19
Dec

2010s in Review: The Best Film Performances, Part 2

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Read Part 1 here. 

DUOS

Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant in Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Can You Ever Forgive Me? – Melissa McCarthy & Richard E. Grant
Gay and lesbian friendships are so rarely portrayed on-screen, but McCarthy and Grant gave career-best performances as these partners in crime, driven together by loneliness and driven apart by greed. Separately, they were devastating, as their self-destructive tendencies often got the better of them.

William Shimmel and Juliette Binoche in Certified Copy
Certified Copy – Juliette Binoche & William Shimell
Take one of the most acclaimed actresses in the world and a man who’s never acted on-screen before and you have one of the most magical films of the decade. Perfectly playing off each other, it sells the ambiguity and romance lesser actors would have struggled with.

Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson in Easy A
Easy A – Stanley Tucci & Patricia Clarkson
Separately, they can brighten even the gloomiest projects. Together, they’re an unstoppable charm offensive. As Olive’s concerned but lenient overseers, they’re the best and funniest movie parents of the decade by a country mile.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix in The Master
The Master – Joaquin Phoenix & Philip Seymour Hoffman
An incredible showdown between two of America’s greatest actors like we’ll never see again. Both volatile characters who are very good at deception, they’re drawn to each other yet can’t be together. They are destined to hurt each other and everyone else.

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling in The Nice Guys
The Nice Guys – Russell Crowe & Ryan Gosling
A perfect odd couple, with both giving their greatest comedic performances. Crowe’s perfect tough-guy deadpan and Gosling’s alcoholic buffoon are a match made in heaven. Their arguments, their investigation techniques, their verbal expressions. While completely different, they all lead to comic gold.

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18
Dec

2010s in Review: The Best Film Performances, Part 1

This was a nearly impossible task, picking between lead and supporting turns, comedic and dramatic. But here are my top 5 male and female performances of the decade.

MEN

Jaden Piner and Mahershala Ali in Moonlight
Moonlight – Mahershala Ali
The platonic ideal of a supporting performance, Ali makes his presence felt on-screen, but even more intensely off-screen. It’s even trickier than it appears because Juan both improves and dismantles Chiron’s life with his love and business, respectively.

Christopher Plummer in Beginners
Beginners – Christopher Plummer
One of my all-time favorite Oscar wins, Plummer’s performance – as an elderly man finally living his truth while dying of cancer – bursts through every cliché to bring joy into the heart of every viewer. It would have been the perfect career-capping role, but Plummer has kept right on going into his 90s.

JK Simmons in Whiplash
Whiplash – J.K. Simmons
Simmons has an uncanny ability to play gentle (Law & Order: SVU), dopey (his long-running voice work as the Peanut M&M) or absolutely terrifying (Oz). He’s the latter here, playing an absolutely brutal director at a prestigious music school. He abuses his young protégé (Miles Teller) mercilessly, and never acknowledges any wrongdoing. And why would he, when he gets the performance of a lifetime out of him? He’s one of the most despicable characters of the decade, and Simmons played him perfectly.

Denzel Washington in Flight
Flight – Denzel Washington
Denzel’s best performance this decade by a mile, his daring but disastrous pilot saved lives while wrecking his own. His Oscar clip was his admission “I’m drunk now.” But the moment that always sticks with me is when he tries to convince a flight attendant (Tamara Tunie) to tell authorities he had only had “two glasses of wine at dinner,” and she completely dresses him down, because she’s known about his alcoholism for years, and suddenly he realizes he won’t be able to charm his way out of this situation.

Steven Yeun in Burning
Burning – Steven Yeun
Chilling and enigmatic, Yeun uses his considerable charm and good looks to craft one of the more sinister villains in recent memory. Of course, part of the pleasure and mystery of Burning is whether Ben is even a villain at all. He clearly is to Lee (Yoo Ah-in) as a romantic rival, but whether he’s evil or just a dick is all in a yawn, or is it?

