Well, it finally happened. I’ve been making top ten lists since 2016, and for the first time ever, I’ve encountered a weak year for TV.

Of course, not all of this is TV’s fault, what with the pandemic stalling productions and pushing shows either forwards or backwards depending on the logic of whatever streaming service is making whatever decisions. There’s also the not insignificant matter of me zigging where a lot of people who think and write about TV zagged. You’ll notice, for example, that Succession, The White Lotus, Mare of Easttown, Hacks, and a few others are not on this list. Most of the time, it’s because these are shows that I liked an awful lot but didn’t necessarily love. (The exception being Mare of Easttown, which I’m still doubting myself on.)

This also doesn’t mean that making this list wasn’t brutal. Every once in a while I remember that I cut It’s a Sin and the phrase “Are you out of your fucking mind?” rolls through all my thoughts like a semi-truck.

All that said, however, I do feel like this was a weak year in the sense that when I looked at the list of TV shows that I generally liked from 2021, I couldn’t summon nearly the amount of enthusiasm as I have for years past. There were the previously stated shows this year that I liked a lot but didn’t necessarily love, but then there are also the shows that I felt strongly about in the moment, but now I struggle to recall their details. That may just be COVID brain, but the fact that I can’t remember much of the back half of Mare of Easttown probably means there are shows I’m more passionate about.

But you know what? TV should be allowed to have a bad year. It’s a good reminder that television is made by human beings. Sometimes we hit, sometimes we don’t, and when we don’t, we have backlogs to work through and other mediums to explore. Hopefully, next year’s TV is better. But if it’s not, that’s perfectly fine. I haven’t watched Rectify yet.

Now, before we go on to the list, I’d like to give a shout out to Lupin, the show it broke my heart to cut. I love me an overly and unrealistically thought out heist or scheme that probably doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, and Lupin provided one literally every episode. On top of that, Omar Sy has the single greatest “I just got away with it” smile I’ve ever seen on an actor. It’s not the most substantive show ever made, but it was a lot of fun, and it’s precisely the kind of show I needed this year.

Right then, onto the list.

HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW!!!!

Runner-Up: The Beatles: Get Back

First of all, re: the debate about whether or not this is a TV show or a movie, if you structure something like a TV show, format it like a TV show, and release it like a TV show, it’s a TV show. (Twin Peaks: The Return was also a TV show regardless of what many critics who still somehow look down on television think.) There are certain releases this year where the line is blurrier. (As of writing this, I still don’t know whether or not I’m going to count the Untold movies for the movie list.) But in this case, the line was fairly clear.

All that said, a while back, I wrote an article that said that I want more music documentaries that depict the artistic process. I don’t just want the story, I want to see an artist’s mind at work, provided they’re willing to show it. It’s of particular interest to me with music because I can tell you all about how to make a movie or a TV show, and I can talk about certain aspects of making a video game, but I cannot make music. I simply do not have that brain, so musicians, in particular, fascinate me.

The Beatles: Get Back, which we’ll hereby refer to as Get Back, is eight hours of pure artistic process. I loved it, and I was always going to.

Really, to me, the only questionable aspect of it is the part that inevitably comes up whenever you talk about Get Back, which is the length of the episodes. I’m of two minds here. On one hand, three two hour plus episodes is a long time to watch four dudes sing Chuck Berry songs in silly voices and casually pull classic rock songs out of their ass. There is some drama to keep you entertained, as you get to see George quit the band at the end of episode one and you get to see them deal with some of the English tabloid bullshit swirling around them. But other than that, it’s mostly rehearsals, fiddling around with new songs, and goofing around. If you’re not interested in how the sausage is made, thirty minutes of this is a hard sell, let alone eight hours of television.

On the other hand, it’s supposed to feel grueling. It is, after all, a documentary series about a band having to record an album and plan a live TV special and a documentary and a this and a that in just one month. For most human beings, this is an impossible task. Hell, even for The Beatles, this proves to be an impossible task as the live TV show doesn’t happen. The days are long, and there aren’t enough of them. So how best to capture that exhausting feeling? Make the show exhausting to watch.

