Best TV Episodes, December 2013

(I'm pretty burned out from the collective 14,557 words I wrote for my end-of-2013 lists over the last couple weeks, so I'm gonna keep this month's Best TV Episodes feature short and sweet. I know I said the same thing almost verbatim a year ago, but this time I really mean it! I just need a break from typing, you guys.)

10. Supernatural, Season 9 Episode 9 - "Holy Terror"

I've learned from perusing forums and Tumblr that a lot of Supernatural fans were less than thrilled with the Ezekiel-related shock twist at the end of this midseason finale. But what can I say? I dig it. I love when a show pulls the rug out from under me.

9. Arrow, Season 2 Episode 9 - "Three Ghosts"

Great, emotional, action-packed midseason finale with an awesome final reveal. Seeing Oliver Queen put on the proper Green Arrow mask for the first time gave goosebumps even to me, someone who never gave first fuck about the Green Arrow before watching this show.

8. Bob's Burgers, Season 4 Episode 7 - "Bob and Deliver"

Stories that put Tina and Bob Belcher together almost always delight, as do stories set at Wagstaff School, so making Bob the substitute teacher for Tina's cooking class was unsurprisingly funny and charming.

7. Scandal, Season 3 Episode 10 - "A Door Marked Exit"

This episode is almost entirely ranked this high for Papa Pope's "You are a boy!" monologue to Fitz. The rest of the episode was pretty good; not mind-blowing. But that monologue is some of my favorite TV dialogue of 2013.

6. American Dad, Season 9 Episode 8 - "Minstrel Krampus"

American Dad culled together lesser-known Christmas mythology, imagery and themes from Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, and some good old climactic ultraviolence for what is probably my favorite explicitly Christmas-themed TV episode of 2013.

5. Awkward, Season 3 Episode 20 - "Who I Want to Be"

As a kinda-sorta series finale (Awkward is coming back next year, but showrunner Lauren Iungerich and her very idiosyncratic voice are out, sinking my enthusiasm for the show by about 95%), "Who I Want to Be" put a satisfying emotional button on three years of this warm, witty high school sitcom.

4. Homeland, Season 3 Episode 12 - "The Star"

I actually felt things – emotions, and all that! – during "The Star," which basically by default makes it the best hour of Homeland's third season. I also appreciate that it followed the season's story through to its only logical conclusion and didn't punk out like the show has in the past.

3. The Walking Dead, Season 4 Episode 8 - "Too Far Gone"

Oh, ok, so here's the awesome zombie spectacle the rest of America apparently sees in The Walking Dead every week as to make it TV's highest-rated scripted show, in the form of the big Team Rick vs. Governor battle we never got at the end of season 3. Now if I could only see The Walking Dead deliver such visceral thrills more than once a year. Baby steps!

2. Arrow, Season 2 Episode 8 - "The Scientist"

I put maybe sixty seconds of thought in my entire life towards the existence of superhero the Flash before watching "The Scientist," so it's a big compliment that I came out the other end a big and instant fan of Barry Allen, hopeful to see him more in Arrow in 2014 and already ready for next fall's Flash spinoff. Great, fun character.

1. American Dad, Season 9 Episode 6 - "Independent Movie"

I'll quote myself from my American Dad writeup a few days ago: "For the record, American Dad and Bob's Burgers were neck and neck in these rankings – the latter even a touch ahead – until Dad's December 1st episode "Independent Movie," a sendup of indie coming-of-age flicks and the Fox Searchlight formula that calls to mind Galaxy Quest and "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" in how note-perfect a spoof it is." Yep. That's pretty much it!

Top Ten TV Episodes of 2013

You know my fifty favorite TV shows of 2013. Here are my favorite individual episodes. Now, for the record, there are many, many more episodes I wanted to include – the fact that Hannibal, Bunheads, Bob's Burgers, Justified, Scandal, Arrested Development and 30 Rock are all excluded from this list pains me. But if I cracked the doors a little more this would suddenly go from a ten-plus-episode list to a hundred-episode list, so I had to keep this club just a bit exclusive. Starting with a few runners-up I couldn't not mention, then rolling right into the top ten (with episode blurbs adapted from what I previously wrote in my monthly Best TV Episodes lists):

Runners-Up (alphabetical by show): Fringe, Season 5 Episode 13 - "An Enemy of Fate," Futurama, Season 7 Episode 26 - "Meanwhile," Game of Thrones, Season 3 Episode 4 - "And Now His Watch Is Ended," Orange Is the New Black, Season 1 Episode 11 - "Tall Men With Feelings," Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 6 - "Spoils of War," Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 8 - "Separate Paths"