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17
Dec

2010s in Review: The Worst Movies

Being a semi-professional film critic meant seeing a lot of garbage, in addition to the many fine films I got to see. Some of these I paid good money for though, and more than the cost of the ticket, I’d rather have my time back. This is the bottom of the barrel.

Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland
(2010, Tim Burton)
Also known as the moment I stopped trusting Tim Burton, one of my favorite directors. A candy-colored disaster, it’s responsible for kicking off the current wave of Disney live-action remakes, which is unforgivable on its own. But it also gave us this horrendous moment. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

Assholes
(2017, Peter Vack)
The single worst thing my eyes have ever beheld, this “movie” is an excruciating 74 minutes. Everything about it is unrelentingly unpleasant. The story, such as it is, involves a junkie couple and there attempts to score another high. The film seems to have been conceived as a dare, to see how gross and ugly a movie can be and still not say anything.

Alexander Skarsgård in Battleship
Battleship
(2012, Peter Berg)
Killed the idea of a Board Game Expanded Universe in its infancy, and that’s the only thing I can say positively about it. It also helped kill Taylor Kitsch’s film career, and that wasn’t his fault. An incredibly idiotic Transformers knock-off with atrocious acting across the board, it’s an insult to the audience.

Jesse Williams and Richard Gere in Brooklyn's Finest
Brooklyn’s Finest
(2010, Antoine Fuqua)
Fuqua made a name for himself with the overrated Training Day, and hasn’t ever really made a good film. (Though I have a soft spot for the supremely ridiculous Shooter.) His worst is this cop drama that runs through every possible cliché, wasting a terrific cast in the process.

James Deen and Lindsay Lohan in The Canyons
The Canyons
(2013, Paul Schrader)
Before he was able to bounce back with First Reformed, Schrader had back-to-back flops with this and Dog Eat Dog (which at least has some style). Starring Lindsay Lohan and porn actor James Deen, the film is about as un-sexy as a movie about a couple and their psychosexual games can be. Dreadfully dull and painfully acted, this is about as bad as it gets.

Will Smith and Keira Knightley in Collateral Beauty
Collateral Beauty
(2016, David Frankel)
It’s a punchline for a reason. Will Smith’s awful 2016 – we’ll get to the other film in a minute – was capped with this appalling melodrama. Still crippled with grief over the loss of his daughter, Smith’s character can’t function at work, jeopardizing the company. So his co-workers HIRE ACTORS to pretend to be his EMOTIONS, and they’ll secretly FILM HIS CONVERSATIONS and EDIT THE ACTORS OUT so it looks like HE’S CRAZY and they can CLOSE A BIG DEAL. Why so many great performers agreed to take part in a project so morally bankrupt is beyond me.

Ron Perlman and Josh Lawson in Crave
Crave
(2012, Charles de Lauzirika)
A film so dark and morally depraved it makes Joker look like nuanced and empathetic, Crave is grim drama that lets its “imaginative” protagonist literally get away with murder, facing absolutely zero repercussions for his vigilantism.

Bruce Willis in Death Wish
Death Wish
(2018, Eli Roth)
Speaking of vigilantism, this witless remake is like Fox News talking points come to life. Living in a crime-ridden Chicago, Paul (Bruce Willis) is distraught after burglars kills his wife and attack his daughter. Seeking revenge, he unleashes his firepower on anyone and everyone in town, later being hailed as a hero. Paul is the mythical “good guy with a gun,” and sure to make this the No. 1 film of anyone with a Punisher sticker on the back of their truck.

Christian Bale in Exodus: Gods and Kings
Exodus: Gods and Kings
(2014, Ridley Scott)
Moses is an important figure to billions of people, and somehow Scott and Christian Bale turned this into one of the most boring films of the decade. An expensive epic that failed to get its story right, whitewashing was the least of its problems.

Ben Stiller in Greenberg
Greenberg
(2010, Noah Baumbach)
Like Ridley Scott, Baumbach will turn up on my Best Of list too, but he started off the decade at the bottom. Ben Stiller’s title character is one of the most thoroughly unpleasant people ever to lead a movie, and the movie just moves from one uncomfortable scene to the next. You’re too good for this loser, Greta Gerwig!

