Top 10 Favorite TV Shows of 2020
I had no idea what my TV list was going to look like this year.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. I knew what my number one pick was going to be a few episodes before it was over, and I knew what number two and number three were probably going to be. But besides from the top three slots, I genuinely had no idea what was going to make it until I took a look at my long list and started narrowing it down.
To be honest, it’s the most I’ve ever surprised myself making a list top ten list.
For starters, my lists are usually a little random. There’s some loose threads you could tie together, and I tend to skew more drama or dramedy than anything else. But this year, the similarities in some of the picks are so stark that you can separate them into specified blocks.
On top of that, there’s a lot more animation, the protagonists of a lot of the shows skew a lot younger, there are returning shows that I consider some of my all time favorites, most of which made previous lists, that didn’t make this one. So on and so forth.
To me, it’s a very strange list.
This isn’t to say that I thought it was a bad year or that these shows are lesser than those of previous years. They very much aren’t. But I think it has to do with the role TV played in my life in 2020.
In recent years, TV’s been about catharsis. The movie industry seems less and less interested in making the kinds of movies I love the most. Which is fine, because I have TV, which continues to run at a consistent level of excellence. But this year, TV was about comfort and escapism, the same two things I imagine most people turn to TV for in the first place. TV didn’t rock my boat as hardly as it did in years past, but that’s okay. Sometimes I just want to chill out, and with the exception of one or two entries on this list, that’s exactly what I got this year.
Before we begin, a quick shoutout to The Good Place. I’ve never put it on a list before, but I always wanted to, and 2020 was the worst possible year for it to go. But go it went, and though I treasured other experiences more, I was sad to see it end. The finale was perfect. (Come to think of it, I haven’t been pissed out by a series finale in a while.)
Right then, let’s talk about some TV!
SPOILERS BELOW!!!
Runner-Up: Craig of the Creek
I wrote a bunch about Craig of the Creek here.
I’ll just say this: In previous years, I’ve excluded shows for not airing full seasons during one particular year. (It’s a large part of why The Good Place never made any of my lists.) If it weren’t for the particularly scattershot way in which Cartoon Network releases its shows, it probably would’ve been on this list. Throughout 2020, Craig of the Creek remained consistently charming, funny, and nostalgic. Even more so than usual, actually. That said, the releases were too scattered throughout the year, and it didn’t land as hard as it could for me.
The Cartoon Network release schedule didn’t stop me from putting other shows of their’s on the list, and we’ll talk about that later. But that was one release of one batch of episodes. I’m talking too much about Cartoon Network’s release practices.
Favorite Episodes: “Crisis at Elder Rock,” “The Ice Pop Trio,” “Trick or Creek”
10. Harley Quinn
Like seemingly a lot of people, I didn’t think that I was going to like Harley Quinn.
For starters, I’ve never cared for Harley Quinn as a character. Or it would be more accurate to say that I’ve never cared for how she was written. Conceptually speaking, Harley Quinn isn’t a bad character, and if there’s a someone in the Batman canon I’ve wanted to like the most, it would probably be her. However, nine times out of ten, she’s written to be the butt of the joke. Even the Batman media I like, the Arkham and Telltale games and some other stuff, often portray her as cartoonish and one dimensional. A violent Betty Boop whose only gag is that she’s a victim and doesn’t seem to know it.
In recent years, there’s been efforts to turn that image around. Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn was the last movie I saw in a theater before quarantine began, and though I didn’t care for the movie, it was a step in the right direction. But I didn’t think it went far enough.
The bigger issue, however, is that I’m growing increasingly tired of the Archer formula. The one where you get an animated show about a lead character who’s a gigantic prick, usually a dude, and the show revolves around said prick engaging in fast paced zippy dialogue where the joke is how much of a bad person the lead is. It’s not that I inherently dislike like this formula. I very much do. BoJack is on this list and I still watch every season of Archer, and I realize it’s shitty to be this reductive. But there have been so many shows that try this formula that don’t know how to make it work, and based on the trailers I saw, Harley Quinn was another one of those shows, but superheroes.
So yes, I was skeptical of the show that featured a character I’ve never liked and a formula that’s growing stale. When I started reading positive articles about it, I didn’t believe them. Then in the “fuck it” spirit of quarantine, I gave it a shot. And here we are.