10. Arrow, Season 1 Episode 23 - "Sacrifice"
Arrow had hands-down the best network season finale this spring. "Sacrifice" almost had a Buffy's "The Gift"-esque hugeness in scale and sheer climactic feel to it as Starling City began literally crumbling under the influence of the season's overarching supervillain plot. And Arrow didn't just tell, but showed buildings collapsing and streets imploding and anarchy abound, and it was huge and frightful and awesome. The episode had operatic, outsized action and emotion and a twist that floored me in its final minutes. "Sacrifice" is exactly what a pulpy action/adventure TV serial should look like.
9. Parenthood, Season 4 Episode 13 - "Small Victories"
"Small Victories" was a fantastic, achingly emotional hour of Parenthood that "took on" the abortion issue by refusing to "take it on" at all, instead depicting something overly politicized as the deeply personal choice it is. And the relative heaviness of that story was balanced by a comedic B-plot about body odor and pubic hair that had me laughing embarrassingly loud. This episode succinctly sums up everything that is good and vital about Parenthood.
8. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 16 - "Felina"

(Spoilers follow!) Part of what makes Breaking Bad great (and stand out in contrast against most attempts at "quality television" that have followed) is that, for all its darkness and misery and its focus on consequences and its character arcs of supreme, literary power, it can be a really, really fun show with thick veins of pulp running through it. Always has been, from Walt destroying Tuco's office with magic bomb crystals to several instances of cool guys not looking at explosions to the half-Terminator/half-Anton Chigurh Salamanca twins to Two-Face Gus Fring fixing his tie before dying. And it's in that spirit that one of dramatic television's great narratives ends with its protagonist building and deploying a Nazi-killing robot. Awesome!

7. Game of Thrones, Season 3 Episode 9 - "The Rains of Castamere"

After patiently holding it in for three years, being able to finally shout "RED WEDDING RED WEDDING RED WEDDING RED WEDDING!!!!!" at the top of my lungs across every corner of the internet felt so very, very good. I have nothing to add to the discussion surrounding this episode's infinitely-dissected final ten minutes (beyond one last good old-fashioned "Holy fucking shit!"), but even outside of that iconic, unforgettable sequence it was a great hour for the Jon Snow, Arya and Daenerys storylines too. It's an episode worthy of being called the spiritual successor to season 1's "Baelor."

6. American Dad, Season 8 Episode 18 - "Lost In Space"

Detaching entirely from the titular American dad and core Smith family, "Lost In Space" follows alien prisoner Jeff Fischer to a space station above Roger's home planet, where he tries to figure out how to escape captivity in a big, stylish, intergalactic musical action-adventure comedy extravaganza that might just be the year's most purely ambitious sitcom episode. It almost felt like a whole space opera compressed into 22 minutes (with jokes), complete with impressive alien design and massive, complicated "sets" that showed a hell of a lot of visual imagination. It had emotional depth and a bittersweet, melancholy ending you'd never associate with the MacFarlane animation empire.

5. Switched at Birth, Season 2 Episode 9 - "Uprising"

I mostly just think of ABC Family's Switched at Birth as a teen drama – a far above-average one, but just a teen drama regardless – so it was a pleasant surprise to see them produce this formally and emotionally ambitious hour. The students of Carlton School for the Deaf rise up in an occupation protest when the city moves to shut their school down, which is, except for a few spoken lines at the episode's beginning and one more at its end, depicted entirely in silence with nothing but subtitled sign language to better reflect the viewpoint of the deaf characters. It was unique and ballsy, but more importantly than having a great gimmick, it had a great gimmick rooted entirely in character, thematically relevant and tied to a strong emotional throughline.

4. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 9 - "The Dead and the Dying"

Years ago I read about how the real historical Spartacus held his own gladiatorial games to honor a fallen brother, using captured Roman soldiers as gladiators, and I spent all of Spartacus: War of the Damned nervously eyeing the ticking-down episode count, wondering whether or not showrunner Steven DeKnight had just decided to skip this particularly juicy historical nugget. But it turns out, nope, he was just delaying our pleasure, saving one of the show's finest outings for its penultimate installment.

DeKnight tweaked history to bring our heroes into the action (rather than having the Romans fight each other, in the show they fight the former slave/gladiator main characters), and, to be blunt, it was deliriously fucking awesome. In a show that is normally one of the most thoughtful and contemplative and consequence-heavy on television in its depiction of violence, it was enormous fun to see an episode just kick back and let it rip with an hour of pure pump-your-fists-and-cheer-out-loud bloody spectacle for perhaps the first time since Gods of the Arena. Just awesome.

3. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 14 - "Ozymandias"

The crucial flip side of Breaking Bad's deliciously pulpy essence – what raises it from entertainment to televised literature – lies in the darkness, the misery and the consequences on full display in "Ozymandias," which Vince Gilligan himself has declared his masterpiece and the best episode of the series. I'm not 100% sure I'm ready to go that far – I need to rewatch the entire series and see "One Minute" and "Full Measure" and "Crawl Space" and "Face Off" and "Dead Freight" again first – but it is as intense, brutal and harrowing an hour of television as I've ever seen. If "Felina" is the climax to Breaking Bad, the entertaining crime/thriller saga, "Ozymandias" is the climax to Breaking Bad, the bleak tale of a man losing his soul and the horrors he rains upon everyone around him. Beginning to end, "Ozymandias" is an episode about consequences, and karma brought its full fury against Walter White and his family in service of just that.

