5. The
Dropout (Hulu)
Given that while this limited series was dropping, Elizabeth Holmes
was on trial for the massive fraud she and her colleagues committed while
running Theranos, The Dropout could not have been more timely. Now that the verdict is in, I imagine it will
gain more viewers who might want to know just how Holmes got away with her
crimes and what made her tick. They will get answers to the former, but they
will walk away just as baffled as to the latter. Perhaps most surprisingly some
viewers – like me – might walk away with some sympathy for this particular
devil.
Ever since Amanda Seyfried began stealing scenes from some of the greatest
actors of all time in Big Love, she has been one of my favorite
actresses of all time, and she deservedly received the Emmy for Best Actress in
a Limited Series for her work as Holmes. It’s one of the most riveting
performances of the year, precisely because we spend much of the first half of
the series feeling warmth and compassion for Holmes and halfway through, she
become cold, emotionless, and utterly without feeling with no real explanation.
The original plans for Theranos were started with good intentions, and we all
know what road that ends up paving. What becomes harder to comprehend is why so
many people who should have known better, including former Secretary of State
George Schultz (Sam Waterston in an incredible performance) not only were
fooled by Holmes but refused to admit even to their own families that they
might be mistaken about believing in her, even as the evidence began to mount.
Maybe it was because Holmes was young and attractive, but creator Liz Meriwether
and her staff put up a stronger argument – Holmes really had no personality and
many of these great and powerful men were willing to read in to it whatever
they wanted.
Holmes is a monster – that much is clear and the writers do nothing to
soften that fact or even explain it. At no point in the story, even after her
company has fallen does she show any signs of remorse. But I still came away
with sympathy for her because the series also shows that there was something
fundamentally missing from Holmes – she had no friends, she had no hobbies, she
had no interest but her job. Yes, she may have been used in a way by her older
lover (Naveen Andrews was robbed of an Emmy nomination himself) but the fact is
she may have always been an empty vessel, incapable of feeling anything even at
the end. The fact that Silicon Valley and titans of industry have a habit of
using up people like her and that she wanted to be them before she even knew what
she wanted to do with her life, in a way shows just how sad she truly was.
This is a dark subject to cover, and yet so much of The Dropout plays
like slapstick comedy at times. From the exceptional episode where a Walgreen’s
executive is essentially conned into signed with Theranos without even seeing
the product the company’s investing in, to William H. Macy’s delightfully
mean-spirited neighbor of hers who ends up exposing her more out of spite than
the fact that it’s the right thing to do, there are more than your share of laughs
in this series. Underlying this comedy, though, is a stark fact: maybe the
reason Holmes and Theranos fooled so many is because we want to be fooled.
Given certainly other tech failures the last year, there’s a good chance that Holmes
is nowhere near the last con artist who will pull of that trick. The Dropout
serves as cautionary tale and comedy at the same time.
4. Hacks
(HBO MAX)
I don’t know about the overall fate of HBO Max as a streaming service,
given the latest purges of new movies and programs, even those it has renewed
for a second season and then canceled. But as long as this service continues to
produce programs of the level of Hacks, its going to be hard to argue it
has no value.
In just two seasons, Hacks has quickly become one of the
greatest – and oddly, most optimistic – comedy series in recent years. Even
more encouraging it is powered by two of the greatest comedy forces in history:
Jean Smart (who deserved the second consecutive Emmy she won this year) and
Hannah Einbinder (she’ll get one; it’s a matter of time) playing comediennes of
different generations who have nothing in common but are true soulmates, even
and especially where they’re screaming at each other.
This season Deb and Ava went on the road to work out material for Deb’s
new act. It started disastrously with Deb learning about Ava’s badmouthing Deb
to a potential in a drunken rant and with Ava’s mournful apology which led to a
lawsuit that became one of the season’s best running gags. We traveled to a state
fair, a lesbian cruise and a one-night stand in the middle of nowhere. And
through the many disaster and countless mess, Deb and Ava became a true and
utter force, showing the power that women have especially in a field which does
everything to make their lives miserable.
The series would have made my top ten list had it only been for Smart
and Einbinder. But the series back them with an incredible cast. Paul Downs
continued to steal every scene he was in as Deb and Ava’s eternally brow-beaten
agent who had to deal with the most incompetent assistant on the planet – who turned
out to have depths he never expected. (Please give Megan Stalter and Downs
their own spinoff!) Carl Clemons-Hopkins showed countless range as Deb’s
aide-de-camp, now dealing with his relationship traumas. The series featured five
actors in guest roles who deservedly earned Emmy nominations for short stints,
from Laurie Metcalf, who won an Emmy as the impossible road tour manager, to
Harriet Sansom Harris as an old rival of Deb’s who she thought she had driven
out of the business – until we learned a truth she needed to know – to Jane Adams
and Elizabeth Olson, two great actresses in their own right, perfectly playing
Ava’s too lost mother and Deb’s still searching for her own way daughter. Not
since The Good Wife has any series used its guest cast more effectively.
