Clockwise from bottom left - Alien: Earth (Photo: Patrick Brown/FX), Adolescence (Photo: Netflix), The Bear (Photo: FX), The Last Of Us (Photo: Liane Hentscher/HBO)
One of the tough things about paring down, say, a list of the very best TV shows in any given year is that a few worthy series inevitably get left out. So it tracks that six of The A.V. Club‘s 16 finest episodes of TV in 2025 (which run in chronological order below) come from shows that didn’t quite make that aforementioned countdown. Read on for the installments, which include audacious left turns, comforting moments, harrowing deaths, and a coked-up barfly or two for good measure, that really left a mark.
“The Day,” Paradise (season one, episode seven)
In its premiere, Paradisesweeps the rug out from under your feet with the reveal that it takes place in an underground bunker after the world above has gone to hell. It isn’t until season one’s penultimate installment that Hulu’s drama unveils how awful “The Day” of the nuclear apocalypse was. Flashbacks show us that a volcanic eruption and global megatsunami left hours for everyone to evacuate, including POTUS Cal (James Marsden) and his trusted aides. Set in real time, with jarring news reports and government action, this hour ditches Paradise‘s goofy sci-fi theatrics for a bit to tell a pertinent and scary story about climate change and survivor’s guilt. [Saloni Gajjar]
It’s tough to pick a single season-two episode of Severance as its finest, considering this round of the show boasts the ORTBO, Mark’s reintegration, and yet another powerful finale. Still, “Chikhai Bardo” is a peak for Dan Erickson’s striking Apple TV drama. It answers long-awaited questions about Gemma’s (Dichen Lachman) abduction and abuse by Lumon and her marriage to a pre-severed Mark Scout (Adam Scott) and raises a million ones about why the couple was targeted. It’s not just that the installment gives fans what they were waiting for, but also that first-time director Jessica Lee Gagne serves up a sunny, visually arresting hour that distinguishes itself from Severance‘s typically icy color palette. [Saloni Gajjar]
“Prelude,” The Righteous Gemstones (season four, episode one)
It’s hard to overstate the audacity of The Righteous Gemstones’ season-four premiere. After a nearly two-year hiatus, the show kicked off its final season with an episode set in the Civil War era featuring none of the main cast. Instead, “Prelude” is anchored by a surprise guest star: Bradley Cooper (drawing on his formidable comedy chops, which are rarely displayed these days outside of Uber Eats commercials). Cooper plays Elijah Gemstone, an itinerant criminal who murders a preacher, steals his identity, and becomes a Confederate Army chaplain—ostensibly launching the titular family’s multi-generational Christian grift. Elijah wrestles throughout the installment with whether Bible-thumping is merely a lucrative business or something that has real value to his congregants. This sets the tone for this series’ final season, which considers how the Gemstones have always straddled the line between righteousness and roguery. [Noel Murray]
“Episode 3,” Adolescence
The third episode of Adolescence plays like a standalone feature film, a masterful piece of work that earned both of its stars Emmys and helped shape the conversation around how toxic masculinity is warping an entire generation. Like each chapter of this critical darling, it unfolds in a oner as we meet psychologist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty), who has been assigned the case of Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), a 13-year-old accused of murder. For just under an hour, Adolescence becomes almost a two-hander between a troubled young man and the woman trying to understand him. Its brilliance is layered in the breathtaking turns from Doherty and Cooper, but also in the script from Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham. It’s a master class of television on just about every level—performance, direction, writing—but it’s one of the best episodes of TV in 2025 because of the heartbreaking and terrifying chord it struck with viewers. [Brian Tallerico]
“7:00 P.M.,” The Pitt (season one, episode 13)
HBO Max’s The Pitt depicts a single shift for the doctors and residents of a Pittsburgh emergency department, and by “7:00 P.M.,” they are officially working overtime. A mass shooting at a music festival has flooded the halls with traumatic injuries and death, forcing a kinetic shift in a show that has enough confidence in its audience not to hold their hands as the pressure begins to take its toll. When Robby (Noah Wyle) can’t save his surrogate son’s girlfriend, a panic attack rips open the wounds of his mentor’s death, leaving the pillar of the ED crumbled on the floor. This is the finest hour of The Pitt’s no good, very bad day. [Hunter Ingram]
