The Best TV Shows of 2019, Part Two
10. BARRY (HBO)
Barry remained one of the darkest shows on television in its second season while not losing any of its humor. More thematically complex (as breakout episode “ronny/lily” exemplified), Barry further damned its main character by shining a spotlight on an ignored, violent past. Bill Hader’s performance is still stunning, and the second season gave much needed further focus to Stephen Root’s and Anthony Carrigan’s characters, all three characters occupying a distinctive spot on a sliding scale of psychopathy. Barry has further cemented itself as a worthy evolution of the antihero genre that has been repeatedly tried to rare positive results over the past decade.
9. THE OA (Netflix)
Seemingly inscrutable and yet the only masterpiece Netflix ever released (besides season one of Sense8), season two of The OA doubled down on its already absurd premise (OA stands for “original angel”, and that’s really only where things start). The thing about “weird” television is that you can always tell when it’s done self-consciously. FX’s Legion, for example, is a show that wants you to remark upon how strange it is. Twin Peaks (both the original and revival) is weird as hell, but in a way that you can tell that David Lynch legitimately just thinks that way. Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling wholeheartedly believe everything The OA has to say, even when it’s unbearably cheesy, and it’s a joy to watch. A giant psychic octopus, alternate realities, dance moves that can give you angelic powers, and a cliffhanger ending that may just rival the end of Twin Peaks season 2 for one of the most thrilling and frustrating (only because of the show’s cancellation) TV endings of all time came together to create some of the most audacious, wonderfully strange television I’ve ever seen.
8. THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES (HBO)
The Righteous Gemstones lives and dies by its specificity, something Danny McBride knows all too well from his childhood. The show’s portrayal of organized religion is nothing short of scathing, but its portrayal of its characters is its most interesting aspect. Most of them are buffoons, but they’re buffoons who genuinely want to be good people and find themselves blinded by the expensive lifestyle that this supposed “good” religion earned them. The show pities them as much as it implicitly damns them, as they lie, betray, and ridicule each other in order to impress their father, their peers, and themselves. A hilariously dark tone with pitch perfect performances (the standouts include Walton Goggins and Edi Patterson, but everyone is great here) come together to make The Righteous Gemstones the best non-Succession family drama of the year.
7. NOW APOCALYPSE (Starz)
Similar to The OA, Now Apocalypse is “weird” television, but with a very specific, auteurist vision. Creator/director Gregg Araki’s status as a major figure in the New Queer Cinema of the 90’s cemented him as one of the most interesting directors of that decade. His jump to television (with the help of fellow 90’s film icon Steven Soderbergh), showcased exactly what still makes him a reliably great writer and director. Like his films, Now Apocalypse equates adulthood with the end of the world: youth is everything, sex is hot but scary, everyone wears bright colors, and the tone is reminiscent of Beverly Hills, 90210. Araki’s vision is thematically audacious as well with a fascinating portrayal of queerness and sex positivity (both big aspects of the show, co-creator Karley Sciortino frequently writes about sexuality and sex work);what easily could have been a parody of pansexual, oversexed millennials turns into something more existential, strange, and surprisingly straightforward. Simultaneously parodic, serious, joyful, and deeply bizarre, Now Apocalypse is a distinctive creator making an indelible mark on an increasingly bland and safe television landscape.
6. THE OTHER TWO (Comedy Central)
The Other Two’s premise is so ingeniously simple and inherently funny that it felt like a classic as it was airing. Following the two loser siblings of hugely popular (fictional) tween pop star ChaseDreams, The Other Two alchemizes the past decade of pop music culture into a surprisingly acidic satire about the nature of fame. Drew Tarver and Helene Yorke give the best comedic performances of the year, all desperation and deep self-hatred. The real star of The Other Two is the tone: it never settles for easy comedy, always mining the most realistic, uncomfortable humor from its characters. When it’s all over The Other Two may well end up feeling more like a tragedy than anything, with its desperate, deeply sad characters clinging onto any type of fame that materializes in front of them. It’s also the funniest show of the year.