2. The Legend of Korra, Season 2 Episodes 7 & 8 - "Beginnings" (two-parter)

Easily the best episode (well, technically episodes, but they aired together and go together, so whatever) of The Legend of Korra to date and what would have to be in contention to be called the best episode of the entire Avatar franchise, "Beginnings" took us back to the prehistory of the Avatar world and showed us the life and genesis and battles of Wan, the first Avatar. And, as far as genre prequels go, let's call it the exact opposite of The Phantom Menace: Something great and beautiful and damn near perfect in every way. It enchanted me, it intrigued me, it thrilled me, it moved me, it left me both grinning like a dope and damn near on the cusp of tears. It's basically Korra's stab at a Miyazaki "concept episode," and it does Princess Mononoke proud.

If you were to pluck "Beginnings" from its home on TV and call it a movie, I don't know that I've enjoyed an animated film so much since... god, WALL•E, maybe? Very, very few episodes of television have made me feel giddy and excited and moved and just freaking in awe of the sheer potential of onscreen storytelling like this in years. Maybe ever. The animation? Beautiful, breathtaking. The emotion? Goosebumps all over my body. The action? Immensely badass. The sheer scope of its storytelling? It rivals entire epic fantasy narratives like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter in the space of about forty minutes of television. "Beginnings" is TV of mythic power. I love, love, love, love, love it.

1. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 10 - "Victory"

I've already written and talked about 2013's finest television achievement at arguably excessive length and have little more to add on the subject. But I'll emphasize one last time that Spartacus' finale really had its cake and ate it too, providing a rich emotional feast and the conclusions to years of thoughtful character work and tying a totally satisfying thematic bow on everything while also remembering to give us a final battle sequence that made Game of Thrones' "Blackwater" look like the skirmish at the end of a Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode. It's one of the best series finales and one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen.

Best TV Episodes, November 2013

I'm gonna level with y'all straight up: Since I started doing these monthly Best TV Episodes lists, there has never been a single month I've had a harder time whittling down to just ten. As I type this, I'm staring at a list of over twenty episodes that aired last month and struggling to cut a single one. So I'm going to break protocol and do some (alphabetical, unranked) runners-up. I might also keep my episode blurbs a little on the short side, because I'm working on some other posts for December. I hope you'll forgive me my trespasses.

Runners-up:

• Almost Human, Season 1 Episode 3 - "Are You Receiving?"

Almost Human gets a thumbs up from me so far. I enjoy its Fringe-meets-Blade Runner-meets-Robocop vibe. This hostage thriller episode added Die Hard onto the list of influences, so no wonder I dig it.

• Arrow, Season 2 Episode 7 - "State v. Queen"

Seth Gabel returns as Count Vertigo, the most enjoyably over-the-top, Dark Knight Joker-esque villain in Arrow's rogues gallery. The episode's courtroom scenes weren't exactly the best, but I still enjoyed it on the strength of Vertigo and the final plot twist, which has far-reaching ramifications for the series.

• Awkward, Season 3 Episode 17 - "The Campaign Fail"

Protagonist Jenna Hamilton's face-heel turn provided MTV's high school sitcom with one of its stronger story arcs since season 1, but this episode, with her returning to good and seeking forgiveness from the friends and family she's wronged, is stronger still.

• New Girl, Season 3 Episode 8 - "Menus"

Not gonna lie; this episode is here almost exclusively for Nick's line "What's up, Jason Street?" to wheelchair Winston. That's literally all it takes to get me to love your show: Throw in a Friday Night Lights reference, win my undying allegiance.

• Revolution, Season 2 Episode 9 - "Everyone Says I Love You"

With the possible exception of The Newsroom, Revolution is easily 2013's most improved show. I'm actually enjoying it now, which is just crazy. This episode was pretty freakin' crazy too. Hopefully Revolution's upswing continues into 2014.

10. The Legend of Korra, Season 2 Episodes 13 & 14 - "Darkness Falls" & "Light in the Dark" (two-parter)

Much like season 1's closing moments, Korra season 2's climactic battle is way too reliant on magical deus ex machina to get the heroes out of the impossible corner the show has written them into. Let me put it this way: I was 100% digging the finale when it was doing its riff on Godzilla. When it turned into Pacific Rim, however, it got kind of absurd. Nevertheless, gripes aside, the action kicked ass and the animation was immensely beautiful. Still-human Unalaq in full Dark Avatar regalia was terrifying.

9. Supernatural, Season 9 Episode 7 - "Bad Boys"

This episode was just a great, nostalgic Supernatural throwback to the days of seasons 1 and 2. No demons, no angels, no heaven, no hell, not a single regular or recurring character save Sam and Dean; just a straight-up ghost story, salting and burning bones and all. It was like the Supernatural equivalent of going back and playing some NES. The good old days, baby.

8. Boardwalk Empire, Season 4 Episode 12 - "Farewell Daddy Blues"

Ok, I'm gonna potentially make a few enemies here: Outside of episodes 5 and 8, which I included in last month's roundup, I'm not sure I really loved this season of Boardwalk Empire. I still liked it, but didn't love it the way I did the last two years. It's still a beautiful and sometimes exciting show, but its rhythms have become immensely familiar. It's just not a show that truly challenges itself on fundamental levels. Ergo, I liked but didn't love its fourth season finale. It did include an amazing, brutal fight scene with Eli Thompson, but the episode's major character death felt sudden and unearned.