Meredith Forlenza and Kate McKinnon in Hannah Has a Ho-Phase
Hannah Has a Ho-Phase
(2012, Jamie Jensen & Nadia Munla)
While there’s certainly a need for an intelligent movie to navigate and satirize gender politics, this ain’t it, chief. Instead of using any ounce of wit or insight, the movie literally has a character ask, “How come if a guy sleeps with a bunch of women, he’s a stud. But if a woman sleeps with a bunch of guys, she’s a slut?” Report this to HR and move on.

Saoirse Ronan in The Host
The Host
(2013, Andrew Niccol)
Oh, Andrew Niccol. Wrote two of my favorite movies of the ’90s, then kept falling and falling. I was hoping he would elevate Stephnie Meyer’s sci-fi romance, but he sunk down to her level. Not even the great Saoirse Ronan could save this nonsense.

Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt in The Huntsman: Winter's War
The Huntsman: Winter’s War
(2016, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan)
Proof that not even assembling one of the most attractive casts of all time can overcome a bad script, this unnecessary prequel to the already pretty bad Snow White and the Huntsman delivers a screaming Charlize Theron and a catatonic Emily Blunt, while Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain swing axes in a flurry of CGI and ugly sets. What’s the opposite of a fairy tale?

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16
Dec

2010s in Review: The Best Film Music

Like cinematography, it seemed like there was more great film music than ever this decade. That made picking these Top 5’s harder than usual. I already wrote at length about how great Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar score was, so I’m setting that into the hall of fame so I could write about these five instead.

TOP 5 SCORES

hateful_eight-ost
The Hateful Eight – Ennio Morricone
The legendary composer finally won a much-overdue Oscar for his dark, dingy score for Tarantino’s ugliest film. It fits perfectly.

if_beale_street_could_talk-ost
If Beale Street Could Talk – Nicholas Britell
While his most popular piece remains his theme for Succession, Britell’s most beautiful work remains his breathtaking score for Barry Jenkins’ follow-up feature. It’s gorgeous on its own, but combined with James Laxton’s sumptuous cinematography, it’s enough to make you cry.

phantom_thread-ost
Phantom Thread – Jonny Greenwood
Perhaps even more mysterious and memorable than his There Will Be Blood score, it took on a life of its own, with “House of Woodcock” becoming a meme for Film Twitter. It’s a deeply romantic piece of music that you can get lost in.

social_network-ost
The Social Network – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
You know the story by now. The mind behind Nine Inch Nails and his longtime producer collaborated on their first score for David Fincher’s masterpiece, and they’ve been on a roll ever since. It’s the only score from this decade that I can hear a few notes of and instantly know which track it is.

Shane Carruth – Upstream Color
Upstream Color – Shane Carruth
An underrated score for an underrated film, Carruth’s lush soundscapes take you some place you’ve never been before.

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14
Dec

What I Watched This Week: 8 Dec 2019

NEW SHOWS
Watchmen – “A God Walks into Abar” (B+)
Corny as hell, and I fell for it hook, line and sinker. Such an embrace of naked sentimentality will probably rub some viewers the wrong way, but it absolutely worked for me. How it will bear out on the finale remains to be seen.

Silicon Valley – “Exit Event” (A) / series finale
A show like this couldn’t have ended with happiness for the founders of Pied Piper. But it was the way it ended badly that made this so perfect. They were actually too good at their jobs, creating a network that was so sophisticated it broke down every barrier of digital privacy we have, so they had to kill it. This show wasn’t always consistent, but I’m glad I stuck it out. This ending was worth it.

CURRENT SHOWS AND SPECIALS
Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby (A)
Nothing revolutionary here, just extremely funny, well-observed jokes about married life, parent life and – briefly – life under Trump.

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13
Dec

2010s in Review: The Best Television Shows

There was more TV to consume than ever before, with networks taking creative risks just to get into the original content game (and famously one tech company blowing a lot of money to save one beloved cult show). The ride for auteurs is probably coming to an end, but this decade gifted us a lot of shows that couldn’t have been made in previous decades and probably wouldn’t get a shot in the decades to come.