Personally, I enjoyed every second of it. I loved seeing the ideas that don’t manifest, be it good ones or bad ones. (Sidenote: Just about every idea Michael Lindsay-Hogg has is hilariously terrible.) I loved how much the goofing around reminded me of my own inability to stay focused. I loved watching them get frustrated at failing equipment and complain about whatever space they’re recording in and the way Paul smiles when the cops show up on the rooftop. In fact, I loved Paul in general throughout the whole series, be it him being the one wrangling everyone together or casually inventing classics before our very eyes.

The bottom line is that if you want to see process, Get Out is nothing but process. You already know if you want to see that or not. Also, don’t do the thing I did and watch episodes back to back. This is a one a day kind of deal.

10. Search Party

We aren’t talking enough about Search Party.

In a way, not talking enough about Search Party is the story of Search Party, and one could make the argument that there’s something noble in its obscurity. Indeed, Search Party survived a shift into streaming, it morphs itself every season, and for the most part, only gets better. Yet, there’s a reason why it doesn’t get talked about more. Search Party was always an underrated show, but rarely was it transcendent.

Season one of Search Party was a lot of fun. The humor was funny, the mystery was genuinely intriguing, and the dark twist in the back half of the season was genuinely shocking. But it’s also a season you watch, you enjoy, and then you forget about because you’ve moved on to something else. I personally didn’t like season two, but I don’t really remember why other than it felt more like plate spinning than like an actual story was happening. Season three got me back on board, as Dory’s murder trial was suspenseful and revealed a lot about that character that we didn’t already know. But then season four took the darkness to a whole new level. I could explain and justify our lack of conversation around this show before this season. Now, I’m not so sure.

Plenty of anti-hero shows take too long to have their lead characters encounter any sort of reckoning for their actions. Either that, or they get what’s coming to them but on their own terms. Last season, Dory got away with the murder from season one. This season, Dory is locked in a felt recreation of her own apartment, repeatedly traumatized by her captor who ultimately rejects her, nearly turns on her friends, nearly dies, and it’s eventually revealed that she chose all this on purpose to punish herself. None of this stops Dory from being a murderer and none of this makes up for what she’s done in previous seasons. Yet Dory’s psychological torment at the hands of Chip is so thorough and all-consuming that it almost feels like she’s been fully punished for her crimes.

It is, in a word, fucked.

The millennial mockery of Search Party remains strong, and all the goofy elements that make Search Party a comedy are still there. But with this season, the show feels like it’s crossed a threshold. Of what into where is a little hard to explain without a thorough rundown of literally everything that’s happened on the show up to this point. Suffice to say that it’s hard to think of another show that has put its lead character through the wringer to this degree, and we really need to start talking about it more.

Favorite Episodes: “Doctor Mindbender,” “The Inferno,” “The Shadows”

9. Maid

I spent a lot of time waiting for the Maid backlash to happen.

I was sure it was going to happen. It was popular enough, it was about poverty, and it had the unidentifiable trait where you know a backlash could happen. You just know it when you see it. In the end, I saw an article or two critiquing it for some of its racial components, but that’s about it. All that anticipation was ultimately for naught.

Worrying about a hypothetical backlash is obviously a waste of time, and the best way to enjoy TV is to actually enjoy TV as opposed to enjoying TV with the looming cloud of twitter hanging over everything you enjoy. This also isn’t to say that there aren’t legitimate issues to be had with the show. (All the negative articles I read bring up perfectly valid points.) But from the moment I realized that I liked it enough to hypothetically include it on a year-end list (which is apparently how I quantify art now), I was overcome with a need to defend it.

I don’t know why. In fact, I don’t really even know why I feel the need to bring this up.

Here’s the thing: Despite some of the issues I had with Maid, a predictable story beat or two, a poverty cliché here and there, the way it breezes through certain plot points that probably shouldn’t be breezed through, the show manages to figure out a formula that I’ve been trying to crack for years, which is how to make heavier subject matter watchable. Maid, after all, is a show, about poverty, single motherhood, abuse, domestic violence, America’s broken social programs, and how all these matters relate to one another. It’s not the kind of show that screams “binge it!” Yet that’s precisely what I did, having only watched it in three days. The next show I’m talking about has the same number of episodes, and though it’s about a million times bleaker, it took me a whole month to finish.