7. Scandal, Season 3 Episode 7 - "Everything's Coming Up Mellie"

This episode was just completely and utterly bug-nuts crazy from start to finish, which is the pitch Scandal operates best at. The flashbacks with First Lady Mellie Grant were crazy and went to a shockingly dark place. The present-day Quinn story went to a crazy, dark and blood-soaked place, too. The revelation about the Vice President's husband's sexuality was just the goofily wacky cherry on top. Shonda Rhimes deserves adulation for the way she keeps this show's pacing cranked to a perpetual 11.

6. Homeland, Season 3 Episode 9 - "One Last Time"

Oh hey Homeland! Pretty surprising to see you on this list - I thought you didn't come 'round these parts anymore! What "One Last Time" pulled off in its Brody story that the rest of Homeland season 3 has failed at is delivering a story with clean, coherent and immediate stakes. Even the Dana Brody scene in this episode was narratively relevant and emotionally affecting. That right there may be the single most shocking twist Homeland season 3 has pulled off to date.

5. Bob's Burgers, Season 4 Episode 5 - "Turkey in a Can"

After some episodes earlier this season with almost preposterously high, life-or-death stakes – namely "A River Runs Through Bob" and "Seaplane!" – for its Thanksgiving episode Bob's Burgers reclaimed greatness by returning the Belchers home and setting nearly every minute of the episode there. The concept here wasn't bottle episode, though, but "murder" mystery as Bob tries to track down who in the house ruined his Thanksgiving turkey. Both the jokes and the genre trappings worked completely. Great, fun episode.

4. The Legend of Korra, Season 2 Episode 10 - "A New Spiritual Age"

Korra and Jinora's journey into the Spirit World makes for one of the best episodes of Korra's second season, fully shedding all the techno/steampunk trappings that exist in Republic City and returning to true straight-up fantasy storytelling. The Avatar: The Last Airbender cameos were impossible not to delight at, and the spirits themselves ranged the gamut from adorable to majestic to terrifying. Awesome "Oh shit what happens next!"-inducing cliffhanger, too.

3. Parenthood, Season 5 Episode 9 - "Election Day"

I'm on record as being not exactly in love with Parenthood season 5's mayoral election subplot, but a huge part of that had to do with terror that the story was going to go in a direction it really shouldn't and Parenthood was suddenly going to become The West Wing-lite. Now that I know that wasn't their plan, I dislike it a lot less in retrospect, and its climactic episode "Election Day" was actually quite good. Even aside from Kristina, the Crosby and Max stories were both very funny, and Julia and Joel's story was quite harrowing in a "Mom and dad are fighting!" kind of way. Parenthood is ramping up to a strong finish for 2013.

2. Arrow, Season 2 Episode 5 - "League of Assassins"

Not merely continuing but intensifying and upping the stakes following the revelation of the Canary's identity in the previous episode, "League of Assassins" shows Arrow as the polished, height-of-its-powers badass weekly superhero flick it is. The clock tower action scene was just so cinematic and exciting, and even beyond the wicked fight choreography it was all rooted in character dynamics and high emotional stakes. That's exactly what genre TV at its best is all about and should aspire to. This episode also showed off what a strong character Quentin Lance has become. Once practically the Sheriff Lamb of Arrow, I now ache for his pain as much as anyone else on the show.

1. The Legend of Korra, Season 2 Episode 12 - "Harmonic Convergence"

Despite their identical #1 rankings on my Best TV Episodes lists, no, I do not think "Harmonic Convergence" is anywhere near as good as last month's "Beginnings," an installment that is honestly in contention as one of my favorite hours of TV ever. But that doesn't mean "Harmonic Convergence" didn't kick a lot of ass. The massive, epic plane action sequence as Team Avatar attempts to invade Unalaq's base and reach the southern spirit portal was one of those scenes that truly shows off the potential of animation (plus imagination, of course), and how as a medium it can do on television things that just can't be done in live action sans hundreds of millions of dollars. The episode's ending also deserves credit as arguably 2013's greatest "HOLY FUCKING SHIT I NEED THE NEXT EPISODE NOWWW!!!"-inducing TV cliffhanger.

Best TV Episodes, October 2013

10. Arrow, Season 2 Episode 3 - "Broken Dolls"

It's been a dark TV year for me in a lot of ways: A solid half-dozen shows I adored ended (Spartacus, Fringe, 30 Rock, Breaking Bad, Bunheads, Futurama), and another half-dozen or so I started the year liking or even loving have lost their luster (we'll talk more about those at the end of December). But then, a green light piercing the darkness: Arrow. That little superhero show that inspired a "not bad" from me last fall has grown by leaps and bounds in 2013, its creative fire burning hot, and is now one of TV's pure kick-ass pleasures. "Broken Dolls" is just one of their more typical case-of-the-week installments, but the show is now so damn good that even those are worthy of my monthly list.

