I don’t know if 2013 was the greatest year for Television, but I feel confident saying it was the most intriguing. It’s definitely my personal favorite calendar year of television in my lifetime, and I can’t help but pay tribute to it. Full disclosure: I watch way too much television for my educational good, but I also watch way too little television to give a holistic account of the best television of 2013. Therefore this post is poorly written, incomplete, and probably a waste of your time; but at least these thoughts are now on paper and not stuck in my head, which is good for my own sanity. Spoiler alert: this piece contains spoilers, so read at your own risk. With all disclaimers out of the way, here are my eight personal favorite television episodes of 2013.
A Goon’s Deed in a Weary World (30 Rock) - Whenever people ask (which is quite rarely), I always say that my two favorite 30 Rock characters are Liz and Kenneth. Liz usually isn’t that hard to explain - I see so much of myself in her, and Tina Fey’s self-effacing but lovable and charismatic portrayal of Liz Lemon’s journey has helped me further embrace the nerd in me that wants nothing more than to stay in and eat cheese while binging on Netflix. It’s sometimes painful, but always worthwhile to share in the experience of watching Liz try to grow and have it all while staying true to herself. However, Kenneth Parcell represents the self-actualized version of myself. Kenneth was dealt a worse hand than most of us (certainly worse than Jack Donaghy) - but it doesn’t matter! He’s still happier than all of us! He still loves life and loves what he does more than any of us do! It doesn’t matter how few material possessions he has - I know I would gladly trade all of mine to derive Kenneth’s infinite happiness that can’t be bought with money. Kenneth is motivated purely by love of Television as an art form, a mouthpiece for contemporary values, and a vehicle for driving us closer together; as an NBC page he’s able to pursue his passions with a level of dedication and integrity for which all of us should strive, and (unlike this blog post) does so in a way that never comes off as overly moralistic. That he loves the same cultural relic (television) that I do for the same reason I do allows Kenneth to resonate with me in a way few characters ever could.
This isn’t to say that I don’t absolutely adore every other character on the show. But Liz and Kenneth are the ones with whom I identify the most; therefore, it’s no surprise that A Goon’s Deed, which I view as a tribute to Liz and Kenneth’s contributions through 7 years, manages to strike all the perfect notes with me. They spent 135 selflessly devoting themselves helping out the rest of the Rockefeller center, but for these 22 minutes we get to see everyone else pay them back. In the A subplot, Liz is frantically trying to save the show while managing Criss’s preparations for their adopted kids’ arrival. Of course, it wouldn’t be a TGS production without her writing and acting staff presenting roadblocks. The writers are up to their usual lazy lack of tricks, while Tracy and Jenna too busy to publicize the show because of their inane project about a pair of Siamese twins that could literally only be played by Tracy Jordan and Jenn-AH Maroney. 30 Rock is a show about a lot of things, but the overarching theme has always been the show’s celebration of absurdist comedy. As the ratings have always shown, not everybody wants to suspend his/her disbelief and buy into the absurdity of the universe the show has created; but once you are willing to make that leap of logic, the show will never cease to satisfy you, leveraging its absurdity for an endless stream of jokes, gags, meta-critiques, and social commentary. However, when Liz learns that her kid has arrived, we see how the show can manage to leverage that absurdity for emotionally heartfelt moments as well. Initially Liz insists through tears that she can’t make it to the airport - she’ll have to miss the arrival of the children she has so desperately wanted for so long in order to make sure TGS’s last gasp effort at survival can come to fruition. Her tears and expression reveal that the true source of her frustration lies not with the lethargic writing crew, the high-maintenance cast, or cost-slashing executives, but rather in the cruel unfairness of her entire experience. Liz has poured so much of her soul into parenting over the baby that is her work while also wanting to share her love with a family at home; why must life keep pushing her to her boundaries like this?