For the first time, Harley Quinn’s allowed to be a fully dimensional character. Sometimes she’s the butt of the joke, but it’s not because she’s an idiot or a victim, but because she’s often the cause of the ridiculous situations she finds herself in. She’s allowed to realize that she doesn’t have to act like the other villains, and she can do things however she wants because without the baggage that is Joker, she’s a more capable villain than most. She’s allowed to be heartbroken and sad for reasons that don’t have to do with torment, but because she’s young and capable of feeling emotions other than violent glee.
And on top of this, it’s just a very funny show with great characters and great writing.
TV wise, it was the biggest surprise of 2020 for me. Also, I rooted for Harley and Ivy more than most couples.
Favorite Episodes: “There’s No Place to Go But Down,” “Bachelorette,” “Something Borrowed, Something Green”
9. How To with John Wilson
I thought I was going to hate this show as well. And I didn’t even have a good reason this time.
There’s a certain kind of comedic sensibility that does less and less for me as it goes on. I’m done watching awkward white dudes mumble their way through awkward situations, be they scripted moments or conceptual “unscripted” material.
Again, this sensibility isn’t bad in and of itself. Nathan for You is one of the best shows of the last decade, and I’m at peace with the fact that “awkward” isn’t a comedic concept that’s going anywhere. (In a way, it’s the millennial gift to the world of comedy. You’re welcome, world.) As a matter of fact, it can be argued that John Wilson himself isn’t really that awkward a guy in the first place. The abilities to get people to open up on camera or talk your way into bizarre situations isn’t really the calling card of the stammering Awkward Guy Who is Awkward. These are the traits of someone who may not scream confidence, but someone who knows, on some level, how to communicate.
That said, the moment I heard John’s speaking style in the voice over, a giant red flag rose in my mind. I don’t know if there’s actually an onslaught of awkward white dudes or this is just a problem I’ve created in my head. But my first honest to god thought was, “Goddamn it, not another one.”
The first episode hadn’t even ended before I was sucked in.
One can certainly argue that it has some of Nathan for You’s DNA, and thus whatever Nathan was inspired by as well. (Or at least that’s an easy note to make because Nathan Fielder is an executive producer on the show.) But I feel safe in saying that there’s never been anything remotely like it before. Obviously, it’s a feat of editing. (From what I understand, the show was cobbled together from two years worth of shot footage.) But it also has a sensibility I’ve never seen before. Moments of thematic resonance are mixed in with intentionally dumb visual puns. Some comedy was created on purpose by the show while some comes just from watching New Yorkers be New Yorkers. I’ve seen plenty of shows and comedians try to blend comedy and beauty, and this is the most effective I’ve ever seen it done.
Someday there will be a show that completely botches the Nathan Fielder/John Wilson tone. When that day comes, my foreboding about the awkward white guy may finally be justified. But thanks to How To with John Wilson, I’ll at least give that show much more of a chance.
Also the last episode is one of the best of the year.
Favorite Episodes: “How To Make Small Talk,” “How To Cover Your Furniture,” “How To Cook the Perfect Risotto”
8. Steven Universe Future
Steven Universe Future is an epilogue mini-series, taking place after the events of Steven Universe and Steven Universe: The Movie. Though the first half aired towards the end of 2019, the back half arrived in 2020. I’m not getting up my own ass about it because the first half was essentially set-up for where the actual meat of Steven Universe Future lies.
It would take a lot longer than one article to explain what Steven Universe Future is about. Though there’s a minimal effort to fill in newcomers on all the story and lore they’ve missed so far, this isn’t a series for newbies, and it would be a fool’s errand to try to explain everything here.
So let’s be succinct. Steven Universe Future is a mini-series about a kid superhero who has fixed all the problems of his fictional universe for good. Now that the work is done, he slowly begins to realize that years of saving the world has left him incomplete, traumatized, and unable to function in normal human society.
Steven Universe has always been concerned about the mental health of its lead character. In one episode, Steven will fight a big monster or learn some massive revelatory truth about himself or his past. Then in the next episode, or maybe a few after, the plot will more or less stop so the show can spend some time making sure Steven feels okay about whatever’s just happened. Some of these moments are the most touching of the show.