9. Scandal, Season 3 Episode 1 - "It's Handled"

First off, props to Scandal for finally popping its Tim's TV Talk Best TV Episodes list cherry. Like Arrow (and Orange Is the New Black, and Hannibal), Shonda Rhimes' The West Wing-on-crack opus has been something of a bright spot in a dark TV year for me, and its third season finale carried on nicely with the snappy pace and operatic melodrama of season 2. Joe Morton, who I know primarily from my roughly one million viewings of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, fits perfectly into the show as Olivia Pope's father, delivering lines with booming, Shakespearean magnitude.

8. Parenthood, Season 5 Episode 5 - "Let's Be Mad Together"

I'll be the first to admit: The mayoral election arc of Parenthood season 5? Not exactly my favorite thing the show's done. In fact I might go so far as to say that Kristina's election is to Parenthood as Landry murder is to Friday Night Lights: Just not the kind of story I normally love and revere this show for. But "Let's Be Mad Together" put the race on hold for a week, and good times were had by all. And by good I mean bittersweet, because this is Parenthood. Drunk Joel shopping for cake was delightful, and the subplot with Max's photography makes this honestly one of the best episodes for Max in the show's entire run to date. He's actually bordering on likable and sympathetic! For Max, that's a pretty big deal.

7. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Season 9 Episode 5 - "Mac Day"

If it weren't for the badass hockey flick Goon from a couple years back, I'd have to call Seann William Scott's performance as Country Mac in "Mac Day" his best work since the original American Pie in 1999. Genuine celebrities and Always Sunny can feel like a slightly volatile combination, but by positioning Country Mac as the improved version of Regular Mac in every way – superior at stunts, a better fighter, a master of the ocular pat down and open instead of closeted with his homosexuality – Scott's star power merely emphasized how overmatched Mac was. After "The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award" from last month, I'd have to call "Mac Day" my second favorite Sunny of the year so far.

6. Boardwalk Empire, Season 4 Episode 5 - "Erlkönig"

One of the great pleasures of TV as a medium, and one that film rarely achieves in its allotted two-hour slices, is the ability to turn the spotlight on the supporting players, transforming glorified extras over years into rich, three-dimensional characters. (The classic Buffy episode "The Zeppo" commented on this directly.) Hence, this episode's focus on Nucky's body man Eddie Kessler, a character I would have called minor comic relief in the first couple seasons, proved quite powerful and moving, straight through to the haunting final shot. The fact that "Erlkönig" also included a huge gun battle in the Chicago subplot with the Capones and Van Alden and the cops is just icing on the cake.

5. Arrow, Season 2 Episode 4 - "Crucible"

The Canary has been a massive boon to Arrow in its second season, an immediately likable, interesting and badass addition to the ensemble (let's call her the anti-Laurel Lance in that regard), and the episode that revealed her true identity and background did not disappoint. Hell, it wasn't even really the main point of "Crucible," which also squeezed in a solid case of the week and an awesome "OH SNAP!"-inducing reveal about the big bad behind everything in the hour's closing seconds. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., pay attention: Arrow is showing you how to keep televised superhero storytelling aggressively paced, emotionally involving and hugely exciting. Watch it. Study it. Take notes.

4. Bob's Burgers, Season 4 Episode 2 - "Fort Night"

Last year's Bob's Burgers Halloween special, "Full Bars," was one of the show's bigger episodes in terms of scale and sheer number of newly-designed locales, with the Belcher kids exploring an entire adjacent town. So it seems a fitting counterpoint that this year's Halloween special "Fort Night" features the Belcher kids stuck in a small fort made of refrigerator boxes for most of the episode. It managed to combine the high stakes of a Halloween special (the fort is under threat of being crushed by a truck) and a chilling "villain" in Millie with the pleasures of a bottle episode. It's easily the best episode of season 4 so far.

3. Boardwalk Empire, Season 4 Episode 8 - "The Old Ship of Zion"

Though it has its merits all through the hour, amping the Chalky vs. Narcisse conflict up to the next level, "The Old Ship of Zion" is ultimately ranked this high on the strength of its final scene, where the visual cues and performances and general film grammar truly convinced me that a main character was about to die. It was, on account of this, one of the most intense and harrowing TV scenes of all of 2013. It's a powerful scene I'll remember for some time. I know I'm being vague as fuck here, but trust me, there's a reason.

2. Arrow, Season 2 Episode 1 - "City of Heroes"

Arrow had its work cut out for it trying to measure up to its debut season's epic finale, and I'm pleased and frankly a little shocked to report that they pulled it off. "City of Heroes" saw season 2 exploding out of the gate. Like season 1, it owes a huge debt to Chris Nolan's Dark Knight movies, but using the medium of television's strengths – namely a sprawling canvas – it was able to arguably improve on a couple concepts from those films. Firstly the realization and construction of Oliver's no-kill rule, something Batman Begins had to get through within the space of a couple scenes in its opening half-hour but which Arrow (the show) and Arrow (the superhero) has had some time to chew and ponder on.

