Ingobernable season 1
In action-packed political drama Ingobernable, Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo plays Emilia Urquiza, First Lady of Mexico turned widow after her husband, the president, is assassinated. Emilia, who the public has deemed responsible for the president’s murder, is forced into hiding, maintaining her innocence as she uncovers government secrets and conspiracies. Any wrong move she makes could cost her her life.
Netflix has announced that season two will be released in 2018, and thank god, because the last episode had me ready to throw my TV (and myself) out of the window. — Juliana Pache
Feud: Bette and Joan
Showrunner Ryan Murphy's work is hit and miss, but when he's good it's glorious. FX's star-studded mini-series, Feud, about the later-in-life careers of arch enemies Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, is fabulously camp — these women invented camp — but it also gives rare, poignant insight into these legends' personal turmoil. The show's lead actresses, Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange, have never been better. — Owen Myers
Every season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
The premise of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend seemed gimmicky to me — it is a musical comedy, after all — but it 2016 it sucker-punched me with its nuanced depictions of mental illness, abortion, and female friendship, and I've been hooked ever since. In the current season, the series creator and lead actor Rachel Bloom has truly outdone herself with a depiction of an attempted suicide that is one of the most honest and devastating things I've ever seen on TV. The joy of Crazy is that it manages to find humor in the darkest of places; and the genius of it is that, for a show where everyone frequently breaks into songs about periods and penises, it still feels so incredibly real. — Aimee Cliff
American Vandal season 1
I thought American Vandal was just going to be silly fun: Haha it’s funny ‘cause it’s like Serial but about phallic graffitti. What I wasn’t expecting from this pitch-perfect lampoon of true crime docs was that I would get seriously sucked in to the mystery at its core. Who drew those goddamn dicks!?!? In addition to being laugh out loud hilarious and infuriatingly compelling, the show also manages to depict high school and social media in ways that felt quietly masterful in its accuracy. Fingers crossed they don’t fuck it up in season two. — Olivia Craighead
“Mushrooms,” from season 4 of Broad City
In the opening scene of “Mushrooms,” my favorite episode of Broad City’s uneven but generally likable fourth season, Abbi and Ilana eat the titular psychedelics with sea salt, fennel, and yogurt. The trip-out that follows is probably one of the most accurate depictions of losing your mind on purpose I’ve seen on any screen, not least because of the decision to animate the most potent parts; attempting to capture those feelings with a regular old camera is like trying to hold a moonbeam in your hand. When Abbi’s boss asks for a favor mid-trip, my palms actually started sweating; if you’ve ever had a similar experience interrupted by reality, yours will too. — Patrick D. McDermott
The season finale of Nathan For You season 4
The climatic phone conversation of Nathan For You's season finale "Finding Frances" transcended every line the show had crossed in every prior episode. After agreeing to locate the high school love of William Heath, a Bill Gates impersonator, Nathan Fielder spends ages tracking her down and setting up the cringey and hilarious japes that have made the show so incredible, with twists more richly dramatic than any "real" reality show. Eventually Nathan and William track Frances down, and head to her home unannounced for a reunion decades in the making. Viewers and critics have debated if Nathan For You portrays the individuals Nathan ostensibly helps as suckers. The season finale confronts this reputation in a different scene, but when William is about to get out of the car to meet Frances, Nathan refuses to send a camera crew out to document their interaction, for fear of spooking Frances. After spending months and planning so many schemes, Nathan refuses to lean into the exploitative modes of today's society his show satirized (or indulged) in nearly all its previous episodes. One could reasonably argue that Fielder or his producer just didn't want to get sued, but when William calls Frances on the dirt road, we see our desire for a happy ending reflected in Nathan's face as he listens. The scene's humanity is so deep, it urges me not to just rewatch the episode over and over, but the entire series. — Jordan Darville
The conga line scene from Twin Peaks: The Return
Twin Peaks: The Return was the most stressful thing I’ve ever watched on TV, which made its moments of levity all the more rewarding. If you haven’t seen this scene, the basic setup is this: Las Vegas mobsters were going to murder an insurance agent after he refused to pay out millions in a rightful claim by one of their casinos. They took him out to the desert to do him in, but not only did he pay them, he gave them cherry pie. The mobsters and the insurance agent — who this whole time is effectively in a permanent state of transcendental meditation, interacting with life with no preconceived notions and in total immediacy — become best friends. Here, they head back to the office to celebrate. The weirdest song plays. I guess this sounds funny and dumb but imagine if the whole time watching you thought you were going to die too. — Duncan Cooper
Rick and Morty season 3
Rick and Morty is insane, and Pickle Rick is the greatest superhero. This summer and fall, Sunday nights were something to look forward to thanks to the absolutely berserk, stream-of-consciousness brilliance of every adventure Grandpa Rick, Morty, and his sister Beth took us on.