However, if you’re a no-fun sourpuss mccranky pants, you may point out that this probably isn’t enough to pull Steven back from the psychological brink. That repeatedly having his body broken and will tested and having the lives of every living human being saddled on his shoulders before he’s old enough to vote may leave some scars that can’t be fixed in an eleven minute episode or two.
If you were inclined to think that way, good news. Steven Universe Future agrees with you. If you like your metaphors clearcut, there’s even an episode where Steven gets an X-ray for the first time, and we can see all the remnants of all the fractures and breaks he’s suffered through all these the years. Long story short, this is the season where the franchise reaches for its inner BoJack Horseman, and shit gets dark. Even by the show’s standards.
Of course, Steven is eventually brought back from the brink. It’s one of the hardest fought battles of the show, and one can argue that Steven’s never fully the same. That may seem like a defeat, but that’s precisely the point. In the end, the point of Steven Universe Future is that the hardest struggles change us. Sometimes, this change is for the worst. But it doesn’t have to be. As long as we’re capable of empathy and as long as we look out for one another, there’s always a way back.
Or in short, therapy good. It’s a perfect note for Steven Universe to go out on, and a beautiful one as well.
Favorite Episodes: “Growing Pains,” “Mr. Universe,” “The Future”
7. Never Have I Ever
Welcome to the coming-of-age block of the list!
As I said in the introduction, I came to TV for comfort this year. So what did I find comforting this year? The same thing I found comforting last year. Watching young people get their shit together. Only last year, watching young people get their shit together was just a small comfort. This year, it was outright wish fulfillment.
To put it simply, this show, and the next two I’m going to talk about, all feature a sense that the world is opening up to their characters. They’re learning about themselves. They’re learning about their surroundings. Some of what they learn is good, and some of it bad. But as I said, the world is opening up. It’s a particularly intoxicating feeling now that I’ve been sitting in my apartment alone for months watching the world literally close around me.
So, Never Have I Ever.
Now, there’s some relatively superficial criticisms one could bring to the show. Though all the actors are great, many of them are obviously much older than the high schoolers they’re playing and it can be very distracting. Plus there’s the usual embarrassing attempts at teen speak. (Though it’s not that bad this time around.) Less superficial, however, is the superficiality. The show’s teens are still obsessed with status and popularity and all the things we’ve begun to phase out in our TV shows about middle and high school. (Or at least in the shows I watch.)
However, Never Have I Ever finds its sense of innovation in other areas. The lead character Devi is of Indian descent, and the show spends a lot of time exploring the nuances of the conflict between the culture Devi was born into and the values she has as an American teenager. Though many shows may take this conflict and make it a small part of its story, in Never Have I Ever, it almost breaks her family apart.
On top of this, Devi is also recovering from the death of her father and many months of psychosomatic paralysis. Though the show never says out loud, “Devi is trying to make up for lost time by cramming in traditional high school sex and partying in as short a time as possible,” it’s clear that’s what’s happening. And the tunnel vision she has in achieving her goals of losing her virginity and elevating her status ofter lead her to make terrible choices that hurt her best friends. In short, Devi feels like a realistic teen, not in terms of how she talks or behaves, but how she’s at a point in her life where one makes these kinds of mistakes.
Or to put it another way, Never Have I Ever isn’t afraid to make Devi the bad guy. She’s often inconsiderate, and at worst, outright hurtful. She is, in short, a shitty teen. A relatable one, and ultimately, a very likable one. But a shitty teen nonetheless.
There’s more we could get into, but we got more high school coming-of-age stories to discuss. I’ll leave it at this: Never Have I Ever is funny, nuanced, and honest about its characters. It’s a nice change of pace from the usual high school shows. And we didn’t even talk about Ben or Fabiola or Kamala or Eleanor or John McEnroe.
Favorite Episodes: “…felt super Indian,” “…been the loneliest boy in the world,” “…said I’m sorry”
6. Sex Education
The high school coming-of-age train keeps a-chuggin’.