Also, taking a page right from the opening scenes of The Dark Knight, the Arrow now has copycat vigilantes in town; copycats who wield guns and use lethal force. But unlike the chubby cosplayers from The Dark Knight, Arrow's copycats are ruthless military-trained killers. It was a potentially fascinating concept The Dark Knight didn't have the spare time to devote much attention to, but thanks to the medium of television, a whole hour can be set aside to explore it in depth. And that's why TV is cool.

1. The Legend of Korra, Season 2 Episodes 7 & 8 - "Beginnings" (two-parter)

Easily the best episode (well, technically episodes, but they aired together and they go together, so whatever) of The Legend of Korra to date and what would have to be in contention to be called the best episode of the entire Avatar franchise, "Beginnings" took us back to the prehistory of the Avatar world and showed us the life and genesis and battles of Wan, the first Avatar. And, as far as genre prequels go, let's call it the exact fucking opposite of The Phantom Menace: Something great and beautiful and damn near perfect in every way. It enchanted me, it intrigued me, it thrilled me, it moved me, it left me both grinning like a dope and damn near on the cusp of tears. It's basically Korra's stab at a Miyazaki "concept episode," and it does Princess Mononoke damn proud.

If you were to pluck "Beginnings" from its home on TV and call it a movie, I don't know that I've enjoyed an animated movie so much since... god, WALL•E, maybe? Very, very few episodes of television have made me feel giddy and excited and moved and just freaking in awe of the sheer potential of onscreen storytelling like this in years. Maybe ever. The animation? Beautiful. Breathtaking. The emotion? Goosebumps all over my body. The action scenes? Immensely badass. The sheer scope of its storytelling? It rivals entire epic fantasy narratives like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter in the space of about forty minutes of television. "Beginnings" is TV of mythic power. I love, love, love, love, love it.

Best TV Episodes, September 2013

10. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. / Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 1 Episode(s) 1 – "Pilot"

Respectively the strongest drama and comedy pilots of this new fall TV season, neither Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or Brooklyn Nine-Nine (which are both, frankly, kind of annoying to type!) came exploding out of the gate on fire, but both show promise. A runner-up to the list could be Fox's Sleepy Hollow, which has a bit of a fun Fringe-y, Supernatural-y vibe to it, but unlike S.H.I.E.L.D. lacks a pilot written and directed by Joss Whedon. Stay tuned for more thoughts on fall's new lineup later in the year, once I've gotten more of a feel for everything.

9. Parks and Recreation, Season 6 Episodes 1 & 2 – "London" (two-parter)

I've been vocally down on Parks and Recreation over the last year or so – increasingly, I feel like the show hit a peak in the nine-episode stretch between "Media Blitz" and "The Fight" back in season 3 that it's never been able to remotely match again – so, unlike with most critics, it actually means something when I say that "London" was a great season premiere. Better than any episode of season 5, in fact. It's the first episode in a long time to put a legitimately delightful new spin on Ron's uber-manliness, and the way it temporarily wrote out Andy to accommodate Guardians of the Galaxy's shooting schedule was actually damn clever. And unlike Friends' trip to London the photography was beautiful too, both of the city and in the countryside with Ron.

8. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 12 – "Rabid Dog"

Having now seen all of Breaking Bad season 5 1/2, I feel comfortable declaring "Rabid Dog" the weakest of its eight episodes. Which is to say it was merely very good instead of one of the best TV episodes of the last several years. It was clear even while watching the episode the first time that this was an hour dedicated to shuffling the pieces into place for the insanity soon to come – did anyone really think anything crazy was going to go down in that public square at the end? – but the bizarre, burgeoning relationship between Jesse and the Schrader family was just the right brand of strange and funny. I only wish we could see more of Jesse's confession tape!

7. Parenthood, Season 5 Episode 1 – "It Has to Be Now"

When it comes to Parenthood, the difference between an average, good or great episode often comes down to the absence or presence of one moment that reduces me from manly man to big dumb weepy baby. In the case of the show's fifth season premiere, said moment was found in the episode's final minute, where returning Afghanistan veteran Ryan York proposed to Amber, the preferred Braverman of all people with hearts, scored to Joshua Radin's "My My Love." No showrunner has ever used music as perfectly as Jason Katims, and that's as true in Parenthood season 5 as it was back in Friday Night Lights season 1.

6. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Season 9 Episode 3 – "The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award"

Surreally and against all the rules of television, Always Sunny is, nine years in, just getting more and more ambitious. Once, it commented on how terrible these specific people were; now it turns its sights on the entire medium of television, as the gang finds themselves trapped in a shitty ABC-style sitcom as they visit another award-winning (i.e. Emmy-winning) bar, where the people are "likable" and the colors are bright and the banter is phony and the will-they-or-won't-they romance is gag-inducing. Unlike Community's semi-takedown of Glee, there didn't appear to be much winking or loving about this parody: It was downright scornful of the shitty comedies Emmy voters throw gold at. And it was glorious. One of my favorite Sunny episodes in years.

5. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 15 – "Granite State"

"Granite State" was something of a schizophrenic episode: On the one hand, up in New Hampshire with Walt's story, Breaking Bad became as moody, quiet, introspective and methodical in its pacing (and snowy!) as we've just about ever seen the show. Even compared to similarly stationary episodes like "Fly" and "4 Days Out," Walt's story here lacked a goal or a purpose; he was just trapped, deteriorating. Rotting. Until he saw a certain TV interview, that is.

Meanwhile, back in the ABQ, with Jesse and all the rest, things went fucking horrifyingly nuts, with dead-eyed Landry Todd Alquist stepping up to join King Joffrey on the short list of contemporary TV's sickest, most unpredictably violent and terrifying villains. The two contrasting halves of the episode created an enjoyably odd mix, propelling events into the finale and ending with the show's first-ever onscreen use of the Breaking Bad theme song outside of the title card, which was just thrilling.

4. Futurama, Season 7 Episode 26 – "Meanwhile"

Futurama's last couple years may not have been what the show was at its peak – and, let's be honest here, a really freaking small handful of shows in TV history are what Futurama was at its peak – but "Meanwhile" was nevertheless just about all you could have asked for from its series finale. It was funny, it was emotional, it had crazy sci-fi time-warping shenanigans baked into its plot, and it wrapped up the series-spanning Fry/Leela arc in a way that was wonderful, joyful and just a touch bittersweet. It's one of the goriest episodes in the show's history and it leaves you with a smile on your lips and a tear in your eye. Classic Futurama right there.

It's also the first one of these long-lived animated sitcoms to have a true series finale that really feels like a series finale, wrapping up characters and story arcs in a manner that gives the impression of a finished story. The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy and American Dad live on and King of the Hill ended with a fairly non-eventful, non-climactic "life goes on" episode. But one day, those first four series will end, and "Meanwhile" gives them a good model for what kind of tone they might aim for in their final 22-minute slices.

3. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 13 – "To'hajiilee"

(Spoilers follow!) The final ten minutes of "To'hajiilee" are, without question, among the most stomach-churningly suspenseful I've ever witnessed in television or film. I'm talking about everything after Uncle Jack's gang descends on Hank and Gomie, of course, but arguably even more importantly I'm talking about the minutes before they arrive. I mean, they're coming. You know they're coming. Hitchcock's bomb under the table is primed at ticking loudly when Hank is on the phone with Marie, delivering classic "I'm about to die" dialogue about how it's finally over and he loves her, and you just fucking know the Albuquerque desert is about to turn into Naziville, population Hank.

But all my years of 24 watching conditioned me to expect motherfucking SHOCK! moments (and Breaking Bad, too, has delivered a couple over the years), so I watched this on edge, every nerve ending alert, adrenaline pumping in a way no TV show should logically induce, ready for a gunshot to blow out Hank's brains out of nowhere. It turned out Vince Gilligan and company had something a bit different in mind, but still, holy fucking shit, what a sequence. What a set piece. I would be very interested to see what this episode's director Michelle MacLaren could bring to an action/thriller/suspense feature film once she's done with her work on Game of Thrones.

2. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 16 – "Felina"

(Spoilers follow!) Part of what makes Breaking Bad great (and what makes it stand out in contrast to most attempts at "quality television" that have followed) is that, for all its darkness and misery and its focus on consequences and its character arcs of supreme, literary power, it's a really, really fun show with thick veins of pulp running through it. Always has been, from Walt destroying Tuco's office with magic bomb crystals to several instances of cool guys not looking at explosions to the half-Terminator/half-Anton Chigurh Salamanca twins to Two-Face Gus Fring fixing his tie before dying. And it's in that spirit that one of dramatic television's great narratives ends with its protagonist building and deploying a Nazi-killing robot. Awesome.

1. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 14 – "Ozymandias"

However, the flip side of Breaking Bad's deliciously pulpy essence is all that other stuff I mentioned: The darkness, the misery, the consequences, and it's all on full display in "Ozymandias," which Vince Gilligan himself has declared his masterpiece and the best episode of the series. I'm not 100% sure I'm ready to go that far – I need to rewatch the entire series and see "One Minute" and "Full Measure" and "Crawl Space" and "Face Off" and "Dead Freight" again first – but it is as intense, brutal and harrowing an hour of television as I've ever seen. If "Felina" is the climax to Breaking Bad, the entertaining crime/thriller saga, "Ozymandias" is the climax to Breaking Bad, the intensely bleak tale of a man losing his soul and the horrors he rains upon everyone around him. Beginning to end, "Ozymandias" is an episode about consequences, and karma brought its full fury against Walter White and his family in service of just that.

Breaking Bad was brutal, fantastic, glorious brilliance. It is unequivocally one of the greatest TV series of all time. Now, internet, let's please try to maintain my love for it and frankly my sanity by shutting up about it for at least a year.