After so many years of Liz coming through for TGS in the clutch, TGS comes through for her in the only way that would make sense: by quitting on her so that she can focus her time and energy on her new family that deserves it. One by one the cast and crew quit, a move that is at once cowardly and chivalrous. In a vacuum it’s nothing to celebrate. But once you’ve accepted the axioms of 30 Rock’s logical structure, you’ll see it as endearing that the writers and actors will take their laziness to the extreme so that these goons don’t have to drain any more out of a weary Liz Lemon.
While all of this is going on, we have Jack reinstating Kenneth as a page so that he can give one last tour to all of Jack’s prospective replacements as head of NBC. Kenneth being Kenneth wants to turn the event into a real life version of Willy Wonka’s tour of the chocolate factory. Kenneth wants to pick out the one who wants the job for the right reasons, namely love for television and the people who watch it, whereas Jack wants to find the most ruthless and efficient businessman. They both want to find their spitting images; however Jack holds all the cards. Kenneth persists in attempting to impose a Wonka narrative on the proceedings, going so far as to bribing one of the candidates with money to sabotage the company as a test of character (it turns out Kenneth ended up bribing a fake candidate Jack planted in the tour group). Eventually Kenneth’s disgust at Jack’s candidate preferences boils over, resulting in Kenneth quitting by giving up his most treasured possession: the peacock pin on his page jacket. Chuckling, Jack exhorts Kenneth as a “winner”; Jack commits to Kenneth’s Wonka act by declaring Kenneth head of NBC and turning the Rockefeller center into his glass factory.
Kenneth and Jack’s exchanges have provided some of the most fascinating moments in the show’s history for me. Jack has the kind of seemingly-unlimited material wealth that most of us would dream of, but Kenneth possesses a truly-unlimited supply of the one thing that eludes all of us, especially Jack: pure, unadulterated happiness. Jack always wonders why Kenneth isn’t more motivated to obtain more material wealth, but the truth is Kenneth has everything he could ever want simply by being at NBC, a feeling that Jack spends 7 seasons struggling to recreate for himself. That a worldly, powerful, accomplished man like Jack Donaghy could learn so much from a naive, uneducated pig farmer like Kenneth Parcell provides wondrous insight into the complex nature of human happiness while also making for highly entertaining dialogue. In Goon’s Deed we see this dynamic crystalize into something memorable and heartwarming. In the 3rd episode Jack foreshadowed the fact that in the 3rd-to-last episode Kenneth would become everybody’s boss, and it happened because Jack caved in to Kenneth’s purity of intentions and sheer force of character. Jack has finally realized that NBC shouldn’t be run by someone in it for the money, but rather for the artistry and the cultural impact. It’s both the trenchant meta-commentary that is a staple of the show, but also provides the most fulfilling possible narrative for the viewer longing to feel good. Kenneth doesn’t need this job to be happy, but he deserves it; it’s hard not to feel happy for him, and it’s hard not to shed a tear at pure ecstasy of Kenneth’s reaction to his dreams coming true.
This was my favorite episode of my favorite television show of all time. Actually, I’d say this was my favorite television episode of all time. I get that 30 Rock isn’t the show for everybody, but for someone like me, whose comedic sensibilities align perfectly with the motif of a show like 30 Rock, no half-hour could ever better capture the magic of perfectly executed television. Also, this is the greatest video that ever has been, is, or will be on youtube.
Ozymandias (Breaking Bad) - I happen to subscribe to the viewpoint of Ozymandias being the final chapter of BB, with Granite State and Felina two fantastic epilogues. Felina might have provided the most conventionally satisfying conclusion; but Ozymandias provides the best ending for this show. For years we watched Heisenberg stay one step ahead of the uncertainty principle that governs his life, but finally his web of lies has wrapped him up with no escape. His lies, his rationalizations, and his chemistry can no longer manipulate his family, and they can’t save Hank from his neo-nazi death. It’s all over, and it’s probably the fate that Walt deserves: an alienated family distancing themselves from him as he calls the repairman to take him to his own hell.