What impressed me about Sex Education last year was how thoroughly it rolls back the wrong lessons we all learned from the teen sex comedies and high school movies of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Sex Education is an ecosystem where the jock can be more than just a dumbass or a reluctant role model with a stick up his butt (I’m referring to The Breakfast Club), but an actual person with issues and flaws. Our usually unblemished nerds can occasionally be terrible people. Our sex expert is too repressed to masturbate. Moreover, masturbation isn’t the butt of a joke, but a normal and healthy part of everyday life. And never have you seen a character like Gillian Anderson’s Jean before, an intrusive sex therapist who constantly butts in on her son’s life.
In season two, Sex Education goes even further with its rolling back.
In the second season, much of Maeve’s arc is spent not only reeling from what happens to her last season, but dealing with her newly sober mother and her very young half-sister. On the surface, Maeve is a character who seems like she can handle anything. After all, she’s literally self-sufficient because she has to be. But at the end of the season, she has to make the heartbreaking decision to report her own mother to social services because she finds drugs in their trailer. Before getting in the squad car, her mother says she’ll never forgive her. Despite her having much more life experience than just about any other kid on the show, it’s a situation she’s way too young to handle.
Meanwhile, Jackson, our nuanced jock, crushes his own hand because he can no longer take the relentless pressure from one of his mothers to excel at swimming. During his recovery, he finds new avenues of expression. Primarily by taking a role in the school musical and befriending Viv, a “nerd” girl who plays a large role in pulling Jackson away from a lot of the negative aspects of his life. But as his hand heals and the adults in his life begin to circle and pressure him back into the pool, he begins to panic and his anxiety disorders get worse. It’s a situation he’s way too young to handle.
Hell, the show even turns an eye on its own premise. Otis, our protagonist, has been giving his fellow student sex advice and education for money since the beginning of the show. It’s a show called “Sex Education.” Get it? But at the end of season two, the show outright acknowledges, “Hey, this is a horrible fucking idea. He’s way too young to handle this.”
Season two of Sex Education is about discovering your limits. Many teen shows are about experimentation and trying new things. But this is a season of television about what happens when you find your boundaries, and how to act accordingly.
It also ends with a tentacle porn musical adaption of Romeo and Juliet.
Favorite Episodes: “Episode 6,” “Episode 7, “Episode 8”
5. PEN15
And the coming-of-age block ends.
Just to get a technical nitpick out of the way, I didn’t know that this was the fist half of the second season until after I was done watching it. If I had known, however, it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. It feels like a completed story with a completed arc. One with an admittedly strange number of episodes, but a completed story nonetheless.
Now, PEN15, much like Sex Education, only got better in its second season. The specificities of middle school life got more specific and tangible. The new characters who enter the show, particularly Maura, feel just as specific as well. (I definitely knew a Maura or two.) The middle school behavior got more middle school, the emotional stakes in the divorce storyline became much more real and heartbreaking, the early 2000s stuff got more early 2000s. You can basically take all the positive parts of season one and add the word “more” in front of it.
That said, when I think about what I’ve seen of season two of PEN15 so far, I’ll be thinking about those last two episodes.
You see, I was never a theater kid. In fact, I never did a play past sixth grade, and even then, the play I did wasn’t really a “play” in the traditional sense. (Shout out to Odyssey of the Mind.) But a lot of my friends were either whole ass theater kids or they stuck their toes in the water, and the last two episodes of this batch of episodes were the most terrifyingly real depiction of theater kids I’ve ever seen. Be it the tyrannical bent the tech kids get when it comes to rehearsal or the young theater teacher forcing kids to deal with material they’re way to young to fully grasp or the usual results of the plays themselves, which were mostly kind of shitty and slapdash despite all the work that went into it. I personally bore witness to it all (though some of the plays were actually pretty good), and in a way, this is the most effectively I’ve been transported back to middle and high school.
However, what emotionally resonated with me wasn’t the theater aspect in and of itself, but what it unlocked in Maya and Anna. Throughout the run of the show, both are obsessed with popularity and getting dates and all the things you worry about when you’re in middle school. (And it doesn’t suffer the same Never Have I Ever superficiality because it’s a period piece, and we definitely weren’t that evolved in the early 2000s.) But once Maya and Anna embrace something they both knew to be nerdy, they meet people they relate to more, and actual tangible growth happens with both characters. Anna hangs out with the tech kids and learns to love being around people with actual personalities. Maya discovers a new talent, and is able to explore a broader range of emotions you simply can’t with someone who keeps you in your comfort zone.