The obvious screenwriting answer as to why the show is so watchable despite the constant heartbreak is that it revolves around a central question: Will Alex and Maddy break the cycle? Will Alex claw her way out of poverty, or at the very least, find some sort of happiness? Will the misery end? But the next show has an even more concrete question (Will Cora escape slavery?), and the last thing I wanted to do was binge it.

In the end, the answer probably lies in how I chose to quantify human misery, a conversation with myself that, frankly, I don’t want to have. But it’s a show that will always be precious to me because I want to learn its secrets. It’s a show I aspire to emulate, if only in one hyper-specific sense. Also, I’ve been on team Margaret Qualley since The Leftovers, and it’s always a pleasure to see her.

Favorite Episodes: “Ponies,” “Thief,” “Sky Blue”

8. The Underground Railroad

I’ve noticed this thing I do where I’ll include something on a top ten list, then spend the entirety of the entry criticizing it while adding an obnoxious amount of qualifiers. “I loved X. Now here’s every problem I have with X.”

I don’t want to do that anymore. We’re supposed to be celebrating the best shows of the year here, not reminding you of how I’m not capable of happiness. The Underground Railroad is pretty obviously one of the best shows of the year, and yet, I was gearing myself up to tell you all about all the changes it made from the book that I struggle to fully appreciate. Specifically, certain story beats involving Cora’s relationship with her mother and most of the backstory it adds about Ridgeway.

Then I remembered what we’re here to do, and every second I spend writing about nitpicks I have that ultimately don’t matter that much, I’m not writing about how Barry Jenkins is a genius, or how just about everyone in the cast should be a star if they aren’t already (particularly Thuso Mbedu, Aaron Pierre, and if we haven’t learned our lesson about how William Jackson Harper should be in everything from The Good Place, we have another opportunity to learn now), or how incredible Nicholas Britell’s score is, or how perfectly the show captures the surreal tragedy of the book, or so much more.

So let’s just leave it at that. The Underground Railroad is probably the hardest watch of the year. But it’s also a deeply rewarding one, even if you’re an asshole who liked the book too much to be able to appreciate it as much as someone going into the show blind. It’s worth your time, and if it’s crushing your soul, it’s only because it’s working.

Favorite Episodes: “Chapter 2: South Carolina,” “Chapter 3: North Carolina,” “Chapter 8: Indiana Autumn”

7. Tuca & Bertie

I was beyond thrilled when it was announced that Tuca & Bertie was being revived on Adult Swim. And yet, I was also nervous. As a traumatized Community fan, network switches always make my gut twist, and now that the show would have to deal with some restrictions, would it make the show feel less free? What truly happens when you take away Lisa Hanawalt’s ability to draw titties and put them on television? How are we supposed to live in this world?!?

These fears were, of course, unfounded. In fact, they were unfounded to an almost comedic degree because if anything, Tuca & Bertie got even more Tuca & Bertie.

The surrealist humor of the show is very much intact, and the show takes its eye for specificity when it comes to millennial growing pains and aims it in new directions. Plenty of shows, for example, now do the storyline where the lead character finds a therapist. But the Tuca & Bertie version of this storyline includes Bertie’s ceaseless search for a compatible therapist, interpreting the therapist’s advice incorrectly or taking it way too far, trying to tell other people (mainly Tuca) how to live because she thinks the wisdom of her therapy sessions apply to everyone, and so on and so forth. Hanawalt and company have clearly gone through the shit with this stuff, and it definitely shows.

Tuca is also looking for self-improvement, and she thinks she finds it in the form of Kara, in whom she sees an opportunity for the grown-up relationship she’s been looking for since the first season. Kara, unfortunately, sucks. She’s belittling, she’s insulting, she’s disrespectful, and she never truly values Tuca or respects her feelings and she barely pretends to try to. Yet despite being aware of this on some level, Tuca wants what she thinks Kara has to offer so badly that she lets the relationship consume her, and it almost tears Tuca and Bertie apart.

Also, there’s gentrifying moss, semi-magical doorknobs, and catastrophic flooding.

It is, in short, another fantastic season of Tuca & Bertie, still funny as ever, still insightful, still the show I fell in love with in its original season. (And I still get mad at Netflix for canceling it.) And it’s been renewed for another season! See! At least Adult Swim can do the right thing.

Favorite Episodes: “Nighttime Friend,” “The Dance,” “The Flood”

6. Sex Education

Another year, another opportunity to talk about Sex Education, my favorite show on Netflix. The network I definitely wasn’t just complaining about.