Lucia Aniello and Downs have created one of the greatest series in
years, and their Emmys for writing and directing last year were more than
earned. Neither repeated this year (for reasons that will become clear further
down the list) but they did triumph at the HCA for Streaming Comedy Teleplay and
Einbinder deserved took a Supporting Actress prize in that same category. It is
rare for a single series to justify the existence of an entire network. Hacks
has done that in two seasons, and it looks like it will for many more to
come.
3. Barry (HBO)
The wait between the second and third seasons of Barry was not
quite as long as the wait for Atlanta – three years instead of four –
but it was no less interminable, especially considering that the former unlike
the latter had ended on one hell of a cliff-hanger. When Barry returned
this spring, just as with Atlanta, Bill Hader and his cast proved that
the wait had been worth it.
With the third season of Barry Hader has proven (if there were
still any doubt) that he is one of the greatest talents to work in television
ever. Writing or co-writing every episode and directing almost all of them, his
performance as Barry reached new levels that even the first two seasons gave us
no indication he could reach. He started the season utterly and completely
lost, doing his best to atone for his sins and eventually realizing there was
no coming back from who he was. There was far less humor in watching Hader this
season, but you could forgive that because this was one of the most wrenching
acting performances given by anyone – comedy or drama - in all of 2022. With all due respect to Hader’s former SNL
cast mate Jason Sudeikis (who to his credit reached some depths of his own on Ted
Lasso) I feel in my heart Hader was robbed of an Emmy this year. (Then
again, he already has two for the first two seasons, so I don’t think he would
mind.)
The series also featured exceptional work from the whole cast, both
dramatically and comedically. Anthony Carrigan merged the two perfectly as Noho
Hank, whose romance with a rival crime lord destroyed almost everything in its
path. Stephen Root was hysterical as Barry’s mentor who took all the wrong
lessons from being in isolation, and yet set a force of avengers on Barry that
wreaked unthinkable carnage. Sarah Goldberg was magnificent as Sally, who
finally achieved the success she dreamed of and the very next day lost it
because of ‘the algorithm’. (Among its many other virtues, Barry presaged
how streaming is beginning to collapse. ) And Henry Winkler, brilliant on every
level, terrified, angry, comedically frustrated, nervous, doing a balancing act
he could never managed. (I loved Brett Goldstein’s speech, but Winkler should
have won at the Emmys too.) Throw in the last three episodes, featuring a ten
minute motorcycle chase down a road, Barry in the midst of a fugue state among all
the people he’s killed over the years and a finale which featured a powerhouse sequence
involving Noho Hank, a ruthless interrogation of Gene, and the breathtaking
final five minutes – and you have an accomplishment that few series could ever
manage. I don’t blame the Emmys for not giving Barry the love it
deserved – there was a lot of good competition this past year (particularly
from the previous entry and the next one) but I am gratified that the HCA gave
it three awards (for Hader, Winkler, and Best Director)
Barry has been renewed
for a fourth season, which may well be its last. (Given the season finale, its
hard to imagine the series going much further than that.) And perhaps more than
most comedy series, the ending will be critical to how history regards it. What
is clear is that, just like Glover and his colleagues, Hader and his team have
created a series that defies the boundaries of what we expect from a comedy.
2. Abbott
Elementary (ABC)
In the first week of January, I made the decision to DVR the final
season of This is Us in favor of watching the brand new comedy series Abbott
Elementary. Critics and audiences have vindicated this decision. While I
would not go as far as to rank this series, as TV Guide did, the best show of
2022 its hard to argue that this is not the most significant, funniest, and most
good-natured comedy television has had in decades. Broadcast TV, the workplace
comedy, teachers, minorities, hell, the world – is better off because of
Quinta Brunson’s new creation.
Brunson is by far the greatest talent to emerge from 2022: no one
would dispute that. She created, is the head writer, directs many episodes and is
the lead character in this incredible show. Brunson is magical and perfect in
every part of her work – there is nothing Janine does connected to this series
that I don’t love unabashedly; her utter optimism in the face of everything her
job entails, her relentless determination to be a good person and a good
teacher, the way she fights for everything she does, even if she’s wrong. Every
minute she’s onscreen, I smile just watching her.
And what a cast she’s assembled! In my heart of hearts, I didn’t think
the Emmys would have the good sense to nominate so many of the incredible
talents with this series and yet they did. Janelle James, whose work as
the clueless, social media driven utterly incompetent principal is a marvel of
comic timing; Chris Pernetti as Jacob, one of the few white teachers at Abbott,
doing everything he can to be an ‘ally’, but having a pure soul underneath;
Tyler James Williams as the far too serious Gregory who is brilliant in his
dialogue and even better just when he looks at the camera, and the utterly
irreplaceable Sheryl Lee Ralph as the veteran, church-going Barbara, who is used
to doing more with less but still tries to keep plodding along. Ralph’s triumph
at the Emmys was a great balm to my soul even before she got up on stage. (I
hear now she wants to host. Yes please!)
