You already have your own list of best TV shows, and who am I to disagree? Any show that makes your mood a little lighter or moves you in some extraordinary way fits that designation. But traditions must be attended to, including our annual “best of” round-ups.
Regardless of the TV industry’s contraction, there are still too many outstanding shows for one person to keep up with, let alone capture in a single list. That’s one reason every year-end list of best series has its omissions; nobody can watch everything.
There are all kinds of “Best TV Series of 2024” lists, though, led by certain award magnets. FX’s “Shogun” is an all-around masterpiece.
“Ripley” and “Baby Reindeer” are among Netflix’s top must-sees. Apple TV+ continues to draw audiences with shows like “Disclaimer” (a favorite of my colleague Coleman Spilde), “Slow Horses” and the delightful “Loot.” HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country” is the deftest revival of a dead franchise I’ve seen in a long time, and “Dune: Prophecy” is an elegant extension of a cinematic phenomenon. And if you haven’t seen the “Matlock” update on CBS, you really should.
The greatness of any work boils down to moments, scenes and details, and there are too many good ones for any list to be complete. But here are nine that keep bubbling to the surface of my memory that reaffirm what makes their season’s must-sees.
The Moment: A man is healed by a mother’s love.
Supernatural evil is a recurring feature in “Fargo,” the kind whose agenda is separate from the squabbles of petty men and women. In Season 5 Sam Spruell’s Ole Munch took on that role, a timeless “sin eater” hired to hunt Dot Lyon (Juno Temple). Dot scars Munch, and gets rid of Munch’s “client,” but he can’t be done with her: “A debt must be paid,” he growls in front of Dot’s daughter and gentle husband. Where others would respond with fear and violence, Dot invites him to help her make biscuits to go with their chili. Watching a confused Munch pitch in to help instead of murdering them all is strange at first, then heartwarming as he realizes this sweet, lovely family only wants to make him feel welcome. Munch tells the long story of his deathless existence, a sentence he’s living out because he believes forgiveness is impossible. But when Dot tells Munch the cure for all his sorrow and guilt is “to eat something made with love and joy, and be forgiven,” while handing him a warm biscuit sweetened with honey, the slow smile that spreads across Spruell’s face as he tastes the first bite becomes a bright beacon of hope.
The Moment: The Great TP Robbery
Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) spent her career accepting that it’s a man’s world and plotting her navigation accordingly. Working with protégé Ava (Hannah Einbinder) helped her achieve new career heights by breaking free of those lowered expectations. But long-held views don’t die easily. When the old (and I mean old) boys’ club that once excluded invites her over for a very exclusive poker party they pair with their colonoscopy prep, she eagerly accepts even though she’s already suffered through her annual blowout. The gross bowel breaks and misogyny, she can stomach. But to her surprise, their retrograde views on queerness are a bridge too far. Instead of simply removing herself from offensive company, she leaves the guys in a messy bind by stealing every roll of TP in the joint – a truly legendary move.
The Moment: The emergence of Sofia Gigante
Every adult holds on to clothes that remind them of past glories. That’s why rifling through an older relative’s clothing is a common ritual – part archaeological dig, part playtime experiment. In “The Penguin” Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone marks her transition from the dutiful mobster’s demure daughter to a siren afire with vengeance. That’s announced when she arrives at a family dinner with traitorous relatives wearing a flaming yellow gown with a plunging neckline. After she wipes all of them out, she digs through her mother’s closet and lands on a fabulous ‘80s fur with her mother’s maiden name, Isabella Gigante, sewn inside. That’s what she wears to a gathering of the remaining Falcone forces to announce her takeover, punctuated by executing the remaining male relative standing in her way. “Few spoke of her after she died because she was a force greater than the Falcones could handle,” Sofia tells the men. Milioti’s superb performance makes Sofia a force, and “The Penguin” one of the year’s best shows as well. But it’s the way she wears her mother’s armor that shakes up these scenes. It isn’t about Mother’s fashion. It’s about her power.
The Moment: Pancakes with Danger.
Teacher-turned-citizen detective Diarra Brickland may be a goner for a guy who ghosts her after a one-night stand. Still, when she’s traumatized by a shooting, the only one who understands what she needs is Danger (Jon Chaffin), her neighbor and the childhood friend who rekindles their old friendship by nearly robbing her. Without saying a word Danger makes Diarra silver dollar pancakes and counsels her on how to find her “safe space” by meditating. Danger robs people, it’s true. He’s also experienced his share of trauma and knows how to validate hers. Diarra Kilpatrick’s whip-smart, heartfelt mystery overflows with great dialogue and unpredictable turns, but that simple gesture lets us know in her love letter to Detroit that nobody should ever be written off. When we do, we risk missing the sweetness underneath someone’s tough crust.
