“Better Things” Season 5 (FX)
Television will truly miss the Fox family. It was arguably the truest on the medium over the last decade and certainly through this show’s fifth and final season. That’s what this show has always been about: truth. Creator and star Pamela Adlon eschewed the typical desperation of the family sitcom for a program that focused more on its characters than going for a cheap laugh. Sam (Adlon) and her daughters Max (Mikey Madison), Frankie (Hannah Alligood), and Duke (Olivia Edward) felt like people we knew in real life. They were our family too, or at least our neighbors. The final season continued to produce unexpected laughs, but it’s the true moments between the humor that have always elevated this program. – BT
“The Dropout” (Hulu)
True-to-life tech CEO Grifter TV hit an all-time high in 2022—at one point in April, there had already been five shows on the air about various startups and their greedy, misguided, arrogant, Elon Musk-like CEOs that led their companies to ruin or close enough. The best of them might be “The Dropout,” centered on Theranos and its ambitious and young CEO Elisabeth Holmes. Created and showrun by Elizabeth Merriweather (“New Girl”), “The Dropout” is an engrossing, funny, and dark cautionary tale about believing your own hype, and even gaslighting yourself to tap into your own twisted sense of self-belief. All that aside, including, an amazing and huge ensemble cast (Naveen Andrews, William H. Macy, Elizabeth Marvel, Laurie Metcalf, and many more), “The Dropout” is anchored by its superb and captivating lead performance by Amanda Seyfried as Holmes. It’s arguably the best of her career, complex, layered, at times chilling, and an incredible look at how “changing the world,” is quickly becoming a red flag of innovator hubris. [Read our review] – RP
“Euphoria” Season 2 (HBO)
Sam Levinson turned up the intensity on the second season of his award-winning show, expanding the story from its core focus on Rue (Zendaya) and Jules (Hunter Schafer) to give characters like Lexi (Maude Apatow) and Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) more time this year. “Euphoria” felt more like an ensemble piece, and it also became arguably richer in its cinematic language with Levinson pulling out all the stops visually. From the Scorsese-inspired chaos of the party that opened the season to Rue’s showcase episode in the fifth chapter, where Zendaya gave arguably her career-best performance, “Euphoria” felt willing to challenge its fan base instead of just giving them more of what they liked in season one. Let’s hope that ambition continues. [Read our review] – BT
“The Girl From Plainville” (Hulu)
Man, Elle Fanning had a banner 2021/2022, finishing off the end of “The Great” season two at the end of last year; just a few months later, she was back at it again on another Hulu show, “The Girl From Plainville.” Radically different from the rat-a-tat energy and screwball energy of her Tony McNamara show, “The Great”—which was always good, but has fine-tuned itself to be one of the most wickedly funny shows on TV—she pivoted and did a 180 into a much more somber subject matter in ‘Plainville.’ About the infamous suicide texting case of 2014 and respectfully created by Liz Hannah & Patrick Macmanus, in the elusive ‘Plainville,’ Fanning plays Michelle Carter, the teenage high schooler convicted of involuntary manslaughter for urging her boyfriend (a loose term, they only met a handful of times, but had an intense texting relationship), to end his mental suffering and commit suicide. Walking a razor’s edge fine line between fantasy and reality and where the two blur, “The Girl From Plainville,” does an expert trapeze walk of tone with musical sequences, fantasy moments that lean on “Glee,” ecstatic moments of teenage bliss and of course, the cold and chilling moments that build-up to the death of a young boy. Featuring a great supporting cast of Chloë Sevigny, Colton Ryan, Aya Cash, and more, the tour de force performance at the center of it all, sublimely tying together all its disparate tenors, is Fanning in a performance that will likely captivate all and every Emmy voter. [Read our review] – RP
“Hacks” Season 2 (HBO Max)
The second season of HBO Max’s comedy about a famous stand-up (Jean Smart) and her newest writer (Hannah Einbinder) had a tough act to follow. After all, Season 1 took home Emmys for Best Actress, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Directing. And yet it felt like the creative team behind “Hacks” took that success and turned it into even more confident character work, producing a sophomore outing that expanded the thematic scope of their hit show by basically taking their characters on the road. As Deborah and Ava traveled the country working on her new show, the writing remained as sharp as ever, sketching a character study of two people who may have more in common than they first thought, and are better together, even as they often try to tear each other apart. [Read our review] – BT
