Why not take a break from schmaltzy Christmas programming, and instead rewatch the best TV episodes aired in 2023? NB, spoilers ahead.
“Connor’s Wedding,” Succession
If Season 4 of Succession as a whole felt a little uneven, no one can dispute the brilliance of “Connor’s Wedding.” That awful yacht decked out in kitschy Americana, Logan dying while fishing his iPhone out of a PJ’s toilet, and the nuclear meltdown of the Waystar Royco progeny that followed… It was all solid gold, every character’s most dysfunctional self coming to the fore: see Roman’s denial, Shiv’s regression, and Kendall’s impeccably Kendall response: “Get the best heart doctor in the world and the best airplane medicine expert in the world and get them conferenced in and waiting and send a conference call number to me and to Tom and to Karl’s phone and any or all of those we will take, but I would like that in the next minute/two minutes please, Jess.” And, oh, poor Connor, the OED definition of the word “afterthought,” even at his own wedding. (Let’s at least hope all of the wine onboard was hyper-decanted.) If Succession’s genius lay in leaving you utterly appalled by its characters and desperately sorry for them in the same breath, then this was Jesse Armstrong’s magnum opus. —Riann Phillip
“wow,” Barry
Sometimes, when the world feels like a particularly dark and miserable place, I watch compilations of Bill Hader breaking character on SNL, his face literally aglow with joy as he giggles hysterically to himself about a Stefon monologue. Is there a better laugh on television? I think not. All of which makes it strangely jarring to see Hader so perfectly embody a Marine turned hitman in the desperately sinister, Vanta-black comedy that is Barry, which feels as impossible to describe as it is thrilling to watch. To borrow a Stefon phrase: this series has everything, and for me, the final installment—which ran concurrently with the final season of Succession this year—was more compelling than end game for the Roys (and I can quote Tom Wambsgans with the best of them). Anyone who had their doubts about Barry returning for a fourth season will have had them obliterated by the finale, “wow,” which—in just 34 nail-biting minutes—ties together 32 episodes’ worth of deftly plotted storylines with a cathartic one-two punch that left me reeling. —Hayley Maitland
“Sorry,” Heartstopper
Teen dramas can be cheesy and clichéd, yet Heartstopper is anything but. It’s pure, innocent, and the perfect tonic for a scary world. The second season sees Nick (Kit Connor) really come to terms with his sexuality, and in the seventh episode, “Sorry,” he stands up to his father and brother about their homophobia. It’s empowering and devastating all at once, especially when his mother—played by the inimitable Olivia Colman—admits she cannot fathom why her husband behaves as he does. “I wish I understood, but I don’t,” she says. “I think it’s a very sad way to exist.” —Hannah Daly
“Long, Long Time,” The Last of Us
The sum total of my experience with gamer culture consists of various failed attempts to understand Halo in basements as a teenager, usually under the influence of several red cups’ worth of Pabst Blue Ribbon on ice, so no one was more surprised than me that I watched The Last of Us practically from start to finish when I got screeners back in January. There’s much to say about the quietly devastating performance Pedro Pascal gives as Joel Miller and how refreshing it is to have a series fronted by a heroine like Bella Ramsey’s Ellie Williams, but frankly, neither of them are central to the best episode of the series, “Long, Long Time,” which opens as survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman) hunkers down in his colonial Massachusetts home rather than turning himself over to FEDRA and moving to the QZ. After years of downing bottles of stockpiled Beaujolais alone in between obsessively monitoring his CCTV, he catches Frank (Murray Bartlett) in a booby trap, and—against the backdrop of the end of the world—falls slowly, quietly, irresistibly in love. If you can get through the moment when Bill tells Frank, “I was never afraid before you showed up” in their strawberry patch without shedding a tear, you are made of stronger stuff than I. —H.M.
“Seven Fishes,” The Bear
This entry divided the Vogue staff, with several arguing that “Forks” was the highlight of The Bear Season 2, but while the “Love Story”-soundtracked episode in which Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Richie stages at a three-Michelin-star restaurant is great, there’s just something about “Seven Fishes.” Its brilliance isn’t just down to Jamie Lee Curtis’s performance, which made her a shoo-in for an Emmy next year, but the way it cuts to the heart of what The Bear is really about: namely, the impossibility of escaping your roots, even if you travel halfway around the world to work as a sous-chef at Noma. —R.P.
