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Man am I glad the deadline for this was extended. Let's get this over with, I've got some poo poo to say. ----- 10.) Riverdale Riverdale is...uneven. Or at least it is for most people. Me, I seem to have a life-endangering inability to smell trash, so I just keep on hooting and hollering "gently caress you, it's a good show" to all the ironic fans that keep popping up to say "Wow, the writing on this is awful, I love it." I would offer this observation, however: The reason Riverdale gets away with as much as it does, in spite of its million inconsistencies and its conveniently ignorant characters, is because it has a strong thematic backbone with an unsurprising appeal in these terrifying times: Children struggling to survive the callous actions of their parents and the other adults that would presume to look out for them. "Survive" is a good word: corruption and darkness seem to have an iron grip on this town, and victories against it rarely come without heavy prices. Many of these kids even take on the more toxic characteristics of their elders, even as (and perhaps because) they rebel against them. Coincidentally, you could argue that they act (and look) five years older than they're supposed to be, forced to mature quicker than they should. It usually feels like Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and his crew plot this show with dartboards and vodka, but in the end, they know what they're doing. And what they do on the surface is pretty sick. The second half of last season careened into Archie-flavored knockoffs of Single White Female, Goodfellas, Scream, The Candidate, Rebel Without a Cause, and Silence of the Lambs—sometimes even in the same breath. And it ended hard: with Hiram Lodge, the bastard love child of Dick Cheney and Michael Corleone, firmly in control of the quaint town of Riverdale with his wife installed as a puppet mayor, prepared to suck its resources dry. Where do you go from there? How about a True Detective season 1 riff that satirizes the Dungeons & Dragons Satanic Panic of the 80s while throwing in a whole lot of Shawshank Redemption (right down to casting a Bob Gunton lookalike as the warden!) and a bit of Django Unchained? Confused? You won't be after you catch up with Riverdale! 9.) GLOW Season 1 of GLOW did exactly what it needed to do: It took a simple story of two best friends finding their way back together (sort of) after a seemingly unforgivable betrayal, and used it to set up a cast of characters that could grow and strengthen the show for years to come. It was slight, but it was warm, sweet, and funny; a perfect light binge. So with the setup painlessly out of the way, Season 2 steps things up with a narrative that's a lot heavier and more ensemble-centric. The stakes are a lot bigger now that we know these people, and the result is a show that goes from "warm" to "intense," "sweet" to "big-hearted," and "funny" to "loving hysterical." It also takes an occasional creative leap that pays off handsomely: "The Good Twin," which is a half-hour episode of the wrestling show-within-the-show, is one of the funniest things you'll see this year involving a goat, a voodoo priestess, and a kidnapping PSA in the style of USA for Africa. And what makes it more impressive is that it follows "Nothing Shattered," which is almost as emotionally raw as some of the strongest episodes of shows further down this list. GLOW broke out exactly the way you'd hope a show in its second season would. If it builds on its momentum, expect this to rank a lot higher next year. 8.) Sharp Objects Confession: This is a DNF. I got through two episodes, loved them, but had to let it go due to emotional exhaustion, swearing to pick it back up by the end of the year. That never happened, but it seems borderline criminal to not acknowledge how immaculately and creatively directed this was by Jean-Marc Vallée, not to mention the astonishing turns from Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson. The two episodes I've seen are soaked in gothic, sun-fried atmosphere, setting up not just an intriguing, disturbing mystery but a character that I could (in theory) watch Adams do all day. I might not know how this story ends yet, but the way this story begins is undeniable. When I'm done, I'm sure my only regret will be that I wasn't able to rank this higher. 7.) Barry It's a resonant character study of an emotionally broken yet terrifyingly capable veteran (Bill Hader in a revelatory performance) trying desperately to piece his sanity and morality back together. It's also one of the sharpest satires of the Hollywood mindset to come along in years, presenting a cast of side characters that represent some of the worst this industry has to offer while still feeling real, relatable, and even pretty likable. It also has NoHo Hank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzRUMgrXx70 I mean, what more do I need to say here? 6.) Everything Sucks! Frankly, if it wasn't for this show, I'm not sure I would've bothered with the list this year. Nothing against it, I love doing these things. It's just that my life's been changing all of the sudden, and I don't have as much time for writing and TV as I usually