10. “Industry,” Episode 5, “Kitchen Season” (Season 2, HBO)
Perhaps one of the most overlooked and underrated shows on television, that likely will be on all Best-Of lists by the time it hits Season 3, “Industry” is a brilliant look at the world of ambitious, ruthless, self-destructive millennials working in the stressful, high-stakes world of the prestigious investment banking in London (if you like “The Bear,” you’re probably going to like this one too). First off, Marisa Abela (as the privileged spoiled brat Yasmin), and Myha’la Herrold (as the driven but chip-on-her-shoulder resentful Harper), are incredible and it’s no surprise they have become breakout actors getting a ton of work (if you don’t know them now, you soon will). Filled with cocaine binges, lustful sex, almost threesomes, and hedonistic abandon. Everyone in “Industry” is out of control, but in “Kitchen Season,” Harper talks her way into a business trip with Yasmin to Berlin for clandestine purposes: finding her estranged brother whom she’s been looking for years (and the show has teased out for two seasons). Never having a resolution as to why he vanished years ago, she’s in for a rude awakening as he reveals he basically left because of her and her mom’s toxic personalities. He smokes meth, shit gets dark, and elsewhere, everyone is spiraling and or hitting new rock bottom. It’s a gutting show at times, all these young people realizing they are their own worst enemies, but man, it’s a riveting drama about trying to figure out how to become a functioning adult and all the things you have to break in order to get there. – RP
9. “Atlanta,” Episode 6, “White Fashion” (Season 3, FX)
“We believe racism will be done by 2024!” As Robert Daniels said in his review of season 4 of “Atlanta,” recapturing the surreal magic of the earlier seasons was tough for the final Seasons 3 and 4 of the FX absurdist comedy, both of which arrived this year. Regardless, as mixed as they might have been comparatively, there was tons of brilliance scattered about. In the episode “New Jazz,” of Season 3, Liam Neeson showed up to basically mock his racist gaffe from a few years back, and in all of that third season, the entire gang is on a European tour with Paper Boi which caused a ton of lost in translation cultural confusion. The best of it was probably “White Fashion,” an episode where Van gets racially profiled, and a fashion company essentially manipulates and exploits Paper Boi—a Black rapper—to help them out of a controversial and embarrassing racial faux pas by having the artist join their diversity advisory committee. It’s one hand washing the other, Paper Boi receiving free clothes for three years, the company getting a cultural get-out-of-jail card, but Earn feels gross about how they’ve been clearly used. Eventually, Paper Boi discovers the entire “diversity advisory board” is a mix of sell-out People Of Color who have traded their dignity for money or whatever else the fashion line has promised them. Clever, and funny throughout, it’s also just a great example of how “Atlanta” was always challenging the ideas of race, political correctness, virtue signaling, faux corporate wokeness, and how communities of color are often exploited for a buck. (Our review) – RP
8. “Barry” Episode 6, “710N” (Season 3, HBO)
It’s kind of crazy how good HBO’s “Barry” is, has become and it’s amazing what writer/star/producer Bill Hader has accomplished as a director on the series. “Barry” is constantly cinematic, and not necessarily in the most obvious way, the show’s sense of blocking, framing, and composition is really aces. But each season, they seem to try and top themselves with one big action set piece. In Season 2, it was the amazing supermarket fight of Episode 5. In Season 3, in the episode “710N,” it’s Barry versus a biker gang that leads to an all-out shoot-out, chase, and action sequence on the Los Angeles freeway. Yes, it’s amazingly directed, thrilling, etc. but like the show itself, so funny, so engaging and so riveting (and shout-outs while we’re here to the consistently terrific score that David Wingo always knocks out and accompanies so many great scenes), Hader directed five of episodes in Season 3 and apparently is directing all of Season 4 himself. (Our review) – RP
7. “Outer Range,” Episode 1, “The Void” (Prime Video)
One of the year’s best and most underrated shows, a family drama, a Western, and an existential sci-fi series all wrapped into one (some have called it “Yellowstone” vs. “The X-Files,” but that doesn’t do its complexity justice), Brian Watkins’ “Outer Range” is an incredible look at family, faith, and the lengths we’ll go to protect those we love while examining the mysteries of the unknowable elements of time and space. There are many amazing episodes of this series, “The Family,” directed by Amy Seimetz, and “The Loss” directed by Jennifer Getzinger featuring the tense and surreal episode featuring a poker game with Autumn (Imogen Poots). But it’s really the pilot episode, “The Void,” directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios (“A Cop Movie”), that sets up this world and its intriguing mix of the moral, familial and mystifying. The short version is: a grieving man (Tom Pelphrey) accidentally beats a man to death, triggered by the taunting over the disappearance of his wife. In desperation, the patriarch of the ranching family (Josh Brolin) decides to cover up the murder by tossing the body into an inexplicable hole he has found at the edge of his land. A haunting beginning for a show that goes so many places and is incredibly directed. (Our review) – RP
6. “What We Do In The Shadows,” Episode 8, “Go Flip Yourself” (Season 4, FX)
Four seasons after graduating from hilarious film to hilarious comedy series, Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s “What We Do In The Shadows” series about petty, insecure, squabbling vampires is still going strong. Based on home renovation shows like “Property Brothers” (with twins to boot), Lazlo hopes to improve the dilapidated Staten Island mansion by submitting the house for an episode of “Go Flip Yourself,” a local home-renovation show. It’s funny as always, and so is the twist at the end featuring Nick Kroll’s Simon the Devious, vampire recurring guest star, but the true genius is the way the episode exactly mocked and mimicked the visual aesthetic of how these TV shows are shot. Directed by Yana Gorskaya, this was a masterclass in satirizing the bad, cliched cinematic style of a TV genre, the wipes, the insipid banter between twins, the overblown lighting, the ugly chyrons, the silly overly dramatic music stings, the forced digital zooms, all of it. You suddenly felt like you were watching cloying HGTV. Genius, and hats off to Gorskaya for studying this stuff and duplicating it so seamlessly. (Our review) – RP