As ever with Sex Education, there’s way too much to talk about. Eric’s trip to Nigeria. The school shutting down. The show’s always welcome ability to take one of its characters and flesh them out and humanize them to a stunning degree, making you fall in love with the show all over again. (There’s a few characters they do that with this season, but to me, the winner of the annual Most Improved Characterization on Sex Education Award goes to Ruby.) But we don’t have time for all that, so I’m going to stick to talking about two characters this time around.

To get the unpleasantness out of the way, the first character I’d like to talk about is Hope Haddon, the new headmistress of the school. Hope is one of the most despicable human beings I’ve seen on a television show in quite some time. (Or at least the most despicable human being not engaged in any human rights abuses or mass murders. I am aware that this is the same year The Underground Railroad came out.) Hope’s treatment of nonbinary student Cal is deplorable, her draconian rule of the school is hard to take, she knowingly does the wrong things to bolster her standing with the wrong people, and though she’s a sad person at heart, it’s not enough to make up for anything she does. (A complaint from my roommate: Why don’t the parents seem to know about any of this?)

This isn’t to say she’s a bad character though. In fact, Hope is a perfect antagonist for Sex Education. She’s a character that wants to move backward in a school filled with young adults who want to move forward. She’s the kind of person the world of Sex Education is trying to leave behind, and she’s trying with all her might to pull it back to her level. In many ways, she actively succeeds. The real world implications of her existence are terrifying.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, as now I get to talk about my second character, Adam Groff. Adam started off as the dumb bully of the school. A regressive product of his regressive father and the ‘80s media that influences so much of this show. In many ways, early Adam isn’t entirely unlike Hope. Now Adam’s pretty much my favorite character on the show.

Adam enters this season in a relationship with Eric, and as his persona has been that of the jock for the last two seasons, and as he’s painfully aware of his reputation, in a way it makes him one of the most emotionally vulnerable characters on the show. Adam’s intentions with Eric are always good, but because of who he was, all his actions are read into with suspicion. Eric thinks Adam isn’t interested in sex, when really, Adam has a hard time explaining that he wants to be the bottom. Adam has a hard time coming out to his family, though he clearly wants to for the sake of Eric. Adam’s the one who makes the double date not weird when he reaches out to Ruby with his mutual appreciation of The Kardashians and how he watches it with his mom, something that we’ll later learn matters to Ruby because of her own relationship with her parents.

The world keeps shitting on Adam. His boyfriend ends up leaving him because he’s further along in his exploration of his sexuality. (An understandable move on Eric’s part that also kinda sucked.) He loses the dog show. He keeps being punished for doing the right thing. And yet, unlike Hope, who became a monster after years of bad luck with her infertility, Adam remains on the track to being a good person. Despite how he treated Eric in the beginning of the show, you just can’t help but root for him.

In summary, Sex Education had another incredible season. I have to imagine the end game is in sight for the show’s creators and writers. But I’ll always be on board for as long as it lasts.

Favorite Episodes: “Episode 3,” “Episode 5,” “Episode 8”

5. The Other Two

I wasn’t as into season one of The Other Two as much as a lot of people were.

Don’t get me wrong, season one is great. Its examination of celebrity internet culture was piercing, as well as its exploration of a certain kind of artistic failure and millennial malaise. But whereas many of my friends were going nuts over it, I just thought it was a really good show and I moved on. To be honest, other than some specific moments, I’m struggling to remember it now. (I promise you I liked it!)

Season two is where it snapped into place for me. And it didn’t snap so much as ram itself into my brain and now it lives there forever.

For one thing, The Other Two became much more focused and nuanced in its satire, adding elements that make it stand apart from other shows about celebrity culture and fame. Specifically, The Other Two became one of the most specific shows about living in modern American cities as a gay man that I’ve ever seen. Be it the gay couple posing as father and son to con Pat having to go out with Cary to the most cliché gay experiences in the city to Cary’s experiences in bespoke gay media to getting wrapped in a trendy celebrity church that espouses anti-homosexual viewpoints, there’s critique and subject matter here that I’ve simply never seen on television before. (Which is to say nothing of the script Cary attempts to write about being gay, which as a screenwriter, was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.)