5. MINDHUNTER (Netflix)
Easily the best directed show of the year, Mindhunter is ostensibly a relic of television’s past (a crime procedural) that nevertheless feels new, vital, and innovative. Moody without being overly dour and funny without ever feeling glib, Mindhunter is primarily a show about process and fascination: our main characters’ (arguably sick) fascination with the violent, disturbed individuals they study and the process by which they study them in order to properly single out others like them in the future. What’s remarkable about the second season is that it posits that their process might not even work, or needs refinement, as the season primarily reveals itself to be about failure, on both personal and professional levels for the characters (the season ending on-screen text is very upsetting, even if you know the history behind the real life Atlanta Child Murders investigation). A sublimely slow burn and refreshingly low concept season of television, Mindhunter is a reminder of the heights that “old” television can accomplish.
4. RAMY (Hulu)
There have been a cavalcade of loosely autobiographical comedy dramas over the past decade, some great (Girls, Please Like Me), others not so great (Love, Master of None). Ramy avoids the pitfalls of the worst of these shows by having a strong focus on a topic creator/star Ramy Youseff clearly cares about (spirituality), as well as quickly expanding its characterization beyond its ostensible main character. Ramy paints a world of people lost in a world that feels spiritually distant, and the subtle and not so subtle ways they’ll try to achieve enlightenment. From a young Ramy facing prejudice on 9/11, to his sexually frustrated and fetishized sister, to his existentially frustrated mother, Ramy was one of the more generous shows of the year with regards to the characterization of its whole cast. Funny, insightful, and meaningful, Ramy signals a new evolution in an increasingly tired television genre.
3. UNDONE (Amazon)
A work of art unlike any other television show this year, Undone used its rotoscope animation to astonishing effect, transporting its heroine Alma (played by the sublime Rosa Salazar) to places far and wide, within her headspace and outside of it, as she works to save her father from dying decades earlier (or deals with delusions from an undiagnosed mental illness). The animation bolsters what are already great performances, and makes the show gloriously ambiguous, as it’s never clear whether or not what’s happening is actually happening as Alma goes deeper into a rabbit hole of trauma, indecision, and self-destructive behavior. From the writers of Bojack Horseman, Undone marks a logical evolution from that show: more audacious animation, deeper characterization, and a deeply ambitious yet personal feeling story. Undone is the most stunningly original show to come out this year.
2. SUCCESSION (HBO)
Easily the best acted show on television, Succession grew to new heights in its second season by delving deeper into the lives of the three Roy children, with Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, and Kieran Culkin giving the best performances of the year. This season was primarily been about debasement, whether it was the sickening “Boar on the Floor” game patriarch Logan initiates or Shiv persuading a woman not to testify about workplace harassment, characters this season tore into each other by tearing into themselves for what’s usually a modicum of power. While rarely physical, the pain can be seen clear as day on the faces of Strong, Snook, and Culkin. Strong’s Kendall is a shell of a person this season and his performance is a masterclass of restraint, similar to Matthew Rhys’ shattering performance on The Americans. Snook’s Shiv was especially heartbreaking this season, as someone who’s clearly been passed over many times in her life who believes this is her chance to finally make her father proud. Culkin’s Roman is the trickiest performance of all but Culkin makes Roman achingly human even when he’s being the smuggest asshole on a show full of them. I don’t think creator Jesse Armstrong particular cares about the show’s harsher critics, but it seems like the show doubled down on making the viewer subtly aware of their horrific privilege and how it implicitly affects those around them, a common criticism against the show. It was clear in season one but it’s even clearer here: it’s clear when a large feast is thrown away because of an unrelated bad smell, it’s clear when Antifa protests their company and it’s a minor annoyance to the characters, it’s clear when a poor British family will never find out exactly what happened to their son. None of this matters to the Roys and it never will. All of this is why I was surprised to see that some viewers didn’t understand what Logan’s smile in the finale meant. If you’ve been paying attention it’s obvious: this has always been a fucking game to these people and it always will be, and that’s the true tragedy at the heart of Succession.