do. But this show got a pretty visceral reaction out of me, even though it got some bad heat from these parts for fairly respectable reasons—the first few episodes make the mistake of doubling down hard on 90s nostalgia porn, giving people the impression that it's the only thing the show had to bank on. I was able to push through it (mostly because I'm a sucker for 90s nostalgia porn) and as it turns out, I found that there was a lot more to the show. And since I'm not getting any more of it, I'd like to take this opportunity to eulogize it once and for all. I'll spare you as much of a "Sir, this is a Wendy's" confessional as I can, but a lot of my love for Everything Sucks is personal, and I kinda have to go into it. I didn't come of age in the show's era of 1996; the early aughts were more my time. But like the show's protagonist, Luke O'Neil (Jahi Di'Allo Winston), I was shy, creative, obsessed with movies, and a total hopeless romantic in high school who was desperate to get a girlfriend. It wasn't that I wanted sex; well, obviously I did, but I was a little more innocent than most other people and my brain kind of reframed it as a need for emotional intimacy and, yeah, validation. I grew up and realized, on my own, that this was kind of lovely in its own way, and that's pretty much a big part of what Everything Sucks! is about. His first day of high school, Luke meets Kate (Peyton Kennedy) in the A/V Club and falls head over heels for her, as you do when you're a straight 14-year-old guy and you meet a beautiful, friendly girl your age. They bond while he fixes her video camera, and Luke makes a plan to ask Kate out. What he doesn't know is that Kate is starting to realize that she might be attracted to other girls—something that scares the poo poo out of her, considering they all live in a remote northwestern town pre-Matthew Shepard. So when Luke does ask Kate out, she says yes—partly because she feels like she should at least try dating a guy, partly because Luke did one of those grand gestures that seem so romantic on the surface it behooves a person to not leave the guy hanging like this. Antics happen, and Kate, Luke, and Luke's friends Tyler and McQuaid end up drawing the wrath of the school's famed Drama Club after their sets for the big play are accidentally destroyed, forcing Luke to make a peace offering: Instead of doing a play, he'll bring in the A/V Club and direct them in a movie. This all takes about four episodes to happen; pacing wasn't this show's strong suit. But the dynamics that come into play afterward tenderly explore the so-called "point" of human connection, the various ways and reasons it happens or dissolves, and why one form of connection (romantic) isn't better or worse than another (platonic). The show becomes more of a "friend-mance" as Luke is forced to come to terms with his crush's sexuality, and how she comes to matter in truly important ways as his world starts to fall apart around him (for reasons that have very little to do with Kate). You probably didn't need a teen show set in the 90s to do that, but the nostalgic factor gives the proceedings a unique air of middle-aged reflection rather than youthful immediacy, setting it far apart from your Riverdales and 13 Reasons Whys of the landscape. It, uh...it hit me pretty loving hard. And while I stopped talking it up here shortly after Netflix's cancellation, it's still something I end up eventually pushing onto my close friends. The series ends on one of the meaner cliffhangers in recent memory—as mean as you can get without main characters appearing to be in mortal peril, really—but an ultimately appropriate one that kind of reinforces its ultimate point. Pain and awkwardness will always show up just as you think everything's going to work out, it says in its final moments. But from all that's come before, the implication is that it'll be the people around you that get you through it...and maybe it doesn't really matter if you're making out with any of them on a regular basis. 5.) American Vandal I'm not sure whether to thank Netflix or flip it off for canceling this show. On one hand, the seams were starting to show—the season was less funny overall, Peter doesn't seem to have learned from his mistakes in the first season, and casting slightly more recognizable actors like Taylor Dearden was starting to strain the immersive brilliance of its true-crime parody. Maybe it was ultimately better to leave us wanting more. On the other hand, what it lost in laughs it made up for in perception, delivering pitch-perfect observations about the complicated nature of high school popularity, how social media has changed things for both worse and better, and the ways adults constantly bully and demean the children they're supposed to look after in the name of "what's best." American Vandal had a stellar second season, and even if it's better to leave them wanting more, by God, that doesn't change the fact that I want more. I'm sure whatever Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault do next will be outstanding, but this...this was something very special. Maybe it deserved to decline before we lost it. 4.) The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Much of what was true