But as the show gets more into the nooks and crannies of Cary and Brooke’s lives, be it Cary’s experiences as a gay man or Brooke’s escapades in the business side of entertainment (which are almost too real to be funny), the show also realizes that the critique shouldn’t always be going in one direction. The genius of the device of having the celebrities being family members is that the consequences of being constantly worshipped and treated as a commodity become much more tangible. Chase becomes increasingly isolated and lonely. Pat is almost worked to death, literally. Both of these are, not wholly but in large part, due to Cary and Brooke’s selfishness. As a result, Cary and Brooke become much more relatable and unlikable at the same time.

We’ve all blown off a parental unit for selfish reasons. We’ve all been more curt than we could’ve been when we talked to our moms on the phone or dismissed our dads when they forwarded one too many emails. The difference, however, is that most people are rude to their parents out of general numbness. You can cut a conversation short with your parents because what are the stakes?

The Dubeks, however, do it for a different reason. For career and for fame. Two of the Dubeks want success and become worse people as a result. The other two (snicker snicker) already have it and it makes them miserable. It’s a sad cycle, but also an absurd one. A cycle that The Other Two more than understands.

Favorite Episodes: “Pat Connects with Her Fans,” “Chase Gets Baptized,” “Pat Becomes #1 in Daytime”

4. PEN15

Couldn’t find the right size for the new poster.

I find myself with very little to say about the final episodes of PEN15. I write this on December 18, and the final episodes only aired on the 3rd. I haven’t had a lot of time to process, and the stuff I have been thinking about are things I wish I could forget (in a good way).

Let’s start with the stuff most people have already said about the show. PEN15 is one of the best coming-of-age shows ever made. The nuances it explores are breathtaking, it has the ability to tap into your middle school self in a way that makes you deeply uncomfortable, it’s incredibly funny, it’s some of the best television made about Asian American life in America thus far, and I could not say enough great things about it. Also, if I had to pick the best episode of television in 2021, I’d probably go “Yuki.”

Yet, despite the breathtaking beauty the show finds in its final episodes, my mind has been trapped in that basement with Maya giving that piece of shit a blowjob.

The blowjob scene is one of the most intensely uncomfortable experiences I’ve ever had with media in general, let alone a TV show. In the moments leading up to the scene, you don’t really think they’re going to do it. Something’s going to come through and stop it. Anna’s shenanigans with her boyfriend will spill over and stop this emotional crime from happening. But it doesn’t, and you just have to sit there and watch.

Of course, the intensity of it is the point. Maya is ultimately giving this guy a blowjob because this is what she thinks couples are supposed to do, and she thinks that the guy she’s doing this for cares about her. We are being made to witness the death of the middle school innocence that has defined Maya, and really the show as a whole, up to this point. The moment she understands that people will take advantage of her kindness and her naïveté. It’s dark, and it should be. This is probably the first sexual experience many young people have had. One at the hands of an exceptionally shitty man.

(The fact that there’s a joke in the scene, where he looks at some anime girls on his wall to get erect, and it still works is also a true testament to the talents of everyone involved in making the show.)

Still, PEN15 manages to end on one of its most heartwarming scenes ever. It’ll probably take me a while to get over the basement scene. But the final moments took at least some of the sting out of it. And just to not leave this show on a sad note, I’ll end it with this: I love PEN15, and I’ll be there front and center for whatever Erskine and Konkle do next, whether it’s together or not.

Favorite Episodes: “Bat Mitzvah,” “Yuki,” “Home”

3. Reservation Dogs

Why did it take us so long to get a show about a Native American reservation?

Okay, maybe the answer to that one’s a little obvious. The apparatus of television was, and still very much is, maintained largely by a bunch of cowardly racists who make shows for a nation that is largely cowardly and racist. When you see the American public as numbers on a data set, like many executives have in the past, of course there’s no room for a weird show about Indigenous teens.

Still, 2021 can’t help but feel a little late. After all, we’ve been talking about representation on TV for a decade now, if not longer. Remember those good ol’ days when we were talking about the lack of representation on Girls? One has to wonder whether or not any executives saw the opportunity to strike. I personally never saw one, but I have to believe that there are a ton of pilots about Indigenous people sitting in many network drawers.

