It's easy to lump together the year's best TV: The finest dramas teemed with catastrophic violence and incomprehensible human loss; the best comedies jutted with madcap fun and frankness. The ten best episodes of 2010 are all unforgettable -- in fact, they're difficult to rank -- but there's no doubting the power of their characters, timing, and place in our continued "golden age" of television.
10. Grey's Anatomy, "Death and All His Friends"
Any decent recap of the year's best TV must include a hearty slice of craycray. Lo and behold, Grey's Anatomy's season finale was so violent, it should have been directed by Rob Zombie and called "Hospital of 1,000 Corpses." A shooter ravaged Seattle Grace, Meredith suffered a miscarriage, and our man Derek pulled through. The pure insanity -- and ultimate humanity of it all -- makes you forgive the Coldplay-esque title. Almost.
9. Glee, "Never Been Kissed"
You're either a Glee hater or a Gleebaser, but it's hard to deny the teenage dreaminess of Blaine, Kurt's new confidant, who crooned Katy Perry's homage to adolescence, turning the song into the show's biggest smash, and putting some gay teen affection in the open like no other primetime series. Whether you subscribe to Glee's tonal schizophrenia (called "American Bollywood" by some defenders), this episode was a necessary, progressive one.
8. The Walking Dead, "Days Gone By"
Frank Darabont kicked off AMC's cultiest series with convulsive carnage and some of the most gorgeously shot scenes of the year. You'd think a closing shot of zombies overtaking the tank where Rick finds momentary respite would be chilling, not poetically beautiful, yet somehow it was both. We can thank the comic's original creator, Robert Kirkman, for material that's coming to raise the bar on terrifying television.
7. Modern Family, "Strangers on a Treadmill"
We're suckers for Hitchcockian conceits at Movieline, but that's not why we're giving this Modern Family episode such high marks. Though Claire and Mitchell do trade awkward tasks like Farley Granger and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train, we adored the episode's mix of sentimentality and bawdy comedy. Cameron wore unflattering bike shorts, Alex tried to befriend a popular girl (to Haley's despair), and Claire attempted to sabotage Phil's embarrassing banquet speech, even though it turned out to be a hit. Touching and funny at every turn, the episode was embodied by Claire's final moment of comfort with a crestfallen Alex, an unforgettable example in the show's subtle sincerity.
6. 30 Rock, "Live Show"
In both its East and West Coast versions, 30 Rock's live episode featured a number of deviously clever touches: Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Liz Lemon in flashback sequences, cast-sung theme songs (Jane Krakowski took the East Coast theme while Cheyenne Jackson trilled for the west), and drop-dead funny interludes from Jon Hamm and Chris Parnell. Alec Baldwin also performed magic tricks, which was a nice clincher.
5. Lost, "The End"
The manic attention paid to Lost before its world-paralyzing finale culminated in a singular opinion: There's no way this episode can satisfy the show's myriad convolutions. And it didn't. But it did present 150 minutes that dared to explain Sideways World and turn this whole inside-out show into something of a parable. Fans will ponder Lost forever, and the finale managed to provide resolve and plenty of food for thought -- which is all you can ask for with a devastating sci-fi Mobius Strip like Lost.
4. Friday Night Lights, "The Son"
Full disclosure: DirecTV viewers got to see this episode in December 2009, but NBC finally aired it this summer. So, it counts! (Unless you want to pay for us to get DirecTV.) When Matt Saracen learned debilitating news about the father he hardly knew, we witnessed a revelatory range of emotions that incurred a Facebook rally for a Zach Gilford Emmy nomination. It didn't work, but he'll always be an Emmy nominee in our full hearts. FNL is one of the few emotional dramas that never feels melodramatic, and here, it dealt with the Iraq War in a totally believable, heartstopping episode.
3. Community, "Contemporary American Poultry"
Community's ascent since its abysmal series premiere is almost unbelievable. When the show progressed, its writers took chances with format, referential in-jokes, and a kind of playfulness that I associate with bygone gems like Fawlty Towers. Many would argue the "Modern Warfare" paintball episode was the show's most deliriously brilliant, but I'd say the Goodfellas-referencing "Contemporary American Poultry" which chronicled, yes, a chicken finger shortage at Greendale, was more of a hilarious surprise. More than any other comedic episode this year, it made me laugh in that unhinged Ray Liotta way.
2. Breaking Bad, "One Minute"
Breaking Bad's third season, which will henceforth be known as "The One Where It Got Really Evil," was a bracing lungful. "One Minute" is responsible for a large share of that devastation, as it saw enough unexpected gunfire and supercharged betrayal to fuel our nightmares for years. The show's realism may have taken a slight hit, but that's nothing compared to the horrifying shock and remaining aftershocks that the episode incurred.
1. Mad Men, "The Suitcase"
As the years pass, we're subjected to more Mad Men episodes that simply push plot along and lose themselves in Sterling-Cooper(-Draper-Pryce) business handling. "The Suitcase," however, concluded with resounding audience exhaustion. We were treated to a share of freakish occurrences (including Duck's guerrilla defecation attack), but nothing topped the breakdown Don endured after he received news that Anna had died in California. His candor with Peggy -- the show's (and TV's?) best character -- resulted in an almost unbearably moving exchange, the type fans had been dying to glimpse for three seasons. Don's teary tenderness, Peggy's plainspoken sympathy, and bizarre non-sequiturs like Roger's revealed hookup with Ida Blankenship, made "The Suitcase" not just the best Mad Men episode of the season, but its finest episode ever. That it was the best episode of any television show this year is as obvious as Duck's drinking problem.