7. The Handmaid’s Tale. The show that defines “hard to watch”
wasn’t as good in its second season. It did have some strong storytelling,
making Serena Joy’s character increasingly complex. She was a smart woman with
terrible ideas who violently overthrew the government and now she’s gotten what
she wanted but that finds her under her husband’s control, missing a finger due
to the great Gileadean crime of reading a book while being a woman. I got that
the show was trying to subtly have June develop some kind of Stockholm Syndrome
and move closer and closer to the regime (escaping and showing less resistance
each time) but I didn’t buy that she would get her baby out and go back to
Gilead without her. I was yelling, “Take your baby and run!”
6. The Good Place. We just recently discovered this but
aren’t caught up yet. The Good Place
is just a delight, a show ostensibly about the afterlife but really about
living an ethical life on Earth. That, and Jeremy Bearimy.
5. GLOW. This show, tracking the rise of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling from local
curiosity to syndicated ‘80s glory, is just a riot. I liked delving into the
personal lives of the wrestlers, especially the feud between Debbie and Ruth. I
really enjoyed the joyful promo video shot at the mall and the episode entirely
dedicated to an episode of GLOW as it
would have aired.
4. The Haunting of Hill House. There were jump scares and subtle
scares in this show. The Haunting of Hill
House does what good horror does by mixing the scares with the emotional
violence the members of the Crain family do to each other. We’ll have to
rewatch it to catch any ghosts we didn’t see the first time.
3. The Deuce. It was a ton of fun watching the cast
shoot the porno Red Hot in 1978 New
York City, filming scenes without a permit in Times Square and on the subway
before they could get caught. The Deuce
jumps forward six years and shows prostitution fading and porn ascending. Some
make this transition better than others. Poor Dorothy tries to offer a better
life to the sex workers and it gets her killed. Larry is irrelevant as a pimp
but reinvents himself as a pretty good porn actor. Lori is off to dirty movie
stardom. CC tries to get a piece of the mob-backed pie and his arrogance gets
him killed. (Lori was so under his thumb that she is terrified he is still out
there waiting to hurt her, until she finally gets word he is dead, then breaks
down laughing/crying in an amazing scene in the diner.) Best of all, Candy is
on her way up as a porn director with artistic ambition. I am really compelled
by her story, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is great.
I have a theory
that some of the women of The Deuce
each resemble somebody from ‘70s pop culture. Candy is Diane Keaton. Lori is
Debbie Harry. Dorothy is Gloria Steinem. Abby is Jane Fonda. No idea what this
means, if anything.
2. Better Call Saul. When Better Call Saul premiered, I thought it would be worth a laugh but
would never touch the quality of its parent series, Breaking Bad. The prequel is not at Breaking Bad’s insanely high level, but it’s pretty damn good. It’s
a slower show, depicting the process of how the main characters get to where
they are in the future. It shows how Mike got Gus’s underground lab built, and
his slow slide into weary corruption, and does it with as much enthusiasm as it
portrays a hazardous drug deal. It’s a show that takes the low stakes of Kim
and Jimmy faking community support letters to get Huell out of trouble and does
it in a hilarious, completely compelling way.
We know the
fate of most of these characters in the future, so the smartest thing Better Call Saul did was introduce Kim
Wexler (the spectacular Rhea Seehorn). Nobody knows what will happen to her and
I am very invested in where her story goes—whether she gives into her bad girl
instincts and throws in with Jimmy, or if she gets out and has a career as the
competent, hard-working lawyer that she can be. The end of the season left her
at a crossroads, as Jimmy gets back his law license by faking being affected by
the death of his brother Chuck. Kim buys Jimmy’s performance, so it’s a slap in
the face when Jimmy tells her it was all a lie, completing his transformation
into Saul Goodman in a breathtaking scene.
1. The Americans. Ooh, are you shocked? Are you gasping
“I can’t believe Brian picked The
Americans as the best show of the year! I didn’t see this coming, even with
his evangelistic fandom over the last six years!”? Anchored by the
always-stunning performances of Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys and Noah Emmerich,
this show continued to do what I love it for: mixing visceral espionage with
deep character exploration. The sixth season included not only macabre spy
thrills (Philip decapitating the dead spy, Elizabeth choking the artist on her
own paint brush) but also moments that were subtler but just as affecting
(Elizabeth frayed and finally disillusioned, Philip putting Paige in a
chokehold to make a point, Stan slowly realizing his best friend’s betrayal).
The final
season explored what Americans and Soviets do when it all falls apart. Their
countries reach the beginning of the end of the Cold War and a tentative peace,
but they lose their raison d’etre and confront the hideous human toll their
missions have brought. In typical Americans
fashion, it comes crashing down not in a gunfight but in an emotionally charged
conversation in a parking garage, “You were my best friend … You made my life a
joke,” Stan barks at Philip, and then decides, after searching for the spies
next door for years, to let them go. Everybody survives that final season, but
everybody pays a price. Henry loses the family that never paid him much
attention and finds out his life is a lie. Paige gets off the train and stays
in America, doing shots of vodka in an abandoned safe house, waiting for orders
from the Center that will never come. Stan is professionally ruined and will
never know if he married a spy. Elizabeth and Philip make it back to their
beloved Soviet Union, but the country has become unrecognizable and is about to
abandon the beliefs they risked their lives for. Worst of all, the family they
fought so hard to keep together is now shattered. “We’ll get used to it,”
Elizabeth tells Philip in Russian. The end was not what I expected but it was
perfectly Americans.
The sixth
season wasn’t the best of this show (that would be the fourth season) but it
was the best thing I saw on TV this year. As a whole, The Americans is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on TV, and I’m disappointed that there’s no more to write
about.