- MR. ROBOT (USA)
Mr. Robot is a show that put in the work. After a critically acclaimed first season, many critics fell off the second season, citing it as convoluted and repetitive, but that season was a feature, not a bug. That was when Mr. Robot chiefly became a show that gave viewers not what they wanted, but what they needed. They needed to feel as lost and helpless as Elliot did, they needed to feel the despair of this world that’s all too similar to ours, they needed to feel that what’s “real” could easily not be so, and it bolstered the series as whole, leading to its transcendent final season, which had similar instincts. Mr. Robot’s bread and butter is largely pastiche: Fight Club, psychological thrillers, and the films of Stanley Kubrick come together to create one of the most distinctive and best dramas of the 2010’s, one that takes the best of its influences and creates something that feels new and unlike anything else on television. Even though it was frequently flashy and overtly stylized, Mr. Robot never skimped on characterization, with main character Elliot Alderson quickly becoming one of the best television characters in recent memory, alongside a deep cast of compelling supporting characters.
My favorite television shows have always been about broken people that come together to fix each other and make the world just a little more livable for each other. What Mr. Robot was truly about, in the end, is a person that was so broken that the separate parts of himself came together to fix the world for himself, out of pure love, and they actually kinda fix the world. There’s no way I could have never loved this show. In the world of Mr. Robot, you can redistribute wealth and depose the top one percent of the one percent but the real existential problem is whether or not you can come to terms with yourself and your loved ones in a world that does everything it can to prevent that from happening. This gonzo mixture of external and internal trauma, the equal focus on the damaged relationship between a society and its government and the damaged relationship between a brother and sister, its equal cynicism and steely optimism: it’s within this seemingly contradictory chasm the show lived and died and became my favorite show of the year and one of my favorite shows ever. Mr. Robot is ridiculous, overindulgent, derivative, moving, structurally impressive, and fearless. It’s perfect television.
And here are the best television episodes of the year, in alphabetical order.
“The Answer” // THE GOOD PLACE
I haven’t really liked The Good Place since mid-second season but this episode reminded me of how great this show once was.
“407 Proxy Identification Required” // MR. ROBOT
The best “reveal” the show ever did was one that wasn’t even a reveal per se, just an unearthing of hidden trauma, one earned by Elliot’s characterization, Rami Malek’s incredible performance, and the tense play-like structure and direction in this episode.
“Overview” // THE OA
The OA saved its most ludicrous and fun idea yet for the end of this finale, sending the series deeper into convoluted mythology only to get cancelled months later, cementing it as the Twin Peaks of this generation.
“Anna Ishii-Peters” // PEN15
Sleepovers are terrible and this episode captures them in all of their uncomfortable, awkward glory. Maya Erskine gives a fearless performance.
“Ne Me Quitte Pas” // RAMY
Hiam Abbas pulled double duty this year, giving brilliant supporting performances on both Ramy and Succession. This episode of Ramy in particular is a testament to how revelatory she is given the proper spotlight.
“Interlude” // THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES
The roots of dysfunction rendered in an idyllic and melancholic past. Also, Walton Goggins sings.
“This Is Not For Tears” // SUCCESSION
Today I don’t need a replacement
I’ll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom, boom, boom
“Hey” I said,
“You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home”
— Solsbury Hill, Peter Gabriel
“Employee Appreciation Day” // SUPERSTORE
Superstore has always been righteously cynical but it reached a new height in this episode with its scathing, heartbreaking, and unfortunately realistic episode-ending plot twist. The most important TV episode of the year, politically speaking.
“The Jelly Lakes” // TUCA & BERTIE
A masterful combination of tragedy and comedy that pays equal attention to both, without ever feeling too irreverent or overtly maudlin.
“The Trial” // WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
You’d expect the cameos from the original What We Do In The Shadows vampires, but the sheer cavalcade of cameos they got for this episode (except for “Brad” and “Rob”) made this one of the funniest and most surprising TV episodes of the year.
“Pancakes” // YOU’RE THE WORST
You’re The Worst’s thesis summed up perfectly: love is just trying every day even when the future looks uncertain.