Uncle Jack and Uncle Hank couldn’t be more different, except for the one thing they have that Walt lacks: a sense of identity. They both know who they are and they are sticking with that core identity to the bitter end. Walter’s fatal flaw has always been the fact that he wanted to be both feared and loved. Instead of committing to a persona, Walter thinks he can talk, spend, or innovate his way out of any mess without burning bridges; his hollow justifications of his sins serve as a futile attempt to prevent the fear he needs to instill from draining the acceptance he craves to keep. Unfortunately, Walter is the only one in the desert who realizes that he can’t have his cake and eat it too; Hank knows this, which is why he is able to go down swinging with more dignity than Walter could ever hope for.
After Hank’s swift and ruthless death, Walt reveals Jesse’s hiding place so that the Nazis can torture him as they see fit. They’re now going to enslave Jesse the same way that Walt did, only without any pretense of symbiosis. This moment was notable for me, because I see it as the moment the metamorphosis was complete; at this point Walter White was gone while Heisenberg fully emerged from the cocoon. It wasn’t enough for Walter to stab Jesse in the back one last time; by revealing his inaction to Jane he effectively twisted the knife while pouring hydrochloric acid all over the wound. He didn’t need to rub something so hurtful in Jesse’s face, nor did he need to deliver the message with such venom. This isn’t the first time Walter has acted maliciously, but in the past there was always some sort of reasoning behind it; here the only reason is malice itself, making it an act purely of Heisenberg’s intent.
Walter later tries to convince his family to run off with him and the vacuum man for a new life. Unfortunately, Marie and Skylar have spilled all the beans; as such, Walter’s last supporter, Flynn, will have none of it. It’s over, but Walter is the only one who won’t admit it. When Skylar and Flynn piece together the puzzle to realize Hank is dead, they want nothing to do with Walt; a shouting match rises to a knife fight which concludes in Flynn calling the cops on Walt as Walt runs away with baby Holly (another act that only Heisenberg would even consider). The episode started with a flashback to Walter’s first cook, and the first lie Walter told to Skylar; it’s shocking to see how idyllic and content these two once were, compared to where they are now. Such is the level of destruction Walter has heaped on the life of the family whose well-being supposedly motivated the entire journey. Instead he has left them in tatters.
The last significant moment involves Walter calling Skylar to chew her out for not going along with all of his plans. One one hand it’s clear that he’s doing his family a solid by absolving them of legal culpability. Still, it’s also in part Walt venting feelings that he still harbors deep inside. He’s still coming to terms with the idea that the great Heisenberg’s empire could come crumbling down on him. A man of Walter White’s hubris won’t just go quietly into the night. All in all, Ozymandias might not be the most satisfying conclusion for the casual viewer, but it’s the most satisfying conclusion for the die hard breaking bad fan. Every character receives the fate that seems most fitting, if not entirely just.
World War Zimmerman (South Park) - Sometimes South Park misses the mark and comes off as incredibly juvenile. But sometimes it hits the mark, and when it does it’s the most trenchant show on television. And make no mistake, World War Zimmerman represents South Park at its finest. Sure, the Brad Pitt parody might have gone on too long, but otherwise it was vintage South Park, holding up a mirror to society by reducing current events and social issues to their crudest forms. As is often the case, Cartman is the image we see in the mirror, parroting the worst aspects of society in order to expose greed, prejudice, and hypocrisy. In this episode he exposes the two crucial absurdities of the Zimmerman case: stand your ground and race. When Zimmerman is called upon to gun down a threat who happens to be African-American, when Zimmerman is swiftly brought to justice when he accidentally shoots a Caucasian, and when Cartman is able to leverage stand-your-ground to use deadly force to defend against Token’s fist bump - these are crude moments to be sure, but sometimes you have to be crude and vulgar to get the message across. Superficially it might appear that the episode trivializes a horrific crime when it does things like flippantly ask Zimmerman to “do what you do best: shoot a young african-american”; in truth, these moments make the satire that much more cutting by underscoring the absurdity of exonerating the murder of an innocent, unarmed kid because of that kid’s past or apparel. It’s the sharpest kind of satire that only South Park could (or would even try to) pull off.