then remains true now: Rachel Brosnahan is amazing as Midge Maisel, Amy Sherman-Palladino is a hell of a writer, and this show looks and feels like nothing else on TV, delivering a pure burst of happiness with each episode. Joel, humbled by his discovery of his wife's stand-up career, moves away from last season's role as schmuck ex-husband and into something more supportive and friendly; something that could be unfairly redemptive if Michael Zegen didn't sell his character's quiet self-loathing and admiration for his ex's talent so well. Tony Shalhoub, however, breaks out as the quiet star of the season during its Catskills arc; his impromptu walk-in on his daughter's stand-up performance, and the panic-ridden set that follows, is an absolutely legendary scene, provoking howling blackout laughter amidst the clear emotional devastation. Like GLOW, Mrs. Maisel's second season is basically "more and better," and even when it feels overstuffed it always seems to overdeliver. 3.) Bojack Horseman I've written about this show so often that I don't know what else I can do except point to "Free Churro" and declare that if Will Arnett doesn't get an Emmy for that thirty-minute monologue it'll be forever illegitimate. 2.) Homecoming In a perfect world, this and the next entry on my list would've tied for first as they do two very different things equally well. Homecoming, a little side project for Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail as he puts together its fourth and final season (Esmail directed every episode of Homecoming but is not credited on any scripts—Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz run the writer's room, adapting their popular podcast of the same name), is a taut 10-episode, 5-hour thriller that moves in, hits hard, and gets out quick with each well-structured episode. Julia Roberts leads the cast in what is arguably the best performance of her long, storied career, backed up by a top-of-their-game supporting cast including Stephan James, Bobby Cannavale, Shea Whigham, Hong Chau, Alex Karpovsky, and Jeremy Allen White. It goes to some insane and perhaps absurd places, but it never feels goofy; it's paranoid and dangerous in some of the best traditions of classic thrillers. Speaking of which: Esmail chooses to sample scores from those thrillers in place of an original score of the show's own, but rather than make it feel like more of a pastiche, it does a great job of highlighting our expectations of the kind of big evil corporation at the center of this narrative, making it all the more devastating when they're subverted by showing us an evil that's far banaler and more twisted than we could possibly dream up on our own. Esmail's making himself comfortable in Hollywood. Glad he's here to stay. 1.) Cobra Kai Mr. Miyagi says, "Balance is key." Not just in karate, but in life. A follow-up to the Karate Kid trilogy from the creators of the Harold & Kumar series and the writer of Hot Tub Time Machine from the perspective of Johnny Lawrence could've and maybe should've come off like bullshit hipster revisionist fan fiction. But Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg did their homework, presenting an eminently believable portrait of two middle-aged men who can't move past their glory days; one because he's weighed down by a lifetime of abuse from parents and teachers, another because his financial success and family's well-being is literally tied to it. This is more complicated than "Johnny good now, Daniel-san evil." They're both flawed, broken people who still manage to do plenty of good while quietly passing their damage onto their children and/or pupils. People who don't realize how much they need each other to heal and move forward; after all, "balance is key." This is an astonishingly heavy and complex dramatic gauntlet for any TV show to throw down, let alone a genre show, let alone a freakin' Karate Kid follow-up, and so-called washouts William Zabka and Ralph Macchio step the gently caress up in response. It's also goddamn hysterical at times as well, with amazing gags such as the dick drawings on some of Daniel's billboards ("We blow the competition away!") and the sudden full-frontal assault on a girl that's been picking on one of Johnny's pupils (Nichole Brown). The kids are great too: Xolo Mariueñda is a hell of a find as Johnny's unexpected charge Miguel, while Mary Mouser (as Daniel LaRusso's daughter Sam), Tanner Buchanan (as Johnny's son Robby), Jacob Bertrand (as one of Miguel's best friends) and Brown each do strong supporting work with great, involving arcs of their own. And the groundwork laid for season 2 suggests it's got nowhere to go but up. Can't wait. ----- Thanks for doing this, Rarity! I'm sorry it's not up to my usual quality (like I ever had a usual quality, wakka wakka), but I'm always happy for an opportunity to look back on the year and plug some of the stuff I've been loving. Here's to another great year for the glass tit!
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Jan 5, 2019 20:56
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Great work as ever, Rarity!
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Jan 9, 2019 04:45
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