The Moment: The best parental note of all time
No line is wasted in Quinta Brunson’s comedy, especially in the hands of one of TV’s finest ensemble casts and the child actors they work with. That makes it tough to land on a single scene or moment that stands out – except, maybe, for the writers’ imagined version of how a note from a neighborhood parent might read. Some folks are just natural poets, as we know. One of them is the mother of Brandon, a kid with ringworm, whose mom who doesn’t view that as enough of an excuse to interrupt her day. The funniest part is that writers tasked Chris Perfetti’s nerdy Jacob Hill with reading it aloud. Even though he’s reading it in his voice, we can hear Brandon’s mother’s: “’Dear Mr. Hill, I know that’s wrong. According to the district’s website, my child doesn’t have to be sent home until the end of the day. I’m not the one, or the two, so please send my child home at three. Try Jesus, don’t try me. Patricia.’”
Then Jacob asks, “Is this a riddle?””
The Moment: “Oh my lord, sweet baby Jesus, not Ekin-Su!”
A strong argument can be made that every new outfit Alan Cumming arrived in each day of the reality competition was a moment. We expect the Scottish diva to come correct, especially as the devious host of a murder mystery game. But former Bravo housewife and “Married to Medicine” star Phaedra Parks’ stellar gameplay and the way she relished being a secret villain was a delicious surprise — a never-ending moment and a Beyonce-style mood rolled into one flawlessly polished package. Parks would murder then traipse casually into breakfast, inquiring about the availability of eggs or salmon. She’s a reality genre genius. But she also fueled a meme with her reaction to house favorite Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu (of the U.K. edition of “Love Island”) being poisoned out of convenience by a fellow traitor, “Survivor” villainess Parvati Shallow. Parks rears back in horror, theatrically blinks her miles-long false eyelashes, fans herself and petitions God as if she’s just heard that a relative was struck down by lightning. Then she gets over it in time to kill and kill again. Topping that casting is going to be tough in Season 3, which debuts Jan. 9.
The Moment: “No take-backs”
Many of us who watched grisly Ryan Murphy’s head trip from start to finish are still trying to figure out what it’s trying to say. But its clearest exchange is the relationship between Niecy Nash-Betts’ Det. Lois Tryon and Lesley Manville’s Redd, the woman Lois’ husband Marshall (Courtney B. Vance) is cheating with. After Lois wakes up from a coma (a long story that lasts half a season) she decides to divorce Marshall and start over in Tarpon Springs, a Florida beachside community. But in an entirely relatable twist, Redd doesn’t want him either. “It was fine when he was yours. You know, I got him part-time. I could be my own person! . . . But now, he’s just . . . there.” Incredibly, Manville’s speech was written by either Murphy or his co-creators Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken. Yes, a man captured the way independent women prize their freedom more than having to deal with a man that’s always there “molting,” as Lois puts it. Their dialogue captures the essence of why women would choose to remain alone instead of dating. “Why do women think they need men,” Redd sighs, “when all they need is Tarpon Springs?
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The Moment: A countdown to destruction
Season 2 of Apple TV+’s powerful adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s masterpiece jumps between Sunja Baek’s life in 1945 (Minha Kim) and the one she lives as a grandmother in 1989 (Yuh-jung Youn). During World War II Sunja and her sister-in-law Kyunghee (Eunchae Jung) take refuge in the countryside and solace in knowing Kyunghee’s husband Yoseb (Junwoo Han) has a well-paying job in a Nagasaki munitions factory. The moment we find that out, an ominous weight descends on us. But it’s the methodical march of dates within the first 13 minutes of this installment, rendered in black and white, that steep us in the tension of factory life in the days leading up to the moment the Americans dropped a nuclear bomb onto the city that wiped out tens of thousands. With that horror Sunja and Kyunghee join the countless families displaced by war contending with yet another weight, determined to keep surviving the tragic odds no matter what.
The Moment: “It’s like death and the maiden, dancing with my corporation/I won’t mention the w—”
The second season of Nida Manzoor’s comedic masterpiece about an all-female Muslim punk band is a ride of emotional highlights and jaunty fast-n-loud ditties. The namesake band has gained acclaim, a passionate fanbase and a record label’s attention. But mainstream exposure always has a price, and in one particularly angry, desperate scene its frontwoman Saira (Sarah Kameela), furious at being censored, tries to write a song on her own terms. An invisible force silences her, growing more violent as struggles; each she tries to sing out the lyric “I won’t mention the war” the offending word is muffled by feedback until she’s knocked off her feet. Manzoor wrote the episode long before the catastrophe in Gaza began but, as she pointed out in an interview, “Unfortunately, Muslim suffering isn’t anything new.”
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