“It’s Not That Serious,” Dying For Sex (episode eight)
Pain and pleasure get equal billing in Dying For Sex, Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock’s ruminative yet ribald dramedy based on the life of the late Molly Kochan (who hosted the podcast of the same name). Tracking the final months of someone’s life could easily become lugubrious—or worse, twee—but while Meriwether and Rosenstock look death right in the face, they never lose sight of Molly (a luminous Michelle Williams). Her poignant journey comes to an end in “It’s Not That Serious,” following a bang and eliciting more than a few whimpers (if not outright sobs) from viewers. The finale borders on cacophonous—there are multiple reunions, a pregnancy, hallucinations—but Rosenstock and director Shannon Murphy are able to make stirring music out of the many elements. Molly’s life was made up of so much more than her illness that even her last moments aren’t defined by it. “It’s Not That Serious” shows us that death is the final act of the miracle of life, or, as someone else well-versed in grief (and much more eloquent) put it: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” [Danette Chavez]
“Through The Valley,” The Last Of Us (season two, episode two)
The Last Of Us didn’t crack The A.V. Club‘s list of the year’s top shows, but there is no denying the power of the HBO drama’s second-season high point. “Through The Valley,” directed by the great Succession and Game Of Thrones vet Mark Mylod, is essentially split into three sections: the hungover calm before the storm; a literal snowstorm that tips over into worst-case-scenario chaos when throngs of infected wake up and invade Jackson; and the torture and killing of the series’ main and best character, Joel (Pedro Pascal), at the hands of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). For as brutal and shattering as that sendoff is, on rewatch all these months later, it’s the middle section that’s the most arresting, as the show leans into its video-game thrills (particularly when Abby gets trapped along the chain-link fence and the gates are first attacked) and cruel twists of fate. [Tim Lowery]
“Pilot’s Code,” The Rehearsal (season two, episode three)
It’s the mark of an exceptional season of TV that just about any one of the six episodes that make up The Rehearsal‘s latest outing could be featured on this list. Season two’s closer, “My Controls,” certainly deserves consideration for its knockout surprises, but the episode that most effectively marries Nathan Fielder’s comedy with his high-stakes (and high-budget) premise is “Pilot’s Code.” The installment, which was nominated for multiple Emmys, is alternately fanciful and sober, as Fielder recreates significant (at least by his definition) moments from the life of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to deliver instantly indelible moments like drowning in (faux?) breast milk and locking in to the sounds of Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life.” In the premiere, Fielder wondered if aviation safety might prove too dramatic a subject for a comedy series, but with “Pilot’s Code,” he set himself up for a smooth landing. [Danette Chavez]
“Who Are You?” Andor (season two, episode eight)
The Imperial occupation of Ghorman has reached its boiling point. The Empire has secretly allowed Ghor rebels to create a foothold from which to push back against the growing Imperial shadow over their planet. Few truly know what the Empire plans to accomplish there, save for a small handful of Imperials, like ISB Lieutenant Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), who arrives to spring a trap on this paltry rebellion as it executes its uprising. Nearby, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) puts her in his sights. The obvious function of Tony Gilroy’s Andor is to further connect the dots between Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope—but its true purpose is exposing the dense web of secrets, wavering allegiances, and hair-trigger decisions that made the Rebellion’s first major victory against the Empire possible in the first place. Directed with a kinetic attention to action geography and interpersonal detail by Janus Metz and written by Dan Gilroy, “Who Are You?” illustrates the role individuals play within war’s brutal mechanism and how far people will go to sever the jackboot from its leg. [Jarrod Jones]
“I Make All Things New,” Families Like Ours (episode seven)