When most shows want to change things up, they do something drastic. They kill off a character or change the setting or throw their whole premise in the trash. PEN15 feels like it’s changed things just as much as a show that’s done a shocking twist, but it does so not through anything radical, but genuine growth in its characters. It was heartwarming to watch, and I hope the show continues down this road.
Favorite Episodes: “Vendy Wiccany,” “Play,” “Opening Night”
4. BoJack Horseman
I know I’ve been harping way too much on the splitting of seasons in this list, but I really really wish Netflix didn’t split the final season of BoJack Horseman. While there’s the usual anal retentive organizational issues that I and only I care about, there’s also the matter of pacing and memory. I remember the first part of the last season, which aired in the fall of 2019. But I don’t remember it so well that I can easily recall the arc, be it the story one or the one I had emotionally.
Now, this is the fifth top ten list I’ve written for this here blog, and I believe BoJack is on each one except last year’s list. (And the only reason it wasn’t on there was because Netflix split the damn season, which again, needs to stop being a thing.) So I’ve more or less been writing about BoJack for five years. And honestly, I’ve run out of things to say.
So I’ll just be brief. BoJack Horseman has easily become one of my favorite shows of all time. It’s proof to the world that you can blend comedy and complete emotional devastation. (Or maybe that the two aren’t that far apart from one another in the first place.) It is also, to date, the best any show, or any piece of art for that matter, has dealt with public accountability, or any kind of accountability for that matter, in a post #MeToo world. It’s a reckoning for Hollywood. It’s a reckoning for itself. It’s a show about the fact that there’s always a path towards happiness as long as you’re willing to be honest with yourself and you want to truly change.
It’s the show we need now. It’s the show we’ve always needed and probably always will need. I miss it dearly.
Favorite Episodes: “Angela,” “The View from Halfway Down,” “Nice While It Lasted”
3. The New Pope
Earlier, we had the coming-of-age block, and arguably, we’ve had an animation block running through this list in a non-sequential order. (Craig of the Creek, Harley Quinn, Steven Universe Future, and BoJack Horseman.) Now, welcome to the “Garth Cares Too Much About Top 10 Lists and TV Critics Are All Drooling Psychopaths for Ignoring This Show and the Next” block!
Obviously, I’m exaggerating when it comes to TV critics. That said, every year, I go to the Metacritic top ten thing to try to see if there’s some beloved thing that I’ve never heard or something I haven’t seen that I could try to get in before the end of the year. As I looked at this list a few days before the new year, I had the feeling that something was missing. Then it came to me. Two things, in particular. The first being The New Pope.
A few quick points to get out of the way. I’m under no such impression that anyone actively has it out for The New Pope. Also, if we’re going by that Metacritic list, I have not seen seven of those shows. There may have been other things on people’s minds. Plus there’s the “Anything that started before or early on in the pandemic might as well have happened in the previous century” factor. Remember Tiger King?
Moreover, The New Pope was by no means a perfect season of television. Maybe they took too long to bring back Lenny. Maybe it doesn’t quite reach the heights of its predecessor, The Young Pope. Maybe Paolo Sorrentino’s obsession with people with disabilities gets a little uncomfortable at parts.
But John Malkovich plays an eyeliner wearing fop pope. What’s a show gotta do, damnit!?
Alright let me calm down a bit. There’s a specific chord the Pope franchise strikes with me that I absolutely love. Mainly, that it’s completely insane, unapologetically silly, and ridiculous, but of in a self-aware fashion. Think about the most absurd and over-the-top things you can do with a show about the Vatican. But imagine that instead of making it feel soapy or campy, you got a world class talent to make it instead. That’s the Pope franchise in a nutshell.