Red Team III (The Newsroom) - By and large The Newsroom is not a good show. The sorkinspeak reaches a saturation point pretty quickly (would it kill the characters to simply express what’s on their mind directly?) and the personal drama is cringe-worthy at best. But the show has its best moments when the focus falls squarely on the process and obstacles involved in producing the news. At this point in the season we had seen several depositions from ACN’s lawyers, and we had seen Jerry Dantana’s role in the catastrophe. But Red Team finally filled in the blanks while also providing a nuanced look at a very real quandary. It turns out that retrospectively there were plenty of other holes in the story, holes that a group of highly competent (if annoying) group of individuals somehow neglected. It’s a pretty fascinating look into all the potential sources of disaster when breaking a story this magnitude. Jerry certainly screwed up, but how could Will and Charlie not do due diligence on their source? How could Maggie not be present to audit Jerry’s interview? How could Mack resort to leading questions? How could nobody make sure one of their sources wasn’t a brain trauma victim? By the end of the episode you’re left to truly wonder who is at fault and which side is in the right. Given where the episode started, I would say it took some masterful writing to make the viewer willing to even consider the possibility that this was an institutional failure rather than a single rogue breach of ethics.
Devils Snare (Person of Interest) - The show started out as a procedural carried by it’s premise and its action. But the most genius part of the show has been the way it has rounded out its complex and nuanced characters, to the point where it has somehow morphed into a character-driven show after 2 and a half seasons. They’ve slowly revealed bits and pieces of the characters’ past, but with Devil’s Snare we got to see four character-defining moments from the pasts of Finch, Reese, Shaw, and Fusco. We saw four flashbacks that reveal the characters’ inner demons prevent them from truly succeeding in any role other than this off-the-grid vigilante operation. It’s not that the episode lacks badass moments (Finch torturing Quinn, Root communicating with the machine to break through the FBI’s quarantine, Fusco beating up Simmons), but the peeks into what makes these characters so uniquely qualified for this and only this line of work fascinating. No show does a better job of showing without telling.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Elias’s cameo at the end. I’ve always loved how Person of Interest has become a philosophical treatise on the state of nature, utility vs. deontology, privacy, retributive justice, and the church-turing thesis. But the show wouldn’t be complete without someone like Elias to define the parameters of this moral universe in which the show exists. Elias sees the shows good vs. evil battles as an elaborate game, but a game with very clearly defined rules and boundaries; Elias may err on the side of evil, but he more strongly errs on the side of enforcing “correct” gameplay. The final scene with Elias and Simmons underscores his role as an arbiter - Simmons and HR have overstepped the parameters Elias has set, and must be punished. It’s a fitting ending to an episode that underscores every character’s role in this morality play.
Leslie and Ben (Parks and Recreation) - Speaking of character-driven shows, here’s the ultimate example! Now, this lovable cast had rather rocky beginnings during the ill-conceived first season. But luckily Michael Schur and co. turned it around pretty quickly, and i’ll always view Leslie and Ben as a celebratory episode of just how far these guys have come. Every character still retains his quirky charms, but they’ve all grown so much and learned how to compromise for everyone else’s best interests. There’s no way the bumbling parks department from seasons past could have pulled off this impromptu wedding, but in 2013 this crew can produce the most beautiful wedding in Pawnee history. That a couple as meticulous and organized as Leslie and Ben can propose a spontaneous wedding is so ironic, yet completely fitting given the context. April started out as the sardonic, blase, cynical intern, but Andy’s goofy naivete is the perfect yin to her yang that allows her to express the kind of sentimentality that she never could have felt in prior seasons. We see Chris and Ben share a moment reminiscing their arrival in Pawnee, and we even get to see Jerry help Tom shed his superficiality and swagger so that he can deliver a heartfelt wedding toast. But the best part involves Anne designing Leslie’s wedding gown out of old bills and newspaper clippings. It’s a beautiful dress to be sure (Tim Gunn would certainly approve), but more importantly it’s a symbol of Leslie’s indefatigable spirit that propels both the Pawnee parks department and Peacock’s best active show. It’s also a perfect encapsulation of how well Anne and Leslie’s friendship works, with Anne’s calming influence the perfect icing for Leslie’s cake.
