Year-to-Year: Episodic Medium's 2024 Highlights

I’m thrilled to get to platform so many great writers here at Episodic Medium, but I know it can sometimes be frustrating to write criticism behind a paywall. It means that when they share it with their own social networks, it always comes with a caveat: yes, we’d love if everyone would become a paid subscriber, but sometimes you write something that you want to be read first and foremost, and that’s unfortunately not how the business model works.

Accordingly, each year I like to give all of our contributors a chance to share a piece they’re particularly proud of, with the paywall lifted so that all of our subscribers (and everyone in their networks) can read it. It’s a great reminder of just how much great work is being done at the site, and hopefully might encourage you to support that work in the new year.

So without further ado, I’ll turn it over to them (and I was bad at organizing this so the request came over the holidays so some of them I chose rather than badgering them for copy they didn’t have adequate time to produce).

Donna Bowman

I just wanted to make an editor’s note that scheduling meant Donna Bowman was off the board this year, but we’re constantly in communication and both The Righteous Gemstones and The Gilded Age should be back in Spring/Summer.

Les Chappell

Fallout, “The Beginning”

I was miffed that Amazon's decision to release the whole series kept it from weekly coverage, but Fallout remained one of my favorite shows of the year, and I was glad to get a chance to dig into the first three episodes and then the finale. It was a great adaptation that captured the darkly comic tone of the games, the general sense of a world that was falling apart before the bombs and certainly hasn't gotten better since. Plus, Walton Goggins as a near-undead gunslinger having entirely too much fun. Whenever we get season two, I only hope Amazon says "Okey dokey" to rolling episodes out on a weekly basis.

LaToya Ferguson

Abbott Elementary, “Class Pet”

Myles here—LaToya wrote lots of great reviews for the newsletter this year, but I liked her self-reflective take on this early season episode of Abbott for its commentary on how we evaluate the strength of a season as we react to it. Whether or not season four has turned into a banger of a season remains to be seen as her coverage returns this week, but it’s a good reminder of how much the format lends itself to evolving opinions on a season as a whole.

William Goodman

Industry, “White Mischief”

I've always admired and respected Myles and all the other wonderful contributors here at Episodic Medium, so I consider a privilege to get a chance to do anything on their behalf. Getting to write about Industry, one of my favorite series over the last few years, right as it hit new heights was real treat. The pinnacle of that was "White Mischief," an episode that proved Industry could be just as compelling when it turned its glaze to supporting characters. Anchored by a stunning performance by Sagar Radia, "White Mischief" helped me realize Industry had the goods to become something special.

Zack Handlen

Star Trek: Discovery, “Life Itself”

I've written more positive reviews over the past year, but I'm still satisfied with my not exactly thrilled take on the Discovery series finale. Throughout the run of the show, I did my best to balance my dislike of many of the creative choices driving it, and it was a relief to finally get to say, "No shade if you liked this, but I did not care for it at all."

Liam Mathews

Bad Monkey, “We’re in the Merry-Making Business”

Myles back again—Liam came into the mix as an extension of his own newsletter, Dad Shows, and Bad Monkey was really a perfect case study of this particular brand of television. Liam’s take on the finale offers some great retrospective looks at the season as a whole, and I agree with the commenters that his engagement with the discussion really added to the strength of his coverage (which will return whenever the recently-renewed show does).

Alex McLevy

The Boys, “Life Among the Septics”

After one of the longest and most worrying years I can remember, politically speaking, it actually feels unexpectedly calming to go back post-election and revisit this, one of the more prescient installments of one of the most intelligently of-the-moment shows on television. This was the episode where the necessary grunt work of deep-diving into some political philosophy, some social theory, and some critical analysis of TV as a form of storytelling all came to the fore and interwove, and re-reading it now, I'm pretty happy with what it says about the way political ideology functions in our country and on our screens. Even if I'm, y'know, less happy with how all that panned out.

Myles McNutt

The Bear, “Forever”

FX’s decision to keep binge-releasing The Bear may keep frustrating, but this was the year where it was clear that the discourse was going to happen regardless of how quickly the show faded from memory—accordingly, I bit the bullet on testing out some staggered, as I watched coverage of the season, culminating in this finale review. I thought the subsequent discussion was great, and I’ll be back to take on whatever season four looks like later this year.

Noel Murray

Fargo, “Bisquik”

As I was prepping my year-end TV lists a few weeks ago, I hesitated on whether or not to count Fargo as a 2024 show, given that most of “Year 5” aired in 2023. But honestly, it’s hard to think of a television episode I want to define 2024 more than “Bisquik,” which caps a story about America’s dangerous, sometimes life-threatening political divisions with a note of compassion, community and hope. I loved writing about Fargo, and I hope that my passion for this season and what it expresses comes through in the review.

Dennis Perkins

Enlightened, “No Doubt” & “ Agent of Change”

Myles again—the (typically) lengthy Always Sunny hiatus meant that Dennis didn’t get to spend a lot of time contributing to Episode Medium this year, but back in January he finished off a deserved glimpse back at Mike White’s Enlightened, culminating in this introspective and excellent take on where its second season finale left Amy Jellicoe.

Ben Rosenstock

Curb Your Enthusiasm, “No Lessons Learned”

Curb Your Enthusiasm is a huge comfort show for me—I've re-watched the first eight seasons in particular a few times—so I loved writing about the final season of its nearly 25-year run. In my positive review of an imperfect series finale, I unpacked Larry David's balance of meta hijinks with real catharsis, closing a chapter for these characters while atoning for the polarizing Seinfeld finale that haunted David all these years.

Caroline Siede

Agatha All Along, “Death’s Hand in Mine”

It’s a lot of mental work to cover a Marvel TV show. You have to remember plot points, characters, and magical MacGuffins from a whole web of interconnected properties, often for shows that aren’t even all that good. (I’m looking at you Secret Invasion.) But every once and a while that effort pays off and Marvel rewards you with something truly special. And that’s just what we got in Agatha All Along’s big Patti LuPone episode, “Death’s Hand in Mine,” one of my favorite TV episodes of the year and up there as one of the best things Marvel has ever done. The episode’s offbeat, non-linear structure eventually gives way to an incredibly moving character study about aging, womanhood, and purpose (one that would make a great double feature with Doctor Who’s “73 Yards,” actually) and it was an absolute honor to get to write about all the complex ideas—and incredible performances—it manages to explore in just 28 minutes.

Josh Spiegel

The Acolyte, “The Acolyte”

"Now that we know The Acolyte won't return for a second season, its finale is all the more fascinating to parse even as it's also creatively vexing. Although The Acolyte was far from my favorite Star Wars show, it was among the more willing to take risks, which is almost (but not quite) enough to make me forgive the flaws. I was generally pleased with the conversation commenters and I had with this show, but the finale felt like the perfect convergence of their abilities to spot the more esoteric details and my casual-fan approach."

Want to read more from these great writers in 2025? Become a paid subscriber today—or at least become a free subscriber so you’ll get tomorrow’s schedule announcement for Winter 2025.