The series finished its freshman year as an utter triumph and has
given no signs of any sophomore slump. The nation has fallen in love with Abbott
Elementary and so has the awards show circuit. The TCA gave it four awards
in August; the HCA gave it four more, including three for Brunson. The Emmys by
contrast almost underrecognized it, giving it ‘only’ three but recognizing
Ralph and Brunson for the Pilot. Given the plethora of nominations the Golden
Globes and the Critics Choice have given in this past month, Brunson and her
colleagues are going to be walking red carpets for much of next spring and most
likely for years to come. There are few casts and creators that I can think of who
deserve it more.
And let’s give an extra round of applause to Brunson for having faith
that ABC rather than any cable or streaming service was the right home for Abbott.
It would have been easier for her to take her work to HBO or any of the
countless streaming services and get more creative freedom than she could have
gotten at a network, particularly in an era where the reboot is becoming king
on every broadcast network over anything that has the sound of originality. Add
to that the fact that the cast is almost entirely African-American, and she
would have been justified in not thinking that they would listen to her in her
needs. But they did and now she, ABC, and television has a whole is richer for
it. Bravo.
1.
Better Call Saul (AMC)
But there was never any doubt in my mind what series was going to be
the first on this list. Well before the final season began, there were more
than our share of nattering nabobs saying that this was going to be the last
great show in the history of Peak TV. I had reason to doubt the veracity of that
statement before that even though I understood why it was being said: Saul is
one of the greatest shows in history, perhaps even better than Breaking Bad.
Sacrilege? Given how the final season went, I’m not talking it up.
Let’s be honest: if the first half of the season was all we got of Saul
this year, there’s an excellent chance it would still have been ranked as
the best show of 2022. The remarkable season premiere in which we saw Lalo and
Nacho trying to get out of Mexico, Nacho’s going on his death march which led
to a death scene so magnificent it rivaled that of Hank Schrader in ‘Ozymandias’.
(Michael Mando should have gotten an Emmy for it.) The long con that Jimmy and
Kim were playing against Howard throughout the season; Kim’s learning the truth
about Lalo’s fate and going on, and then ‘Plan and Execution’ in which the full
nature of the con unfolded and the last five minutes when Howard Hanlon became the
last casualty of Jimmy McGill’s old life. The last minute was one of the most shocking
all last year, and part of me does wish that Vince Gilligan and company had
kept us waiting one more year (and not just because I wasn’t ready to say
goodbye.)
But then we got the final six episodes and each one was more heartbreaking
than the last. Bob Odenkirk said that he was expecting more violence in the
final season of the show, but the violence was so much more emotional. Sure we
saw the demise of Lalo, the fate of Howard (which was worse) and that Kim did
survive the series but broke Jimmy’s heart and probably her own. Then, oddly
enough, the series flashed to the present and went to Jimmy’s third life as
Gene, finally covering the black and white flash forwards we’d seen for the
first five seasons. (By the way, I don’t know if Carol Burnett just showed up
because she wanted to cross ‘Appear on Vince Gilligan off her bucket list, but
I’m so glad we had this time together.)
The much anticipated cameos of Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston recreating
their first meeting with Saul Goodman (which in hindsight showed just how great
Gilligan and company are at continuity) were actually less important to the
show than the smaller scenes between the only meeting between Jesse and Kim in
the series.
The ending was not what any of us expected, certainly not me. But even
though Saul didn’t escape justice, there’s a very good argument he – and Kim –
got a happy ending after all this. And in a way, that makes the final episode not
just better than Felina but maybe as a final word on the world of Breaking Bad.
Saul and Kim escaped the world of Heisenberg alive, in each other lives,
and faced who they were. That’s a happy ending, not just by Gilligan’s standard
but by any Peak TV show.
Accepting the prize for Best Cable Drama Series from the HCA, Odenkirk
mentioned that the key part of Gilligan’s work was that every character in Saul
had layers you didn’t expect but that they never truly were able to
realize. Kim was an ethically driven lawyer at the start who liked giving into
her dark side. Nacho was a gangbanger who just wanted to control his own
destiny. Howard Hanlon was set out to be a force of evil but in reality was
basically a good man who was driven to destruction by his relationship to Chuck
and Jimmy. Even Gus Fring, the major villain of the series, in his final image
on the show was seen as a man who at his core was looking for a human connection.
We already knew that Mike Ehrmantraut and Jimmy himself had far more potential
for goodness them in but were driven to being bad by factors they couldn’t control.
If Breaking Bad was fundamentally about how a good man became a monster,
Better Call Saul was ultimately more ambitious and showed that all of us
have depths that are not obvious and that those of us who come across as evil
never start out that way.
The HCA was more than generous to Saul than the Emmys ever
were, giving it Best Drama, a Best Actor prize for Bob Odenkirk, Supporting Actor
for Giancarlo Esposito and best of all, Supporting Actress for Rhea Seehorn,
whose work as Kim Wexler is the breakout role of the show. Yet again the series
was shafted by the Emmys, but its going to be a lot harder for them to do it
next year. The series is likely to be dominant at the Critics Choice awards in
a few weeks and there are promising signs for Odenkirk at both the Golden
Globes and SAG Awards. If the Emmys doesn’t Call Saul next fall, then we’ve
seriously got to consider whether the cartel is controlling the voting
membership.
That’s it for the Best Shows. Tomorrow, I will give my jury prize for
series and trends that just missed the cut.
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