Then there’s Ron, acting as Leslie’s noble steed down the walkway. Outwardly he despises his job (mostly because he doesn’t think his role or government at all should exist) but deep down he cares deeply for seeing Leslie flourish despite their stark philosophical differences. Ron has always been the restrained, composed supervisor necessary to balance out Leslie’s energizer bunny act; in this sense Ron has always acted as the father figure Leslie never truly had, making it fitting that Ron should walk her down the aisle and protect her from Councilman Jam’s crass attempts to ruin the day. Ron’s a staunch libertarian, but he’s even more staunch about providing Leslie, the ultimate bureaucrat, the happiness she deserves.
The Colony Collapse (Arrested Development) - I don’t have too much to say about this episode - I like it because it made me laugh more than any television episode of 2013. This was the turning point in season 4, the moment when I was fully convinced that the great experiment that was a netflix season of Arrested Development had fully realized its potential. The first few episodes were a tad underwhelming, but, as I think most AD fans expected, GOB’s episode turn in nonstop laughter and set up endless more running gags for the rest of the season. Overall, contrary to many of the reviews i’ve read, I was a huge fan of how the season used each episode to fill in new blanks on a bigger story. I appreciated the ambition of not settling for 15 more episodes of the same Arrested Development (which honestly was starting to lose its mojo in season 3), the creative approach to work around the casts’ non-overlapping schedules, and the way it took full-advantage of its medium by using a storytelling technique better suited for continuous viewing. It would be a shame not to mention Arrested Development’s triumphant revival, and Colony Collapse was my favorite of the bunch.
The Crash (Mad Men) - Mad Men is about a lot of things. It’s a critique and exposition of the turmoil, decadence, and superficiality of 1960’s culture set against the backdrop of a Madison Avenue advertising agency. It’s about how people, relationships, and society can and can’t change. It’s about about identity, masculinity, and feminism. The Crash was my favorite episode of season 6 because it took all of these to the extreme; I love how Mad Men is usually so stoic and refined in its delivery, but I appreciated this daring foray into such bizarre and frenetic territory. Visually, the episode was brilliantly shot to give the view the feeling of being on the same drug being passed out to SCDP, and I don’t recall ever seeing Matthew Weiner fill an episode with so many visual gags. But really, this episode is about Donald Draper, the genesis thereof, and the beginning of the end. Part of the episode is dedicated to Don’s unceremonious loss of virginity by means of statutory rape in the whore house in which he was raised. Given this information, it’s not hard to see the root of Don’s domineering and objectifying treatment towards to women in his life. Meanwhile, Don’s unseemly origin story are also affecting him at work when he inexplicably designs his pitch to Sylvia instead of designing a pitch to Chevy or being there to take care of his children. It’s downright bizarre to see Don so disheveled, until you realize that this episode marks the turning point in his career. The crash marked the turning point where he can no longer lie to Sylvia, lie to Betty, lie to Sally, lie to Peggy, or lie to himself. Don’s tide rose with the 1960’s, but as each decade must come to an end so to must Don Draper’s prime both as a creative director and as a carefully crafted persona. With the Crash, Mad Men signaled that it’s not only time for Don to start coming to terms with his own mortality, but also for us as viewers to prepare for the fall of the Draper empire. I certainly expected the crash to come; i simply didn’t expect Don to crash and burn as spectacularly as he did in The Crash.
