15. “Search Party” Season 2
The critically acclaimed, but sorely underwatched “Search Party” season 1 was a hilariously sharp blend of millennial sincerity and postmodern irony, which both skewered and celebrated the loneliness and the need for connection of millennial culture. A kind of “Girls” meets “Bored To Death” meets quarter-life crisis. But season 2 of this already dark comedy created by ‘Fort Tilden” braintrust Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers and Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick”) takes an even darker turn. Starring the excellent cast of Alia Shawkat and relative newcomers, John Early John Reynolds and Meredith Hagner, “Search Party” began as a story about a deeply unfulfilled twentysomething Dory (Shawkat) who found spiritual purpose in obsessively investigating the disappearance of a college acquaintance, and the friends who begrudgingly went along for the ride. In the series’ sophomore season, it morphs into the “Crimes and Misdemeanors” of the avocado toast generation, exploring the nightmarish aftermath of murder with tense and funny pangs of remorse, paranoia, suspicion and the unbearable weight of snowballing lies. “Search Party” isn’t as irreverently glib as it was originally, but this crazy hybrid show, now a stress-inducing morality play and fucked-up satire, is like nothing else on TV. Imagine “Broad City” with “Macbeth”-style blood on your hands. It’s not always as light and entertaining as it was before — but the traumatic consequences the characters grapple with has really made for one of the most emotionally complex and downright weird comedies happening on any screen today.
14. “Insecure” Season 2
Perhaps no show currently airing is a better successor to “Sex and the City” and its commentary on modern dating than this HBO comedy from Issa Rae and Larry Wilmore. But while its predecessor often told its stories about New Yorkers’ love lives at a winking remove, “Insecure” feels entirely authentic and always relatable. A lot of that falls on Rae and her flawed, frustratingly identifiable character Issa Dee. In its growth between its first and second season, it retains the boldness that set it apart while proving it wasn’t just a single-season success. Other shows might have removed Lawrence (Jay Ellis) after his break-up with Issa at the end of season one, but “Insecure” not only keeps him in the mix, it continues to tell his story, which recognizes the complexity of modern relationships, and (bonus) gives us more time with the character and the actor. Beyond its focus on the hilarious awkwardness of dating, “Insecure” isn’t afraid of tackling serious questions, including black identity and the often problematic ways well-meaning white people try to help. Rae’s show offers a variety of black experiences within Los Angeles, through the different lives and worlds of Issa, Molly (Yvonne Orji) and Lawrence. But it also takes brutal aim at the misguided efforts and racism present at We Got Y’all, the non-profit where Issa works. It all adds up to one of the most essential voices on television that offers both laughs and real insight.
13. “American Vandal”
With the true crime boom of “Serial” and “Making A Murderer” et al, it was inevitable that we’d get some kind of parodic spin on the genre at some point. But we’re lucky that it came from Funny Or Die veterans Dan Perrault and Tony Yacenda, whose “American Vandal” is about a good a version you can imagine of that project. Yes, it was an eight-episode comedy looking at who spray-painted 27 dicks on cars in the staff parking lot of a California high school. But Perrault and Yacenda, plus showrunner Dan Lagana, were so careful with their formal tics and gags about this kind of project that it ended up being oddly gripping, the twists and turns often being as eyebrow-raising as anything that Sarah Koenig could pull off (while also having a good old-fashioned facility for a great dick joke). Even an idea as simple and silly as an inexplicable CGI reconstruction could raise a belly laugh. But the show’s real magic trick was that, underneath its “Making A Murderer” exterior, it was stealthily one of the best high school shows since “Freaks & Geeks,” building a very real set of surprising characters that defied classic archetypes while still bringing the laughs. It even had more heart than you might imagine — we were legitimately moved by the final episode. A gem that, like most of Netflix’s best, became a word-of-mouth hit.
12. “The Good Place” Season 2
We used to run our Best TV piece in the summer, a reflection of the traditional September-May TV season to which most network shows stuck. It’s a measure of how much the business has changed in just a few years — both the increasing irrelevance of that calendar, and the diminishing of network shows — that “The Good Place” is the only one that’s a little complicated when it comes to the calendar year, having aired the last few episodes of its first season in early 2017, and most of its second near the end. But fortunately, all of its 2017 episodes showcased the most inventive and richest network comedy in years at its very best. In its early going, Mike Schur’s show — about a heaven-like paradise, and the dirtbag (Kristen Bell) who accidentally found herself there — was promising enough to make our list last year. But then, in its season one finale, one of the more cleverly plotted comedies out there dropped a giant bombshell that has to rank as one of the great TV twists ever, and completely made you rethink the show (it holds up beautifully on a rewatch — the whole thing’s on Netflix now). It also led to questions about whether the season 2 would work, but Schur and co have continued to take risks and seen them pay off, while doubling-down on the elements that worked best (more of D’Arcy Carden’s wonderful Janet can only be a good thing). It’s a measure of its joys that the gap between new episodes makes us feel that we’re in The Bad Place (also, everything else that’s going on in the world).
11. “I Love Dick”
This isn’t a softly lit, R&B-soundtrack-fueled seduction; Jill Soloway’s second Amazon original is the television equivalent of fucking on dirty, scratchy sheets under a bare bulb – and we mean that as a compliment. Based on Chris Kraus’ novel, “I Love Dick” is an unvarnished deep dive into female desire and is, along with “Twin Peaks,” the closest thing mainstream TV has to experimental cinema. At times, its images feel like what you’d see if you wandered past a black curtain at a modern art museum, but the comedy is never inaccessible despite its wonderfully abrasive and bold approach. Kathryn Hahn is always great in supporting roles in projects as varied as “Bad Moms” and Soloway’s “Transparent,” but here she shows new depth as Chris, a struggling filmmaker consumed by lust for her husband’s professor, Dick (Kevin Bacon) who may be in the cheekily named title, but the show is all about women. Behind the camera, Soloway is joined by Kimberly Peirce and Andrea Arnold, with female filmmakers helming all but one episode. The show reaches its peak in “A Short History of Weird Girls,” an episode that gives other characters and their own sexual experiences a voice, creating a revolutionary 21 minutes unlike anything else on our screens.
