloods was one part of the very first fall class of freshman I reviewed for this blog way back in 2010. It was a very different landscape on TV back then. Broadcast TV was still getting the most eyeballs (Blue Bloods got 13 million viewers for its pilot) and most prestige shows were on cable. Netflix and Hulu were not yet producing originals and the other streamers didn't exist. I watched most of the first season of Blue Bloods but then fell off for a few years before getting back into the show and sticking with it to the end. I've often assumed I am the youngest person who has watched more than a couple episodes of Blue Bloods.
The most common criticism of Blue Bloods is that it is "copaganda" and that flared up when a lot of police procedurals were getting scrutinized in the unrest of 2020 and real life events like the George Floyd murder. But I don't think it's all that fair of a criticism of the show. Maybe a bit for Donnie Wahlberg's character but the rest of the show? I think The West Wing is a more apt comparison. It is a view of a world we wished we had. If The West Wing was a fictional account of how we wished the executive branch worked, Blue Bloods was how we wish the NYPD and all police departments were. A lot of that was due to the gentle leadership of Tom Selleck. The show wasn't afraid to wade into touchy subjects in its own CBS way from time to time, but it was always holding itself to a standard of what we should expect from the characters and from real life police departments.
At the heart of the show was the family - Selleck, Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes and Len Cariou. They really behaved as a family and the plots that were family driven always gave this show a little more depth than your average police procedural. There were some great additions over the years too like Vanessa Ray and Marisa Ramirez. It was a procedural so not every story worked and some were pretty formulaic. But this was always a show that was capable of being just a little bit more and that's what kept me with the show even as my TV palette evolved over the years. It will be missed (there have been rumblings of a second life for the show sort of like Criminal Minds: Evolution so who knows if we'll get more down the road though Selleck is 79 and Cariou is 85).
SCRIPTED PREMIERES THIS WEEK
It feels like this December has been busier than usual with premieres and even with the holidays approaching, there's still a few premieres this week. On Thursday, Netflix has the sixth season premiere of Virgin River. The series has quietly become one of Netflix's longest running shows in its history. Also premiering on Thursday is the Peacock comedy Laid starring Stephanie Hsu. It doesn't seem to have a lot of traction at the moment. Rounding out the week is the third and final season premiere of What If...? on Disney+.
ODDS & ENDS
- I am continuing to love Shrinking so this is nitpicking but if there's one small criticism I have, it's that the ensemble may be getting a little too unwieldy with all the guest stars or recurring characters. The show has built up its ensemble this year, which has been great, but it's also brought in Damon Wayans Jr., Cobie Smulders and Wendie Malick among others in recurring roles. I like Wayans Jr. a lot because he integrates well into the ensemble but Smulders, Malick and others are just taking away from a large, but super strong, ensemble. Last season, the ensemble wasn't as strong so it didn't feel as solid to just roll with the "hangout" vibe but this year it definitely can do that. I feel like acclaimed comedies go through this with too many guests - Abbott Elementary and Hacks both did. But we don't need to add a "name" every couple episodes. The existing ensemble is more than capable.
- I just can't completely get into Silo this season. I like the scenes with Rebecca Ferguson and Steve Zahn. But the stuff back at the main Silo is just not interesting enough. I'll stick with it through this season but we'll see after that, assuming it gets renewed for a third season. This was a show I caught late in the first season so I watched it more frequently than once a week and I think that made me more forgiving of some of the pacing problems. But watching just once a week (which is usually my preferred method for shows) is making the pacing more glaring this season.
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