The best TV episodes of 2022

A year of just There is so much! TV, it’s impossible for it to all be good. We’re generally of the minds that there’s more good TV than bad, but this is still a numbers issue — after all, as an episodic medium, a television show often isn’t even ConsistentlyThe show is great by itself. But that’s the beauty of it: You can find something to write home about even in the worst of shows, and something truly transcendent in the best of them.

These episodes are from many of the shows that made TV history this year. Some were the last acts of a season, while others capture the highlights of the show’s middle chapters.

TV isn’t alone in making something feel like a noteworthy part of a whole; there’s also movie scenes that stand out from the rest of the film they’re in. And certainly one could make a case for most of these shows as among the best of the year (and, indeed, there’s a lot of crossover with our Best TV shows of 2022 list). But still, there’s something distinctive about an episode that just really kills it in every way it can. That’s good entertainment — that’s TV, baby.

Andor season 1, episode 10, “One Way Out”

Image: Disney

AndorIts Narkina 5 Trilogy, which featured its protagonist being held in secret labor camps on false pretenses, was its best episode. It has a remarkable economy. Andor lays out the inhumanity undergirding Star Wars’ Galactic Empire in stark relief — and then shows how much work it takes to build up the people it has oppressed into not taking it anymore. “One Way Out” is a rousing and thrilling hour of television that underlines Andor’s focus on making a rebellion personal, and reminding the subjugated that there are more of us than there are of them. —Joshua Rivera

Andor You can watch it online Disney Plus.

Players season 1 episode 10, “Yuumi”

Photo: Lara Solanki/Paramount Plus

The mockumentary about esports PlayersFrom the genius minds that inspired it American Vandal, was one of 2022’s biggest surprises and our #8 favorite TV show of the year. Naturally, there are many different episodes we could have picked here — the episodes centered on Braxton and Guru also stand out — but the excellent finale “Yuumi” is the natural choice because of how well it represents what Players It works well.

Please see our non-alcoholic beverages.League of Legends readers, Yuumi is a playable character in the game — a magical cat who attaches herself to a teammate. “Yuumi” the episode opens with a dramatic reading of her silly lore, in the classic ludicrous sense of humor we’ve come to expect from showrunners Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault. As is so often the case in their work, however, the absurdity ends up being something very meaningful.

And that’s why “Yuumi” is a great encapsulation of how Players You can pull off something impossible. League of Legends team. Players uses Yuumi’s unique status in the game as a champion wholly reliant on another player to nail one of the major thematic throughlines and arcs of the season — protagonists Creamcheese and Organizm overcoming their respective egos and differences to work together as a team. It’s a fitting end to an excellent season of silly, meaningful television. —Pete Volk

Players You can watch it online Paramount Plus.

The Rehearsal season 1 episode 6, “Pretend Daddy”

Foto by HBO

RehearsalFrom the beginning, it was deceptive and twisty. The early episodes of Nathan Fielder’s docuseries (if we’re calling it that) had him helping people live out their maybe dreams, feeling out the best circumstances to raise a child or have a difficult conversation. Soon, the show became something far more ambitious and difficult to define. “Pretend Daddy,” the season finale, is the culmination of all that work, driving to the deepest part of the heart of Fielder’s premise and persona.

As a comedian with expert cringe timing, who could always find the right thing to say (“Door city over here, huh?”), let The rehearsalbecome a kind of shell-game with its themes. In “Pretend Daddy,” one could make the case for The Rehearsal playing into everything from anxiety and presentation of self to the ethics of child acting to Fielder’s own contemplation of his comedy. It’s the best kind of TV — divisive, complicated, sometimes weird and always just intensely interesting. It turns out the door city was full of trapdoors all along; “Pretend Daddy” was just the best kind of fall. —Zosha Millman

The Rehearsal You can watch it online HBO Max.

Severance season 1 episode 9, “The We We Are”

Photo: Apple TV Plus

Stop me if you’ve heard this but: TV is, by nature, built off the longform narrative structure. With that responsibility, comes the enormous power of creating an ending so frustratingly drew upon how it draws on its cliffhanger for the next chapter. There have been eight episodes full of intrigue, suspense and modern-day mid-century drama. Severance delivered with “The We We Are,” an annoyingly effective — if incredibly smart — chapter that leaves every single one of our principle players in a lurch. Its abrupt ending sets the stage for a thrilling season 2, without letting down the characters’ stories up to that point.

Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Severance’s “innies” found out truths they have no idea what to do with (perhaps the truest flavor of living a full life). And whether it’s the cries of “Burt!,” “We’re prisoners,” or “She’s alive!,” the brief hour-long experiences on the outside have fundamentally altered where the show goes from here. It’s a bold finale that leans into all the stunts that TV can pull, and it does it It is possible to do so.. Goddammit. —ZM

Severance You can watch it online Apple TV Plus.

