TYF’s Best 30 Episodes of Television 2015

Mad Men – “Lost Horizon” 

I mean, need I say more?

In a fabulous last season, of a series that will go down as one of television’s best, it was time for Mad Men to give it’s characters it’s rightful due. No character had seen more growth throughout the series as Peggy, and as the GIF so beautifully show’s before, she owned her exit from the company that had helped shape her, and the company that she also helped succeed. Peggy, even more than Don, has often been the most intriguing character of the series, and her moment is only a brief one in a long list of them in one of the shows last finest hours. – By Allyson Johnson /Jon Espino

Master of None – “Parents”

I was very close to choosing the equally great “Mornings” for Aziz Ansari’s excellent Master of None, but it was the second episode of the Netflix series, “Parents” that truly encompassed what the show was trying to accomplish, after the series premiere that was middling in tone and humor. Shot stylishly and offering great insight on children of immigrants who can’t begin to comprehend what their parents went through to offer them a better life, the episode doesn’t forget the humor while also adding an extra layer of pathos about the relationships these characters have with one another. – By Allyson Johnson 

Mr. Robot – “eps1.8m1rr0r1ng.qt”

Be Warned: SPOILERS AHEAD

It was between this and he pilot for me, with episode eight winning out because it built on all that we’d known since the first episode, the clues we’d managed to work out and the anticipation of what was to come and made an jaw dropping good episode where Elliot finally realizes the truth. SPOILERS!!!! Mr. Robot isn’t real, he’s a hallucination of his dead father, and he’s much further gone than even he ever expected. It’s yet another tour de force performance for Rami Malek in a season full of them with Christian Slater offering some of his best work to date as well. What makes the episode so fantastic isn’t that we were surprised by the reveal-we all pretty much knew that Mr. Robot was a figment of Eliot’s imagination. What makes it great is that by the time of the reveal we don’t care that we knew because the execution is so gripping and emotional that it makes the build up and our knowledge as a narrative tool-that we know something the protagonist didn’t the entire time. – By Allyson Johnson 

New Girl – “Spiderhunt”

Season four of New Girl was an reinvigorated version of the Fox series after some stumbles in season three, and “Spiderhunt” showed the series at its very best by creating one of their bottle episodes as the gang search for a spider that’s terrorizing them-Schmidt in particular. Free of the familiar sitcom trappings (for an one half hour at least), New Girl got to do what it does best and focused in on the relationship between the main characters, their different dynamics and what makes them tick, without any of the stumbles of episodes that try to weave in serial storylines and romantic ventures. New Girl is one of the few shows that does best when it does very little with the plot, and instead lets these decidedly odd characters just chill out…well, as much as one can when Jess is pairing people up into different type of spider squads. Hilarious in the wacky way that made New Girl popular in the first place, before the character assassinations of season three, “Spiderhunt” is New Girl nailing their tone and having a hell of a lot of fun.  – By Allyson Johnson

Outlander – “The Devil’s Mark”

The final two episodes of Outlander’s first season may be the most controversial and talked about, but “The Devil’s Mark” is the biggest turning point in the series. What made this episode so entertaining is how it touched on all of the genres Outlander covers (romance, drama, thriller, action), in particular the time travel element. Essentially a court-room drama, it was tightly and suspensefully filmed, playing on great performances and the absurdities of the time. It also was the episode the steers the series into its major story arc: Is it possible to change the past? – By Gabrielle Bondi