The Best TV I Watched in 2022, Part 2
Wannabe actor hitmen, tech billionaires, socially anxious comedians, a slick sci-fi about American corporate drudgery, and sex and death in Sicily
While I’m certain you’re tired of the 2022 recaps by now—because frankly I cannot see another Instagram reel or carousel of people re-posting their hottest selfies in tropical places as though they’re either on The White Lotus or in The Glass Onion—I am here with part 2 of the Best TV I Watched in 2022 aka my Top Five (you can read Part 1 here).
The trend in film/TV the last five or so years seems to be rich people behaving badly, and while I do find it endlessly entertaining, I do worry that it’s not actually having the right effect. That is, puncturing holes in the myth of meritocracy, getting more folks to understand hoarding wealth is unethical, and encouraging taxing the rich. On the other hand, Columbo’s entire thing for the whole run of Columbo was taking down rich people and it never became pedantic or boring. People ate that shit up. Now if we can just translate that energy to actually taxing the wealthy and not giving more resources to morally compromised people, that would be great.
At least they make for pretty great TV.
Here’s my top 5 of the year.
The Best 5 TV Shows I Watched in 2022
5. Barry (HBO Max)
I feel like we just take it for granted that something as consistently great as Barry exists because the current landscape is so crowded, but Bill Hader is just over there making his magnum opus. I’m not sure we can really call Barry a full out comedy anymore given how dark things have gotten in season three between the waiting-for-judgment dreams featuring all his victims, Sally’s own realization Barry is yet another violent man she needs to escape, Gene’s retribution for Barry murdering his girlfriend Janice, and Fuches on the warpath. And yet, Hader and company also provided some of the funniest moments of the year in the midst of all the darkness (along with one of the best freeway chases I’ve seen in film or TV this year) with some staggeringly great performances. Barry has taken one of the best/weirdest premises in television (hitman on the run who wants to become famous actor) and turned it into something utterly exhilarating and profound. Here’s hoping Hader directs some movies soon.
4. The Dropout (Hulu)
Wacky, weird, fun, and sometimes unsettling, The Dropout is one of the best examinations of how “fake it ‘til you make it” is perhaps THE American ideal, where and how “innovation” and con artists—especially in the tech industry—often intersect, and how white women (almost) get away with everything. Amanda Seyfried is sensational (and Emmy-winning) as faux-deep voiced Theranos founder and tech billionaire Elizabeth Holmes. Her rise from daughter of a disgraced Enron employee to Lil Wayne-loving, black turtleneck-wearing, green juice-drinking scammer is a joy to watch. It’s one of the best performances of the year (supported by another great performance from Naveen Andrews as her lover/Theranos COO Sunny Balwani) and a perfect companion piece to The Social Network.
3. The White Lotus season 2 (HBO Max)
Writer/Director Mike White’s sexy, hilarious, and tense second season of his hit anthology series saw a whole new cast + the returning Jennifer Coolidge (god bless her) travel to picturesque Sicily where someone’s vacation ends with death. While the first season dealt with race/privilege issues, this season went hard on sexual politics, especially infidelity issues. What makes The White Lotus so enjoyable—beyond its perfect casting each season—is that White writes such great, three-dimensional characters and ever so subtly, continually raises the stakes for them so there’s no place to go but an explosion. While Coolidge was predictably hilarious, this season’s secret MVP was Meghann Fahy’s moneyed and manipulative Daphne, who has her own subtle ways of keeping her philandering, tech bro-y husband Cameron (Theo James) in check. In White’s world, bad behavior isn’t exactly rewarded (unless you’re sex workers Lucia and Mia, god bless), but it’s definitely not discouraged—if only for great television’s sake.
2. Severance (Apple TV+)
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen what I’d call a perfect first season of a show, but when I finished Severance, I had the same kind of feeling I got watching the first season of Lost, which is to say it was perfect, thrilling, and unique. The new series from creator Dan Erickson and directors Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle is a slick, stylish, sci-fi thriller that’s also a damning portrait of American work culture, grief, and our subconscious needs/desires. In the near-future, a group of employees at the mysterious Lumon Industries undergoes a special brain surgery called “severance” to separate the consciousness of their work selves and home selves. But when everyman Mark (an excellent Adam Scott) is visited outside by his former work colleague, Petey, he begins uncovering the dark secrets that lie at the heart of his workplace. Severance offers up plenty of philosophical questions about free will, laughs at corporate drudgery, genuinely chilling visuals, an unsettling tone, and excellent performances (Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, and Tramell Tillman all are knockouts)—especially under Stiller’s great direction. The show slow builds to one of the most white-knuckled, heart-racing season finales I’ve seen in a very long time. It’s episodic, character-focused TV in the most rewarding way with one helluva cliffhanger.
1. The Rehearsal (HBO Max)
It’s kind of impossible to describe just what the Rehearsal is to people who aren’t already familiar with Nathan Fielder and his previous work and even if you ARE familiar, it’s a series that transcends either comedy or social experiment as the comedian sets out to help people “rehearse” for real-life situations to minimalize their anxieties and “bad” outcomes. Fielder has always been a cringe-comedy provocateur of sorts who always takes the bit to its furthest extremes, but the Rehearsal scales new heights as Fielder’s work moves into Charlie Kaufman meta-territory a la Synecdoche New York or even occasionally Peter Weir’s Truman Show. I’m still not even really describing it exactly as it is, because no other show this year has put me through the emotional wringer—sometimes in the same episode—like Fielder’s, and I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like it. Somehow, he gets right to the heart of the loneliness so many of us feel, the longing for connection despite anxieties, then exploits it, but even within that exploitation, he and his subjects also make genuine connections and we the audience make genuine connections to them, and then we’re stuck wondering what’s real and what’s fake. You know what, just watch it, because it’s simultaneously the most profound and silly thing I watched all year, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it and how Fielder constantly subverts the form and interrogates his own work/choices. It won’t be everyone’s thing, but that’s exactly what makes it great. It’s an utter triumph.
Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoyed this, please consider a paid subscription as even labors of love still involve labor. xoxo