Station Eleven season 1 episode 7, “Goodbye My Damaged Home”

Ian Watson/HBO Max. Photo

There’s not a lot of corners of Station Eleven that aren’t mildly bleak, and episode 7, “Goodbye my Damaged Home,” is no exception. As Kirsten (Mackenzie Davis) reflects back on her first days post-pandemic, it’s impossible to ignore the emotional devastation that she (played in her younger form by Matilda Lawler), Jeevan (Himesh Patel), and Frank (Nabhaan Rizwan) try to stave off as they the desolation of their situation.

And yet, “Goodbye” is subtly grand, turning in and out like an origami fortune teller, unfurling its wings to find new perspectives on a story we sort of know. Though it can’t change the innate sadness of the story, it’s rendered all the more lovely by Kirsten’s more mature understanding of her time in that Chicago apartment. She sees the flaws of everyone and the difficult moments, even though she is a ghost. And in that way, “Goodbye my Damaged Home” is a quiet ode to those hardships, the tough moments where you thought no one was watching. It may not have been there, but at least you know what happened. It was you.

Kirsten is the adult she needs to be for her younger self. This means that Kirsten should observe and accept those difficult moments. She and she both benefit from that. Station Eleven can move forward. In a post-pandemic time, we’re not short on Day Zero/Early Quarantine stories. However, Station ElevenThis makes it a case that we should look back at these (or any other story) with quiet kindness. It is possible to look at the darkest parts of life through this lens. —ZM

Station Eleven You can watch it online HBO Max.

Better Call Saul season 6 episode 13, “Saul Gone”

Photo: Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television

Nature’s scorched earth is the beauty of Breaking Bad And the meticulous, ever-twisty precision of Saul deserves better’s final season, the finale seemed bloated with possibilities. This was a universe teeming with bleak falls from grace, and ol’ Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) seemed poised to fall even further. But the final episode, “Saul Gone,” was a climax of something far sweeter: the love story between Jimmy and Kim (Rhea Seehorn). They had to face a different set of stakes. And the image at the end of the finale, of Jimmy and Kim sharing a cigarette — a glowing source of the only color left in their worlds, a shared spark we never see go out — lingers in the mind long after the episode is done, like smoke in the air. This is the only story we ever needed, and “Saul Gone” understands that journey all too well. —ZM

Season 4 of Saul deserves better Digital rental and purchase are possible via Amazon, Apple TVGoogle Play Vudu.

House of the Dragon season 1 episode 9, “The Green Council”

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

House of the DragonEpisode 9 is quietly a masterpiece in palace intrigue. Game of Thrones, great. The episode follows Queen Alicent’s Greens faction and the moment they discover King Viserys is dead. Suddenly, in a flurry of activity and revealed intentions, everyone springs into action to crown Alicent’s son Aegon King of the Seven Kingdoms, usurping the King’s chosen heir, his daughter Rhaenyra — whose perspective on these events we get in episode 10.

In a rare feat for a Game of Thrones series, or any series really, episode 9 is also one that’s full of character growth and change. Alicent, recognizing she’s been a pawn the entire time, suddenly takes control by asserting her authority over her son, the new king. Aegon transforms from being an evil monster to enjoying cheering on people. Aemond is now a tragically flawed villain. It’s an impressive feat to take a main character through chaos and have them emerge from it as a new person all over the course of one episode, and this one manages it three times.

The most important thing about episode 9 is that it’s a meticulous payoff on the plans and schemes the characters have been planning over the past eight episodes. Like in all the best parts of the series, there aren’t any battles that decide the fate of the realm, there are accidental killings where the poor and powerful alike become collateral victims to those above them on the royal food chain. —Austen Goslin

House of the Dragon You can watch it online HBO Max.

Reservation Dogs season 2, episode 6, “Decolonativization”

Photo: Shane Brown/FX

It’s just about impossible to pick one standout episode of Reservation Dogs’ excellent second season, because they’re all so good at achieving different things. Episode 3, “Roofing,” is a touching cross-generational story about accepting mistakes and what you can and can’t change. Episode 4, “Mabel” deals with loss and grief in ways few shows can. The two episode conclusion, “Offerings” and “I Still Believe,” bring home many of the themes the show has been working with from the beginning. And episode 8 “This is Where the Plot Thickens” is a riotous adventure that leans heavily on the excellent pairing of Zahn McClarnon and Kirk Fox.

However, I chose the episode I thought would be the easiest for viewers new to the show to watch and to test it. Rez Dogs waters. Episode 6 features a group of fun-loving ruffians who are lured by Sonic gift cards to attend a youth summit. Once there, they are lectured by a pair of influencers on how to “decolonize” everything in their lives. Elisha Pratti and Amber Midthunder are the two influencers.Prey). Midthunder in particular shines as a Dartmouth PhD student from the Bay Area who genuinely cares for these kids but can’t help but come off as patronizing.

