5. “Irma Vep,” Episode 4, “The Poisoner” (HBO Max)
This year, French filmmaker Oliver Assayas remade his 1996 indie film of the same name as limited series on HBO Max. Already super meta, about the difficulties of filmmaking—the stars and director’s egos, the insecurities, fragilities, personal issues, and the various dramas, personal, emotional, or financial that raise their heads while trying to already climb this Sisyphean mountain—”Irma Vep” was and is again, in 2022, a sly, clever and amusing look at the dysfunction of moviemaking and how art often imitates life and blur together. The series centers on a disillusioned American star (Alicia Vikander), starring in a lurid crime thriller remake of the French silent film serial “Les Vampires” (1915). But imbuing it all with another meta and spectral level is how “Irma Vep” is Assayas’ way of reckoning with his past, both on a personal and filmmaking level. The original star of ‘96’s “Irma Vep” is Chinese star Maggie Cheung, and the two of them were briefly married for three years starting in 1998. Their marriage dissolved somewhat mysteriously; to hear it from Assayas, she basically just ghosted him. Fitting then, to try and reconcile with it all, in Episode 4, the show’s in-show tortured director Vincent Macaigne (a neurotic Assayas stand-in), then has an impossible conversation with a ghost, Jade (Vivian Wu), his ex-wife. Waking from a dream (or in a dream?), he essentially asks her, “Where did we go wrong?” It’s obviously very personal, an imaginary conversation the director never had with his ex-wife trying to grapple with the ghosts of the past that still haunt him. And if it sounds kind of self-involved and navel-gazing? Hell, no, it was absolutely riveting stuff. – (Our review) RP
4. “The Dropout,” Episode 3, “Green Juice” (Hulu)
It can be difficult to single out a moment in Elizabeth Meriwether’s outstanding limited series, “The Dropout,” about Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, recently sentenced to serve nearly 12 years in prison for defrauding investors of her billion-dollar start-up health technology company. The tangential comedy episode “Old White Men,” centered on a quartet of bumbling Keystone Cops-like Walgreens execs Josh Pais, Alan Ruck, Andrew Leeds, and Rich Sommer is terrific and really speaks to the fear and panic that fossil dinosaurs are experiencing explaining the rise of an idealistic innovative newcomer like Holmes that wants to change the world. But this show was the Amanda Seyfried show, easily her best performance ever, and a staggering feat of hubris, ambition, drive, and chillingly calculated self-delusion (a deserved Emmy win if there ever was one). “Green Juice” is an outstanding showcase of her powers. Holmes, in desperation and a rock-bottom moment of self-doubt, pulls herself out of despair, repeating “This is an inspiring step forward,” into the mirror over and over again, convincing herself that her technology is not the fraud it is, but instead, something revolutionary (even when she knows it’s not). Pitching her voice down to a more manly register, adopting her trademark black turtle neck, and gripping her green juice constant companion, this is her point-of-no-return Joker moment, a young, brilliant woman with a genius idea that currently does not actually work, deciding to go down the dark path of self-deception, in order to try and jumpstart her sense of conviction. (Our review) – RP
3. “Reservation Dogs,” Episode 9, “Offerings” (Season 2, FX)
In just two seasons, Sterlin Harjo’s rich, brilliantly funny, and deeply human show about disaffected Indigenous teens in Oklahoma grieving the loss of one of their crew, has evolved from just that to a show about the entire community around them without sacrificing the potency of the main storyline. This one is super hard to pick. Episode 5, “Wide Net” starring all the Aunties and their wild trip to the yearly Indian Health Service (IHS) conference is stunning, so well-observed, and crazy comical. But it was the penultimate episode of Season 2, “Offerings,” directed by Harjo himself that really slayed us emotionally. Nearly graduated from high school, the episode centers on a letter all the teens wrote to themselves about their future in freshman year. Of course, Daniel’s letter—the Rez Dog teen who killed himself and kicked off Season 1 — still exists and has to be dealt with. Already dispirited about how the Rez Dogs seem consumed by darkness, Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) takes the unread letter to Daniel’s mother, her auntie Hokti (Lily Gladstone), a medicine woman who is in prison. Still bitter and reluctant to engage, Hokti has a hard time seeing Willie Jack because she reminds her of her late son. All of this will break your heart as it is, but the moment when the large group of ancestral spirits appears to grant them all comfort is just spectacular, leaving your jaw on the floor and the tears streaming down your face. (Our review)– RP
2. “The Bear,” Episode 6, “Ceres” and episode 7, “The Review” (FX)
Writer/director Christopher Storer‘s intense, dysfunctional kitchen comedy family drama on FX came out of nowhere this year and took TV by storm in the summer; anyone who was anyone obsessed with television was being dazzled by this show in real-time for all of June. The series centers on “Carmy,” a young, tightly-wound fine dining chef (Jeremy Allen White), who comes home to Chicago to run his family’s rundown Italian beef sandwich shop after the suicide of his older brother, who left behind debts, a kitchen in disarray and an unruly staff (led by an amazing Ebon Moss-Bachrach). For several episodes, we’re told about “Mikey,” Carmy’s legendary brother, a brilliant chef, a mensch, the man who lit up every room, and more; all these stories are told in grief, melancholy reminiscence, and still-genuine awe. It takes a big man to fill those shoes, and for a while, we think “The Bear” just won’t even try. But then Jon Bernthal shows up as the charismatic Mikey in a flashback, is larger than life, nails the scene, and makes us acutely understand while every tortured and volatile character on his tempestuous show is in prolonged, aggrieved mourning they may never escape from. Of course, there’s also the much-talked-about episode, “The Review” which featured an 18-minute unbroken one-shot directed by its breakout creator Christopher Storer, which typified just how insanely stressful, chaotic, and agitated this show could be. Brilliant stuff. (Our review)– RP
1. “Andor,” Episode 12, “Rix Road” (Disney+)
There were a lot of great episodes of Tony Gilroy’s “Star Wars” series, “Andor,” a show about how an apathetic man of self-interest (Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor), and the community around him (the planet of Ferrix), were radicalized into fighting the Imperial oppression of the Empire, sounding the alarm to the rest of the galaxy to stand up and fight. “Reckoning” with the tense face-off with Luthen Rael is electric, “The Eye,” the final chapter of the Aldhani story, and “One Way Out,” the finale of the prison chapter where Luthen delivers his blistering monologue about burning his life “to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.” But the symphonic crescendo of the finale, “Rix Road,” where Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw) delivers her rousing “fight the bastards” speech from beyond the grave was so searing, so moving and so emotional. Combined with the way all the threads convened on this Rix Road, Nicolas Brittell’s astonishing score, and the chorale of all these great actors, this finale was breathtaking and one of the best episodes of TV we saw all year. (Our review of “Andor”) – RP
Honorable Mention:
Honestly, we could go on all day for 20+ picks, but in the interest of time and sanity, here are a few more honorable mention picks we loved.
The Afterparty, “Yasper”
Euphoria, “Stand Still Like The Hummingbird”
Mayans MC, “When the Breakdown Hit at Midnight”
The Sandman, “The Sound of Her Wings”
Abbott Elementary, “Desking”
Better Call Saul, “Saul Gone”
Hacks, “Retired”
Severance, “Good News About Hell”
Cabinet of Curiosities, “The Murmuring”
Stranger Things, “Chapter Four: Dear Billy”
What We Do in the Shadows, “Reunited”
Black Bird, “The Place I Lie”
We Crashed, “The One With All The Money”