In episode 3 of season 3, Rick turns himself into a small pickle to avoid a session of family therapy. Over the course of the 30-ish minute episode, “Pickle Rick” is forced to take advantage of a bunch of insane situations and resources, like killing a rat, taking it apart, and using its muscles and skeleton as a new, bionic body frame for his pickle state. Eventually “Pickle Rick” becomes a bonafide killing-machine mastermind, taking down an entire Russian secret agent hub, and making it to family therapy, where he eventually sheds his hard shell and exposes his vulnerabilities. It’s one of the most emotionally magnificent half-hours of television I’ve ever experienced. Here’s to hoping there’s a Return Of Pickle Rick in season 4. — Nazuk Kocchar
Glitch season 2
The way I watch TV, I realized this year, is akin to a stress test. I often have three different shows on the go, all of them paused at a particularly tense moment. When Scandal gets too much, for example, I switch to The Walking Dead. And then when that inevitably makes my chest tighten, it's just a quick click to the gentler pace of Glitch, an Australian drama that I thought was one of Netflix's graveyard shows. You know, those one season specials that never got a second year commission. To my pleasant surprise, season two of Glitch dropped this fall, and it is at least fours times better than any other sci-fi-lite drama series I watched this year. The premise: a bunch of dead people in a graveyard come back to life. Season one was a bit stop-start, but it's worth sticking with it to get to season two, which is a cross between a whodunnit and a howcanwedoitagain. Things get really, really weird. But also kind of spiritual. And let me tell you, by the cliffhanger they dropped at the end of season 2, I know it's gonna rise again. — Ruth Saxelby
Curb Your Enthusiasm season 9
The strain of anxiety that makes Larry David a dick — a frustrating, if relatable, compulsion to order the world by strict, black-and-white rules — persisted in season 9 of Curb Your Enthusiasm. But this time around, more than on previous seasons, he appeared softened by his relationship with Leon Black, the permanent houseguest played by the incomparable JB Smoove in a range of du-rags and uncle-chic looks. Even in the season's rough moments, when improvisations went a beat too long or scenes felt like parodies of themselves, their on-screen chemistry was a salve. I've always been drawn to unlikely friendships, like those viral videos of a cat and a pig being best pals, or the story of the 22-year-old rapper who befriended an octogenarian through Words With Friends. Those moments offer a best-case scenario of life on earth and on Curb, where the worst of humanity is often on display, Larry and Leon are a welcome change of pace. — Rawiya Kameir
Scandal season 7
I've watched Scandal since the first season, so there's no way I'm going to stop now. Yes, there have been several bumps in the road and a few plot lines that could've been skipped over (Olivia's kidnapping and its never-ending aftermath immediately comes to mind). Now in its final season, the action is faster-paced than ever and there seems to be an actual end in sight. My tip: read the wikipedia summaries for the seasons you've missed and then dive into this last batch of episodes. Praise Shonda. — Myles Tanzer
Riverdale season 2
The lowbrow-brilliant Riverdale just had its midseason finale and it's still as addictive as ever. The mystery of who the town's shady killer seems to still be unsolved, but I can't stop thinking about this iconic scene from this season's sixth episode. The whole cast gets together for a big bad drag race straight out of American Graffiti. Madelaine Petsch as the iconic Cheryl Blossom starts things off with a bandana wave and it's pretty impossible not to smile along and nod. This show is so dumb and I want to watch 900 seasons of it. — Myles Tanzer