A few notes:
1. Any show that aired at least one complete season from January 1, 2010 to December 1, 2019 was eligible, but only those seasons and episodes were considered for this selection. (Apologies to Watchmen.)
2. For shows featured on my Best Episodes of the Decade list, I’ve highlighted another great episode from that season below.
3. If you’re wondering where a show is that’s not in this Top 25, there’s a list of Honorable Mentions below, plus a list of acclaimed shows that I didn’t watch (or didn’t watch enough of) to qualify.

Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell in The Americans
The Americans (FX, 2013-2018)
Joe Weisberg’s impeccably crafted ’80s drama gave you all the espionage thrills you wanted, but never lost focus of the human cost of subterfuge. That Phillip and Elizabeth loved different countries drove a wedge between them more than any affairs ever could, and that in turn affected their kids, neighbors and lovers. Any friends were just liabilities, and they both had to burn the only people they genuinely connected with.
Standout episodes: “Duty and Honor” (Season 1), “Martial Eagle” (Season 2), “Walter Taffet” (Season 3), “Travel Agents” (Season 4), “Dyatkovo” (Season 5), “START” (Season 6)

LaKeith Stanfield, Donald Glover and Brian Tyree Henry in Atlanta
Atlanta (FX, 2016-present)
As comedies drifted further into dramatic territory – to the point where some critics started to distinguish shows by length – this (and one other entry below) truly stretched the definition as far as it could go. One episode could be a bottle episode/hostage standoff, the next week a talk show parody, then detour again and have an episode about a character’s wild quest for clean piss or a good haircut. But throughout, the show never neglected to emphasize just how tenuous its characters’ upward mobility was.
Standout episodes: “B.A.N.” (Season 1), “Alligator Man” (Season 2)

Bill Hader and Sarah Goldberg in Barry
Barry (HBO, 2018-present)
On paper, this could have been a wacky comedy with some occasionally sinister moments. But the show layered darkness and light in the whole thing, so you never knew when you were going to laugh or be horrified. Bill Hader’s tremendous performance carried the day, but each of its supporting cast got full interior lives and game performers to give them their own personality traits.
Standout episodes: “Chapter Five: Do Your Job” (Season 1) “What?!” (Season 2)

Bob Odenkirk and Aaron Paul in Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul (AMC, 2015-present)
Standout episodes: “Five-O” (Season 1), “Klick” (Season 2), “Chicanery” (Season 3), “Wiedersehen” (Season 4)

Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008-2013)
Standout episodes: “Half Measures” (Season 3), “Crawl Space” (Season 4), “Gliding over All” (Season 5)

El Camino (Netflix, 2019)
Is this cheating? Probably, but it’s my list. This ever-expanding tale of the Albuquerque underworld began so simply, but its tentacles stretched out everywhere, corrupting everything. Breaking Bad was the non-stop thrill ride taking “Mr. Chips to Scarface,” and El Camino gave Jesse a proper send-off. But Better Call Saul took things into a minor register, often replacing shoot-outs (though it still had those) with wordless montages showing the monotony of the original players in this saga, and what led them to a life of crime.

The cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox/NBC, 2013-present)
Michael Schur’s essential workplace comedy was top-notch from the beginning, but it got better every single season, making you care about every character, even Gina. In more recent seasons, it’s attempted more thematically resonant episodes, often with great success. But it’s that rich comedic ensemble that will keep it running in perpetuity.
Standout episodes: “Tactical Village” (Season 1), “The Pontiac Bandit Returns” (Season 2), “Hostage Situation” (Season 3), “The Last Ride” (Season 4), “The Box” (Season 5), “The Honeypot” (Season 6)

community-paradigms_of_human_memory
Community (NBC/Yahoo! Screen, 2009-2014)
Of the many great shows this decade, this is the one I find myself returning to most often. Dan Harmon never met an insane idea he didn’t want to try, which kept the show from getting stale. Its tremendous ensemble kept you in stitches, even in its most uncomfortable episodes (like the Season 2 standout “Mixology Certification”). It kept surviving even after its showrunner was fired, the season after that was poorly received, the show was canceled and then resurrected at the last hour by a tech company with money to burn. It persevered through all that, and will keep on going.
Standout episodes: “Modern Warfare” (Season 1), “Mixology Certification” (Season 2), “Regional Holiday Music” (Season 3), “Herstory of Dance” (Season 4), “Cooperative Polygraphy” (Season 5), “Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television” (Season 6)

