TV '18

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.