To illustrate my point, I’m going to copy and paste Wikipedia’s summary of the first episode:
“After nine months and several failed heart transplants, Pope Pius XIII remains comatose, but has developed a cult following and is revered as a saint by many. On the advice of Bauer, the Ambassador of the Holy See, Voiello decides a new pope must be elected to prevent Pius XIII from becoming a false idol. Realizing the papal conclave is unwilling to elect him, he and allies engage in tactical voting to prevent his opponent Cardinal Hernández from being selected. They instead elect the mild-mannered Cardinal Viglietti, a devout follower of Francis of Assisi, hoping to influence him by proxy. Adopting the name Pope Francis II, Viglietti quickly acclimates to his power and introduces radical charitable reforms to the church, such as allowing masses of refugees shelter in the Vatican, taking full control of the Vatican Archives and finances with the intent of giving them away, and compelling the College of Cardinals to surrender their valuables. The reforms, plus Viglietti’s intent to defrock Voiello, cause the latter and Hernández to plot to replace him with the more moderate Sir John Brannox, who was the third preference in the election. Pope Francis II suffers an apparent heart attack and dies, implied to have been orchestrated by Bauer. Pope Pius XIII, having been comatose for months, finally moves his finger.”
And this doesn’t even mention that the first scene of the season is a nun pleasuring herself next to Pius’s comatose body.
None of this is to say that The New Pope isn’t without its moments of emotional poignancy. The New Pope, and The Young Pope for that matter, can be devastating when they want to be. In fact, “Episode 7” is one of the most emotionally moving episodes of television I saw in 2020.
But when I think about the Pope franchise, I think about its particularly insane wavelength. I understand if you’re not on it. But you really should be It’s a lot of fun here. Voiello’s the Pope.
Favorite Episodes: “Episode 1,” “Episode 7,” “Episode 8”
2. My Brilliant Friend
Remember being in high school? Remember that thing you didn’t know how to handle? The person you had a crush on not reciprocating those feelings, or being dumped? Maybe it was something much more serious. Your parents getting divorced, or maybe even a death.
Remember being that age, and remember how all those things that might’ve happened to you made you feel. Now imagine that on top of that, you’ve had responsibilities and forces heaved upon you that many modern American teens can hardly fathom. Imagine that at eighteen, or maybe even younger, you were expected, or arguably forced, into a marriage. Imagine that you were expected to give up on your dreams and desires and have a kid. Imagine if you were assaulted and crushed under the weight of a patriarchy so ingrained that you’d think we were in medieval times, and imagine that if you failed to meet any of these expectations, your entire life could be become uprooted and tossed off like it’s nothing.
The real tragedy is that some people reading this won’t have to strain too hard to imagine any of this. However, setting aside the real world horror of how we treat one another, season two of My Brilliant Friend is a season that elevates these scenarios to real life. Season one was a season about two friends struggling against the patriarchy and 20th century Italian society. Or really, men in general. In season two, these forces fully break them.
Of course, there’s much to say about these forces. But the year just ended and I’m tired. I’m also a straight cis white man and I could never talk about these topics with the tenderness and experience they deserve. (And I think creator Saverio Costanzo agrees with me, because he had Alice Rohrwacher direct the two episodes where the shit really hits the fan.) But it’s more the first thing.
However, there’s a reason I started with the heartbreak and not the patriarchy. When you get your heart broken for the first time, it feels like the end of the world. But if it’s the end of the world and nefarious forces are gathering to rob you of your personhood and your ability to live a free happy life, well, those are the only circumstances in which I can understand why Elena makes the decision she makes at the end of “The Betrayal.”
You’ll notice that I’m talking around a lot of stuff, and I haven’t really said a whole lot about what happens in the season, assuming you agree that I’ve said anything at all other than the fact that it’s a season of a TV show that aired in 2020. I know that’s annoying, and that’s in large part because of “The Betrayal,” and really, a whole lot that happens before and after. It’s material so dark and executed with such tenderness and effectiveness that I don’t really want to think about it, and I don’t think I could talk about in a way that would really be able to communicate how bleak it is.
(I would also need to summarize a fair amount of what happened in season one, and I just don’t have time to do that. But it’s more for the above reason.)
There’s no murder or anything like that. But as one of the reviewers at the time (I think it was Indiewire) said, the thing that happens in “The Betrayal” feels like a horror movie. It’s an act that’s about as close as one can get to self-harm that isn’t outright suicide.
All that said, despite the weight of the sheer heartbreak of this season of television, I want to end on a positive note. It’s still as luscious and beautiful as ever, it made me want to get on a plane to Italy despite COVID, it still has some of the best character writing on television, and I’m going to find and watch everything Alice Rohrwacher has ever directed.