Larry David and Lin-Manuel Miranda in Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO, 2000-present)
Larry David doesn’t take any shit, which makes him both lovable and misanthropic at the same time. Watching him for an extended time can drive you crazy, but in weekly installments, seeing him get to say what many of us wish we could, is comedy heaven. In these two seasons, more than six years apart, he kept doing his thing, getting into petty fights with Rosie O’Donnell, Michael J. Fox and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Standout episodes: “The Bisexual” (Season 7), “Fatwa!” (Season 8)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge on Fleabag
Fleabag (Prime, 2016-2019)
One woman’s journey of personal growth sounds insufferable on paper, but Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag showed us exactly that, reeling from her best friend’s unexpected death in Season 1, and falling headfirst into an unexpected romance in Season 2. It was viciously funny, disarmingly sincere and truly moving, making it one of the greatest shows of all time.
Standout episodes: “Episode 4” (Season 1), “Episode 4” (Season 2)

Kyle Chandler in Friday Night Lights
Friday Night Lights (NBC, 2006-2011)
The show essentially ended in 2009, but these two DirecTV co-financed seasons gave it a real reason to stay. After getting drummed out of Dillon by a rich asshole and child abuser, he moved to the recently re-opened East Dillon High, and Eric and Tammy suddenly had to come to grips with less equipment, decrepit facilities and a hodgepodge roster that was less talented and had far more socioeconomic problems than their old life. The show saw much of its original cast move on, but added two megawatt stars in Michael B. Jordan and Jurnee Smollett. Texas Forever.
Standout episodes: “Stay” (Season 4), “Always” (Season 5)

Maisie Williams in Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011-2019)
As someone who is admittedly not a fantasy guy, even I can’t deny the astonishing craft and the mostly successful story told. Yes, it got out in front of its skis once it no longer had George R.R. Martin’s books to use as a springboard, but I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater for that. It was the last piece of monoculture, and a towering achievement, no matter how times its showrunners tried to sabotage it.
Standout episodes: “You Win or You Die” (Season 1), “Blackwater” (Season 2), “The Rains of Castemere” (Season 3), “The Lion and the Rose” (Season 4), “The Dance of Dragons” (Season 5), “The Winds of Winter” (Season 6), “The Spoils of War” (Season 7), “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” (Season 8)

The cast of The Good Place
The Good Place (NBC, 2016-present)
What does it mean to be a good person? Is it even worth it to be a good person in this day and age? Michael Schur’s existential and endlessly clever comedy asks these questions and more in a series about the afterlife that sidesteps any thorny questions about religion (and is all the better for it), getting to the root of our innate selfishness and the bountiful rewards of being kind and generous, even when those rewards seem smaller because of our present circumstances. There were many times when I wondered if such a project was too ambitious, only for it all to click into place eventually. I’m expecting the same will happen in the final few episodes.
Standout episodes: “Chidi’s Choice” (Season 1), “Dance Dance Resolution” (Season 2), “Janet(s)” (Season 3), “The Answer” (Season 4)

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13
Dec

Oscar Picks: 13 Dec 2019

We’ve only had the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild announce their nominees so far, and they have a tendency to highlight showier things, which may mean some performances are getting a little more shine than they’ll actually get. But here’s where we are now, and it’s not looking good for The Farewell, The Two Popes and especially Little Women.