Or maybe that line of thought is a little disingenuous. The obvious point of comparison for Reservation Dogs is Atlanta, which was merely a whiff of dream in the early 2010s. As much as nobody wants to make this connection (including myself), all we had in the moment was Atlanta’s predecessor Louis. (Again, I really do not want to think or talk about that. They are extremely different shows, but surrealist auteur driven comedy about people in a creative medium dealing with hyper absurdity— let’s stop.) And even then, Atlanta probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Donald Glover’s star power. The content pipeline that lead to the thing that led to Reservation Dogs wasn’t even there yet. It’s all just so damn random, isn’t it?

Another factor: You’re making what could arguably be the first show about the Indigenous population of America. Although I’m sure there’s some hyper obscure show about Native Americans out there somewhere that barely lasted a season, given the pedigree of FX and Taika Waititi, I think it can be argued that it was guaranteed that at least someone was going to watch this. So for many people, this was going to be the first show about Native Americans they’ve ever seen. The pressure on Sterlin Harjo and his team to deliver must have been unfathomable, at least on an emotional level.

Still, despite all the logic and historical analysis and business structure and anything else you can throw at it, there is nothing that will stop me from thinking that we should’ve had Reservation Dogs much much sooner than we did. At least it’s here now, and for that, I’m grateful.

Forgive me for not talking enough about the show itself. How funny and poignant it is. It’s just that for me at least, Reservation Dogs was such an obvious dot to connect that I find myself consumed by the implications of its existence in 2021. So let’s end on a more wrap-up style note: The writing on the show is extraordinary, every episode looked beautiful, each and every member of the cast should be a star, and everyone involved should be enormously proud of themselves. I simply cannot wait for the next season.

Favorite Episodes: “Fuckin’ Rez Dogs,” “Come and Get Your Love,” “Hunting”

2. We Are Lady Parts

I watched We Are Lady Parts in a whirlwind. I had just driven across the country after getting my vaccines. The drive took four days (we went a little a fast than we should’ve), and when I got home, I needed something to chill to. So I booted up We Are Lady Parts with the intention of watching just one episode. I watched the whole season that night.

Granted, this was easy to do as We Are Lady Parts is only six 25 minute episodes. (Gotta love British TV formatting.) But there’s an energy to it that I found infectious, and I blasted my way through it. As such, there’s something I have to admit: I don’t remember the specifics that well. I remember the broad strokes and who each of the characters are and generally what happens in each episode. But much of it is a blur to me now. I consumed it all in one summer night months ago, and I can’t be bothered to reactive Peacock. (Nor can I be bothered to pirate it.) But here are a few things I remember the most.

I remember “Ain’t No One Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me.” Truth be told, the songs themselves don’t quite pass the sniff test for me in terms of their ability to realistically pass themselves as genuine punk songs in the real world. I can’t really tell if it’s the writing or the performing of them or some arbitrary X factor in my head. But that doesn’t matter, and honestly, the artifice of the punk songs is part of the charm. If one were to peak under the hood of many punk songs we find “authentic,” we’d probably be horrified by the results. That and just on a purely conceptual level, “Ain’t No One Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me” is one of the greatest things that’s ever happened on TV. Just read those lyrics.

I remember the cast. All of them. Distinctly. Anjana Vasan, Sarah Kameela Impey, Juliette Motamed, Faith Omole, and Lucie Shorthouse. Even many of the side characters like the ones played by Aiysha Hart and Zaqi Ismail. I remember this because I spent a great deal of time checking everyone’s IMDb page hoping to discover that they would light up with a billion upcoming projects. Particularly in the case of Sarah Kameela Impey, who I could’ve sworn I’d seen in something before, but it turns out I hadn’t. (The only one I have seen before is star Anjana Vasan in a bit part in Sex Education.) I guess she just has that quality. Someone who radiates star power so clearly it’s like they’ve always been around. Really, they all have that quality, and their IMDbs aren’t big enough. (IMDb pages are not actually a good barometer of what actors are up to, but you get the rhetorical thing I’m trying to do here.)

Most of all, however, I remember the way it made me feel. I can’t recall a group of characters I’ve rooted harder for in quite some time, regardless of the circumstances. Trying to make it and keep themselves together as a band. Trying to find the balance between their culture and the music they want to make. Sparring with institutions both old and new. Coping with crippling anxiety. The show simply provided the kind of catharsis I needed in 2021.