My Brilliant Friend is one of the best shows on television. More people need to talk about it.
Favorite Episodes: “The Kiss,” “The Betrayal,” “The Blue Fairy”
1. I May Destroy You
I know. It’s the most obvious pick anyone could’ve made in 2020, especially if you pay attention to TV critics and all that stuff. But I had a bit of weird road with it.
I didn’t like Chewing Gum. Though it has an incredible cast and there’ much to like about it generally, I found it a bit too frenzied. To me, it’s the kind of show where manic characters make manic decisions and behave manically around each other while doing manic things, and I just found it kind of annoying and stressful. I was also weirdly upset that Michaela Coel never made or released the full version of the theme song. I don’t know why, but this was a particular sticking point for me. It was a really good theme song.
So I did not expect to like I May Destroy You. But I gave it a shot anyway because I knew what it was about, and as a creative, I’m always curious as to how artists transition from doing one kind of tone to something else. In this case, how do you go from an upbeat hyper manic comedy to a dramedy/drama/whatever about rape?
I watched the first episode, and I wasn’t impressed. It’s not that I thought the show was “bad” necessarily so much as I find myself aggressively not liking Arabella, the protagonist. Long story short, I found her obnoxious. Not like the characters on Chewing Gum, but in the way I tend to look down on people who want to party all time time because I’m a boring straight edge no fun grump who hates sunsets and smiling.
Later, I would realize that this was the point, and I would also realize that the real reason I didn’t like her at first was because Arabella was way too much like many people with whom I went to college. In fact, Arabella is such a good portrayal of this kind of person that it’s kind of terrifying and Michaela Coel is too damn talented. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
I watched the first episode and I was mostly indifferent. Or at the very least, I didn’t get the hype. There’s this thing that happens occasionally where the critics I read tend to be a little older than me, and when they encounter a piece of media that reminds them of when they were my age, they go nuts over it while I have nothing but shrugs. Call it Frances Ha syndrome. I assumed it was another case of that.
Still, I kept watching. The more the season went along, the more it dove into who Arabella is and what makes her tick. It becomes clear pretty early on that there’s a reason for all this. Some bad experiences. Some things she’s had to witness and internalize that she shouldn’t have had to in the first place. Racism in the school system and mangled sexual politics and so on and so forth. It’s unclear whether these things have traumatized her necessarily, but they absolutely played a big part in who she is.
Yet, as the show narrowed in on Arabella, it expanded on everyone and everything else. There’s the story of Kwame, a gay man who has to suffer from a society that misunderstands the nuances of sexual assault in the gay community just as badly, if not worse, than it does for women of color. There’s the social media aspect of the show, which may be one of the most accurate and damning portrayals of it that I’ve seen in a narrative art form thus far. There’s institutional racism and mental health and shitty business practices on the money end of the entertainment world and many other topics.
It may seem like it’s a show that’s trying to tackle too much. That it’s trying to be about everything. And that’s just it. The miracle of I May Destroy You is that it is about everything, and it actually pulls it off.
“Everything”, after all, is how you get a person like Arabella in the first place. Someone who can be the most sympathetic person on the planet in one episode, then in the next, the same traits that make her ultimately likable can make her the “villain.” Someone who can be deeply hurtful and selfish. She lives in a culture and time that allows her to express her pain and find solidarity with people who’ve had similar traumas, and she also lives in a culture and time she can weaponize and abuse, intentionally or unintentionally, when her trauma gets the worst of her.
Soon enough, we’re going to have a ton of conversations about the art that defines the Trump years, or really, the 2010s in general. When that conversation comes, I’ll be mentioning I May Destroy You, and I’ll be mentioning it loudly.
And that finale. My god.
Favorite Episodes: “Line Spectrum Border,” “Social Media Is a Great Way to Connect,” “Ego Death”
Honorable Mentions
Better Call Saul
Better Things
Big Mouth
Brockmire
Dave
Devs
The Eric Andre Show
Feel Good
The Good Place
Normal People
The Queen’s Gambit
Rick & Morty
Search Party
Will Watch Someday
City So Real
The Crown (Finished season two a few months ago.)
The Good Lord Bird
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
Lenox Hill
Schitt’s Creek
Ted Lasso
Unorthodox
There’s probably some more