Best TV Episodes, August 2013

10. Longmire, Season 2 Episode 13 – "Bad Medicine"

Good news, everyone! As the summer TV hiatus ends in but a few shorts weeks, August should officially be the last month of "every halfway decent show gets a chance to play on the Best TV Episodes lists" season. One of the final recipients of this season's generosity, following in the footsteps of Defiance and Teen Wolf, is A&E's Wyoming sheriff procedural Longmire (which, despite my protestations in my best of 2012 list, I actually did pick back up and continue with, and it might even be a little higher on my 2013 list). The show's second season finale wasn't mind-blowing or anything, but it had a couple nice twists and some beautiful scenery, which is pretty much all you can ask for from Longmire.

9. Gravity Falls, Season 1 Episode 20 – "Gideon Rises"

Unlike Longmire, Disney's Simpsons-meets-X-Files-for-kids cartoon Gravity Falls is probably going to be lower on my best of 2013 list than where it stood last year. Not that it's been unenjoyable – it's just that my four or five favorite episodes of last year are still my four or five favorite episodes of the series. It's been entertaining this year, but not blowing my hair back. Nevertheless, its first season finale – which parodied mechs and giant monsters in a way that frankly might have been more entertaining than the overrated Pacific Rim – brought the show's first act to a reasonably funny and epic conclusion.

8. Longmire, Season 2 Episode 11 – "Natural Order"

Another Longmire? What gives, Tim?! Well, I'll tell you what gives: Jim Beaver guest spot! That's automatic bonus points right there.

7. Switched at Birth, Season 2 Episode 21 – "Departure of Summer"

I wasn't always in love with this summer-set and summer-airing half-season of Switched at Birth. This show, like pretty much all teen dramas, is stronger with the natural structure of the school year keeping the narrative cohesive. But still, Switched's second season finale (and yes, this makes three season finales in four entries) did a respectable and somewhat moving job of clearing the deck for next year, having characters split apart, confess to wrongdoings and start making amends.

6. The Newsroom, Season 2 Episode 7 – "Red Team III"

One of the more bizarre and pleasant surprises this month was seeing Aaron Sorkin's often preachy and formerly bordering on unwatchable behind-the-scenes-of-TV drama The Newsroom rise to the level of being, well, pretty watchable. A lot of that has to do with Sorkin finally letting his often unpleasantly perfect characters make more mistakes, and as the show's second season nears its end they made a truly massive one, doing a live special news bulletin on a war crime it turned out never occurred. The fallout has made for, if not quite The West Wing or Sports Night or The Social Network, pretty decent television.

5. The Fosters, Season 1 Episode 10 – "I Do"

In what is surely one of TV's better lesbian wedding episodes, the midseason finale of ABC Family's surprisingly moving new drama brought some of the titular Foster family closer than ever while other things fell apart. The show isn't quite Parenthood as far as family dramas go, but I've actually been pretty impressed at how deft it's been in its storytelling, character development and emotions. I can't quite forgive ABC Family for canceling Bunheads, but The Fosters is at least a band-aid on the wound.

4. The Newsroom, Season 2 Episode 5 – "News Night with Will McAvoy"

"News Night with Will McAvoy" is to The Newsroom as the pilot of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is to that show: Almost certainly the best hour it will ever put out, fleeting proof that buried somewhere inside is still the Sorkin who gave us Sports Night and The West Wing. In fact, this episode, which depicts one fast-paced, hectic, sometimes funny but ultimately tragic hour in Will McAvoy and MacKenzie McHale's newsroom, even calls to mind some similarly real-time episodes of those two classic shows, such as the "Draft Day" two-parter from the former and "17 People" from the latter. It's the one time I've finished a Newsroom episode and felt that it actually matched Sorkin's ambitions.

3. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 10 – "Buried"

And now we reach the 500-pound blue meth elephant in the room. I'm not bothering with weekly Breaking Bad reviews on this blog, because quite frankly the entire rest of the internet will already have discussed, debated, broken down, analyzed, gif-ized, and then looped back around for reanalysis for every single episode before I could possibly get around to even typing my first sentence on the matter. There'd be no point; I'd be spitting into a tsunami. But still, one of TV's towering achievements will certainly have its day in the sun on these lists, as it should. The chaotic aftermath of Walt and Hank's confrontation and Jesse's slip into full-on depressive psychosis were both gripping as hell. Bloody meth empire coups are just the crimson icing on the crystal blue cake.

2. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 11 – "Confessions"

Refusing authentic New Mexican tableside guacamole?! Walt's humanity is truly lost.

1. Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 9 – "Blood Money"

Confession: About two-thirds of the way through Breaking Bad's fifth-and-a-half-season premiere, I was thinking, "Well, this is good – Breaking Bad is always good – but it's not really blowing my mind like I'd hoped. They must be setting up the good stuff for next week." And then, blamo, like clear, climactic, revelatory thunder, the final garage scene between Hank and Walt. One of the most intense, gripping, powerful, brilliantly written and amazingly acted scenes I've seen on television all year long, and one of the best scenes of this entire stellar series.

Not gonna lie, I rewatched the scene on YouTube, like, ten to fifteen times the same night "Blood Money" aired, then probably another ten times over the course of the week. How brilliant it is to see five-plus years of television culminate in a moment like that. How rare. How awesome. I will not tread lightly when it comes to ranking this the best TV episode of August 2013.