For most people, it would not be difficult. Reservation Dogs It is easy to dismiss the exercise as futile. However, experiences can be what you make out of them. Our group was able to find their own meaning from an uncomfortable social situation. And I’d be remiss not to shout out all four lead actors for their incredible performances on the show, and in particular Lane Factor, who excels as the goodhearted Cheese. —PV

Reservation Dogs You can watch it online Hulu.

Atlanta season 4, episode 8, “The Goof Who Sat by the Door”

Photo by FX

Donald Glover’s Atlanta His reputation has been for trying out strange things (err… stranger), inexplicable detours separate from the misadventures of Earnest “Earn” Marks and his rapper cousin Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles. Season 1 of Atlanta had “B.A.N.,” an episode which saw the series reshape itself into a twisted in-universe facsimile of a B.E.T.-like talk shows, complete with fake commercials and controversial interview segments. The second season had “Teddy Perkins,” a horror-lite episode that centered on Paper Boi’s eccentric best friend Darius purchasing a piano from a deranged Michael Jackson-lookalike played by Glover himself, while the third season exhausted these experiments to their breaking point, interjecting its mainline episodes centering on Earn and co’s adventures in Europe with anthology episodes satirizing the peculiar (and often horrifying) intersections of race, class, power, performance, and culture.

“The Goof Who Sat By the Door,” the eighth episode in the series’ fourth and final season, eschews any mention of or appearance by Earn, his girlfriend Vanessa, Paper Boi, or Darius, instead restructuring itself as a documentary airing on the aforementioned B.A.N. channel. Lifting its title from Sam Greenlee’s novel The Spook who sat at the door and paying homage to Robert Downey Sr.’s Putney SwopeThe episode tells the story of Thomas Washington who was accidentally named CEO of Walt Disney Company during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. He later goes on to direct The Goofy Movie, a.k.a “the blackest movie of all-time.” Plot-twist: Thomas Washington does not exist. Equal parts hilarious, terrifying, and deeply disturbing. Atlanta circles back to hone in on its core elements and deliver one final coup de grâce that could very well go down as one of the show’s finest. —Toussaint Egan

Atlanta You can watch it online Hulu.

What We Do in the Shadows season 4, episode 8, “Go Flip Yourself”

Russ Martin/FX

The Shadows: What Do We Do? is constantly hilarious — and nothing exemplifies this more than “Go Flip Yourself.” This particular episode parodies home improvement shows and plays it all totally straight, from the jaunty theme song to the in-show banner advertisements. The host cheerfully talks about the plans and the vamps burrow his brother in his backyard because they just ate his body. It’s great! It’s great to see all of the vampire tropes mixed with everyday life. It’s amazing to make this everyday life into an HGTV episode. —PR

The Shadows: What Do We Do? You can watch it online Hulu.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 5, “Spock Amok”

Photo by Marni Grossman/Paramount Plus

Star Trek was able to do episodic drama in 2023. Strange New Worlds was a miraculous success, and it did it by making a holistic embrace of Star Trek’s duality.

For all it’s high minded morals, we do the venerable franchise a disservice when we forget the Original Series found its true footing with “The Trouble With Tribbles,” or when we forget how utterly silly yet completely beloved Star Trek: IV — The Journey Home is. The episode was not available. Strange New Worlds has embodied the joy in Star Trek silliness more than “Spock Amok,” a pun on the indelible Original Series episode “Amok Time,” in which bonds between heroes are near fatally broken, and classic Looney Tunes short “Duck Amuck,” in which Bugs Bunny harasses Daffy Duck by drawing him with weird legs and stuff.

“Spock Amok” is a greatest hits album in three plots: Characters at odds grow to understand each other through contrived, hilarious body swap hijinks. This is how the hijinks lead to the resolution of a serious diplomatic problem. And two stuffy, rules-minded crewmen learn that trying to have fun is actually… fun. It’s a metaphor that is as obvious as it is true. —Susana Polo

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds You can watch it online Paramount Plus.

Celebrity Jeopardy Season 1 Episode 1

Image via ABC

You can watch Celebrity Jeopardy makes you feel really smart, because so many of these beautiful, charming people don’t know shit. It’s great! There are some exceptions, like Wil Wheaton or Ike Barinholtz, who just blasted through the games. Sometimes this is frustrating, like in the episode where Eddie Huang just kinda stood there and didn’t try. Sometimes Ray Romano is just too good to fail. Another thing that is fun about Celebrity Jeopardy is because they aren’t actually playing for money (it’s for charity donations), they’re a little looser about betting it all (even if half the time they don’t know how the Daily Double works). You can get the most shocking upset possible in the closing moments of a game. This was evident in this episode. —PR

Celebrity JeopardyIt is possible to view it Hulu.