The cast of The Irishman
BEST PICTURE
1917
Bombshell
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Marriage Story
Once upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite

Falling off: The Farewell, The Two Popes
Rising star: Richard Jewell
The skinny: While The Two Popes felt like it was destined to be a hit with older voters, completely blanking with SAG feels like a major blow. Still, Netflix has two guaranteed Best Picture nominees, both of which are the frontrunners in my view. Missing with SAG also seems to be an even more devastating hit for The Farewell, which needed some of these major precursors to remind voters of its greatness. Neither are completely cooked, but they’re on the outside looking in right now. Richard Jewell is surging, thanks to its AFI selection, but serious concerns about its demeaning treatment of a minor character (who’s not even alive to defend herself) might kill it before it even gets off the ground.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Quentin Tarantino and wife Daniella at the Cannes premiere of Once upon a Time in Hollywood
BEST DIRECTOR
Sam Mendes, 1917
Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story
Quentin Tarantino, Once upon a Time in Hollywood
Bong Joon-ho, Parasite

Falling off: None
Rising star: Todd Phillips, Joker
The skinny: Everything remains the same for now, but that Golden Globe nomination for Todd Phillips feels ominous, though hopefully the Directors Guild knows better. 

Adam Driver in Marriage Story
BEST ACTOR
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once upon a Time in Hollywood
Taron Egerton, Rocketman
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker

Falling off: Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes
Rising star: Christian Bale, Ford v Ferrari
The skinny: It’s getting very crowded in here, and it’s looking less and less likely that Antonio Banderas will get the nod for his career-best work. Egerton is firmly in now, joining the other three locks. But with a Golden Globe, SAG and Critics’ Choice nod, Christian Bale is looking resurgent in Ford v Ferrari. And does anyone else find it weird that The Irishman has gotten nothing but acclaim, yet Robert De Niro hasn’t gotten any major recognition?

Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story
BEST ACTRESS
Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
Charlize Theron, Bombshell
Renée Zellweger, Judy

Falling off: None
Rising star: Saoirse Ronan, Little Women
The skinny: Matching the SAG line-up, I think these are our five, featuring two black women for the first time since the ’70s. Saoirse is beloved, so she may still find her way in. But I think it’s time we start accepting there may be a world in which Little Women‘s only major nod is in Adapted Screenplay.

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12
Dec

2010s in Review: The Best Television Performances, Part 2

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Read Part 1 here.

DUOS

Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell in The Americans
The Americans – Matthew Rhys & Keri Russell
Two people devoted to each other but with loyalties to different countries, it ripped them apart but kept them together to the bitter end. That Rhys won an Emmy but not Russell feels like yet another injustice that this show suffered. But at least they have their real-life romance.

Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler in Friday Night Lights
Friday Night Lights – Connie Britton & Kyle Chandler
The realest of TV couples, they fought, they disappointed each other, they were occasionally selfish, but they always owned up when they were in the wrong. Eventually, Eric knew when to yield to Tami, it just took five seasons.

Jordan Peele and Keegan Michael Key in Key & Peele
Key & Peele – Keegan-Michael Key & Jordan Peele
A perfect comedy team, every bit as in sync as Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy and Nichols & May, these two MADtv alums finally got to craft a comedy show on their own terms, giving them an enormous playground to show off how gifted they were in every possible way.

Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh in Killing Eve
Killing Eve – Jodie Comer & Sandra Oh
Like Hannibal‘s Will & Hannibal (who nearly made this list), their cat-and-mouse was thrilling, dangerous and sexy. What put them over-the-top was their intentional playfulness and humor. Both kept risking their careers and lives for each other, for a relationship neither of them fully understood.

Michael Raymond-James and Donal Logue in Terriers
Terriers – Donal Logue & Michael Raymond-James
True BFFs, Hank & Britt had nothing but each other, as personal crises and getting in too deep on a case knocked them even further off the ladder. Finding themselves at a crossroads at the end of the story, there’s a right path and a wrong path, but they’ll stick together on both.

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11
Dec

2010s in Review: The Best Television Performances, Part 1

Trying to pick the best performances across all of television – comedy, drama, limited series – was a challenge. There was no way to list them all, but here are the standouts.