I may be an incompetent writer who has to strain to remember the finer points of the show he’s calling his second favorite of the year. But is it better to not remember the finer points while still fixating on how the show as a whole made you feel, or to remember every detail about a show that made you feel nothing? Personally, I’ll go the former every time. Need to re-up Peacock now.

Favorite Episodes: “Play Something,” “Represent,” “Sparta”

1. Feel Good

Last year when I wrote about Lovers Rock, my favorite movie of 2020, I spent a lot of time blathering on about being drawn to works about black suffering. I’m not saying works about black suffering need to be shunned or anything like that, but there also needs to be something else. I told myself that I was going to spend more time seeking out material about black joy, a promise that I was only able to semi stick to this year. On one hand, most of the works about black joy I experienced were found elsewhere in other mediums, and there was a lot of it. (See: A few of the entries on my yet to be written top ten albums list.) On the other hand, The Underground Railroad is on this very list.

Really, however, the same point can be made about all the other kinds of suffering that don’t necessarily have to do with race. (Though human suffering comes with many Venn diagrams.) Why am I so drawn to works about the suffering of anyone who doesn’t identify as a man? Or a woman? Or people who don’t identify as heterosexual? Or anyone who’s ever experienced sexual assault? I am a cisgendered heterosexual white man. Switch out any of those adjectives and apparently I, and many others like me, want to ravenously seek out works about your hardships.

The reasons for this are multitudinous and overwhelming. But if there is one simple answer, at this moment in time, I’d guess that it’s about power. It’s good to call out abusers and oppressors because, maybe, we can take away some of their control and give it to their victims. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But through experiencing these works, we as a whole (not just white people) see what the other end of misery looks like and maybe an ideal world where whatever it is that we just went through doesn’t exist anymore, or its consequences are well and truly dealt with.

Feel Good is a show about Mae Martin, a Canadian comedian living in Manchester, and the ups and downs of their relationship with George (short for Georgina, which I mention if you’re dumb like me and didn’t make that connection for an embarrassingly long amount of time during the show’s first season). Mae is a recovering addict. George struggles to come out. Add a whole heap of psychological baggage on top of that and you’ve got yourself a television show.

As we learn in season two, the cause of much of Mae’s baggage is a man named Scott. Scott was one of Mae’s liferafts during the depths of their addiction in their teenage years and an early supporter of their career. As a result, the two are extremely close. However, it’s slowly revealed that Scott also sexually abused them.

For those of us in the audience, the line in the sand is clear. He’s an abuser. He’s your abuser. Chuck him out with the fucking trash. But in reality, it was never going to be that simple, was it? Mae tells Scott to never contact them again, but it clearly shatters them to do so. It’s not an anticlimactic moment by any means, but it’s also not the kind of cathartic moment that TV is “supposed” to build towards. There isn’t a monologue and nothing gets smashed. It’s just tears and a goodbye.

I doubt that anyone left that scene wanting something drastically different. But in case there were, the point is simple. Does Mae need that big dramatic moment, or do you? Again, it’s about taking power away from the abusers and shifting it towards the abused. To put it in a cliché manner, Mae doesn’t get what you want, but they get what they need. Put it another way: Mae and George sitting by the lake, enjoying each other’s company, happy, at least for the moment, is probably my most cathartic TV image of 2021.

The point isn’t just to go through suffering for the sake of going through suffering. The point, as Feel Good puts into sharp focus, is to reshape who you are when you come out the other end. It’s the show I needed the most in 2021, and probably beyond.

Favorite Episodes: “Episode 1,” “Episode 4,” “Episode 6”

Honorable Mentions

Adventure Time: Distant Lands - Together Again
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Craig of the Creek
Dave
Dear White People
Girls5eva
The Great British Bake Off
Hacks
I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson
It’s a Sin
Loki
Lupin
Mare of Easttown
Mythic Quest
Never Have I Ever
Pose
Rick and Morty
Squid Game
Succession
Ted Lasso
WandaVision
What We Do in the Shadows
The White Lotus

Season Did Not End In Time

How To with John Wilson
Insecure

Will Watch Someday

Dickinson
For All Mankind
The Great (S2)
Midnight Mass
South Side
Yellowjackets
I’m sure there’s more.