Barry season 3 episode 6, “710N”

Photo by Merrick Morton/HBO

Season 3 of BarryIt was inconsistent and divided, and a messy tale about characters who make desperate decisions. As a whole, it doesn’t Very rise to the level of essential television the way the previous two seasons did, but its sixth episode, “710N,” is worth watching on its own, a spectacular half-hour that builds to a car chase that’s going to be an action benchmark for years to come. A masterpiece of restrained yet thrilling filmmaking, “710N” also functions as a sort of climax for the entire series up to this point, as Barry Berkman’s sins are all catching up to him and would like to see him dead. —Joshua Rivera

Barry You can watch it online HBO Max, or for digital purchase on Amazon, Apple TVGoogle Play Vudu.

American Horror Story season 11, episodes 9-10, ““Requiem 1981/1987”

Photo by FX

It’s hard out here being an American Horror Story fan. The show hasn’t been remotely good since season three and eVery time I’m pulled in by a potentially intriguing concept, I am let so catastrophically down. It’s almost funny at this point (I’m still veryAngry at the wasteful potential of last season. The odds are stacked against this time. AHSYou can’t get away from the landing.

With American Horror Story: NYCRyan Murphy created an elegy for the AIDS crisis by juxtaposing real horrors with imagined. The serial killer was just a footnote in the end — the real terror came from how powerless the queer community was in the face of this virus, especially when no one who had any power would help them. Nothing hammers this as much as the final episode of the season, which includes an incredibly haunting sequence that kicks off when reporter Gino (Joe Mantello) gets up to give a speech at his partner’s funeral. No one speaks for ten minutes. Set to “Radioactivity” by Kraftwerk, Gino slowly watches as everyone he knows succumbs to the AIDS virus in some way shape or form. Sometimes it’s literal — he waits in line for his meds and attends die-in protests. Sometimes it’s metaphorical — he watches people walk into a grave and sips a drink at a bar while a faceless leather-clad figure (who we’ve come to know throughout the season is some sort of harbinger of death) kills everyone around him. It’s absolutely chilling and devastating, and much like the episode title implies, a true requiem.

Murphy is the man I have to give credit for this. I had my doubts about this season, especially since I’ve been burned by… well basically every AHSSeason sinceThe Coven. Whichever NYC: AHS was true horror is up for debate — after all, it was remarkably subdued compared to previous seasons, even with kinky BDSM scenes and leather-clad ghosts — but Murphy saw his central theme through to the end. Murphy finally broke away from the usual. AHSThe trappings and the web of mythos he enabled. One thing’s for certain — that last montage inAmerican Horror Story: NYCIt will continue to haunt me for the rest of my life. —PR

American Horror StoryIt is possible to view it Hulu.

The Sandman season 1, episode 6 “The Sound of her Wings”

Image courtesy of Netflix

This episode is extremely difficult to view. The content warnings included with this video are: The SandmanEpisode five reveals the worst aspects of human nature. But “The Sound of Her Wings” is an antidote. The episode shows Tom Sturridge, a cranky Dream following his sister Death (Kirby Howell Baptiste) about for the day. An episode surrounding death doesn’t seem like it would be all that cheery, but this Death is kind and gracious, a gentle hand reaching out to guide mortals to their final resting place. It is heartwarming to see Death making her rounds during the episode’s first half. In the second part of the episode, Dream meets up with his friend Hob Gallding. Back in ye olde day, Death and Dream decided to grant Hob eternal life — certain that he would grow tired of it. Hob, however, is happy with existence and finds happiness in every century, even though there have been ups. Dream and Hob meet once a century to check in. Dream initially resists being friends but the episode ends with a sweet ending, when the two finally meet up. —PR

The Sandman It is now available on Netflix.

Murderville’s Marshawn Lynch Episode

Photo: Darren Michaels/Netflix

Marshawn Lynch is the most game of anyone when it comes to playing. Murderville. The former NFL running back may get high marks just because his seamless transition into comedy king is something of a surprise, but he earns this episode’s place on this list with every fired-off quip.

What’s great about Lynch’s performance is that he is totally down to clown around when it comes to the scenarios (who knew he’d make such a good mirror to Rob Huebel?It feels like buddy cop comedy, but it’s also a great performance by Lynch. Whether he’s backing up Seattle’s doll DNA suggestions or defending the time-honored procedural cross-talk — “Then act like you can’t!” he yells at the witness who says he can hear everything they’re saying — Lynch puts the team on his back and runs with it. —ZM

Marshawn Lynch and all of Murderville You can watch it online Netflix.