WOMEN

Amy Adams in Sharp Objects
Sharp Objects – Amy Adams
The deeply wounded center of Jean-Marc Vallée’s adaptation, Adams’ incredible performance provided pathos to a sometimes trashy show. Even when it meandered, her self-destructive nature guided us to a devastating conclusion.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Veep
Veep – Julia Louis-Dreyfus
What else is there to say? After six Emmys and a vault full of other awards, there’s not much. But she always kept us caring, even when Selina did the most reprehensible things. That’s power.

Rhea Seehorn in Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul – Rhea Seehorn
The only person in Albuquerque not actively rotting away, Kim is the buoy that keeps you from drowning in misery and pettiness. But there’s a hole: her misplaced confidence. She thinks she can keep Jimmy on the straight-and-narrow and do things by the book. But he doesn’t want to be saved and she gains nothing by staying on the up-and-up. It’s a 50/50 shot whether she gets swallowed whole or breaks free.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag
Fleabag – Phoebe Waller-Bridge
If a show is going to be told exclusively through the POV of one person, that actor better be incredible. Luckily, in addition to writing every episode, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is also a stunning actor, bringing us into and shooing us away from her most vulnerable moments, while also being uproariously funny. Fleabag is a one-of-a-kind show from a one-of-a-kind voice, with a one-of-a-kind performer to tell it all.

Alison Wright in The Americans
The Americans – Alison Wright
The most tragic casualty of Phillip and Elizabeth’s espionage, poor Martha just wanted a husband who wanted to hear about her day and blow her back out occasionally. While her character on the page was initially just a wallflower secretary, Wright gave her a rich interior life and a loyalty that proved to be her undoing.

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10
Dec

2010s in Review: The Best Television Episodes of the Decade

This list may contain spoilers. You’ve been warned.

Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad – “Ozymandias” (Season 5, Episode 14)
Director: Rian Johnson
One of the most brutal, devastating hours of television ever, with one gut-punch after another. Every actor on the show is giving their best performances at the same moment, delivering the greatest episode of the decade.

community-remedial_chaos_theory
Community – “Remedial Chaos Theory” (Season 3, Episode 4)
Director: Jeff Melman
Perhaps the single most technically impressive, deeply emotional and funniest episode the show ever did, it’s also the only episode that ever got any Emmy love. Leaving it off this list? That would truly be the darkest timeline.

Alex Jennings and Claire Foy in The Crown
The Crown – “Vergangenheit” (Season 2, Episode 6)
Director: Stephen Daldry
Everyone’s got some skeletons in their family closet. But finding out your eccentric uncle was a full-blown Nazi supporter who was willing to sell out the entire country? That’s something you don’t come back from. But the episode ascends to another level because of Paul Sparks’ guest turn as Billy Graham, counseling the Queen with empathy and honesty.

curb_your_enthusiasm-david
Curb Your Enthusiasm – “Palestinian Chicken” (Season 7, Episode 3)
Director: Robert B. Weide
The episode that launched a million meme reactions, it’s one of Larry David’s most darkly comic inventions. When his Jewish friends start protesting a Palestinian chicken restaurant he frequents, he keeps going because, well, it’s delicious. It’s also got the single most uncomfortable, hilarious sex scene in TV history.

Zach Gilford in Friday Night Lights
Friday Night Lights – “The Son” (Season 4, Episode 5)
Director: Allison Liddi-Brown
An instant classic and probably the episode of TV responsible for the most tears, this marked a turning point for the show and for Matt (Zach Gilford). After his dad is killed in Iraq, he has to wrestle with his feeling. He has to grieve, but he’s also got to reconcile that with the fact that he didn’t much care for him when he was alive, and with good reason.

Kristen Bell in The Good Place
The Good Place – “Michael’s Gambit” (Season 1, Episode 13)
Director: Michael Schur
One of the best-executed twists in recent memory, the reveal that Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason were all really in the Bad Place, being tortured by Michael, was stunning to watch in real time, punctuated by Ted Danson’s perfect evil chuckle. This extremely philosophical show was anything but basic.

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