A pulse of anxiety runs through Families Like Ours, the miniseries from director and co-writer Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round) about the forced evacuation of Denmark because of rising sea levels, that feels like a sick sensation in your stomach that you just can’t get rid of. Some of it has to do with how eerily realistic these changes fall on an entire nation, but more of it stems from the show’s dramatic specificity, particularly as teenage daughter Laura (a wonderful Amaryllis August) goes off on her own, prompting her first love, the happy-go-lucky Elías (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt), to try to find her. But by the closing credits, the refugees we’ve been following are mostly set in their new lives, and a lot of that dread has dissipated. Which isn’t to say this is a happy ending (for some characters, it’s decidedly not), but it isn’t a full-on tragedy either. “I Make All Things New” is an ode to the perseverance and messiness of the human spirit, which can force the slightest glimmers of light and joy to break through the darkness. [Tim Lowery]
“Worms,” The Bear (season four, episode four)
One of the big complaints about The Bear’s third season is that it didn’t give Ayo Edebiri enough to do. Thankfully, season four course-corrects by placing her at the heart of one of the show’s signature character-centric hours. Co-written by Lionel Boyce (who plays Marcus on the show) and Edebiri herself, “Worms” follows Sydney to a hair appointment that turns into an impromptu babysitting session with her cousin’s 11-year-old daughter (Arion King). That means a welcome chance to see Syd outside of the stressful Berzatto world and among her own family, where a big pot of Hamburger Helper and some elementary school sleepover drama help her finally process her career indecision. Like the propulsive “Forks” did for Richie and the bittersweet “Napkins” did for Tina, “Worms” finds a warm, funny tone that feels just right for Sydney. Add in a standout comedic guest turn from Danielle Deadwyler, and the episode is a rare helping of much-needed comfort food. [Caroline Siede]
“In Space, No One…” Alien: Earth (season one, episode five)
For most of the first half of Alien: Earth’s freshman season, the show’s creator Noah Hawley imagines a version of Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien in which a spaceship named the Maginot, overrun with killer extraterrestrials, crash-lands on our planet (rather than exploding in deep space, like the Nostromo did in the movie). But after four episodes of mostly Earthbound mayhem, Hawley suddenly circles back to fill in the rest of the story of the doomed Maginot. The result is, essentially, an hour-long Alien remake (or remix, homage, cover version…whatever you want to call it), in which the creator distills Scott’s film to what he imagines as its essence: the story of underpaid contractors being exploited and then destroyed. The episode is a thrilling and provocative take on Alien, reaffirming the innate power of the premise that launched a decades-spanning franchise. [Noel Murray]
“Vagrants,” Task (season one, episode five)
As FBI agent Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo) and thief Robbie Prendergast (Tom Pelphrey) circle each other, Task slowly builds anticipation for their inevitable collision. When it finally happens in episode five, there’s no violent confrontation or arrest, although Robbie points a gun at Tom’s head and jets off in a car with him. Spiking anxiety about their fates, Task traps the two men in a claustrophobic car. As Tom opens up about his time as a priest (“I’ve kidnapped the world’s most depressing human,” Robbie remarks), it forces them to engage in a cathartic, complex conversation about their pasts, the afterlife, and the meaning of death. With stalwart performances, it’s an emotionally heavy payoff in an action-packed outing that also reveals the mole’s identity (will someone please cast Fabien Frankel as a genuinely good guy?), sees Maeve (Emilia Jones) turn herself in, and shows Eryn’s (Margarita Levieva) murder. [Saloni Gajjar]
“This Land?” The Lowdown (season one, episode five)
Even though “truth-storian” Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) has no brain-to-mouth filter, he keeps his trap shut when it comes to his own past. So it’s extra juicy when his old buddy Wendell (Peter Dinklage) appears on the anniversary of their friend’s death, looking like 40 miles of bad road. This guy is Lee’s dark mirror—a warning of what can happen if you let the world beat all the hope out of you. But even as Wendell mocks Lee’s stubborn idealism, his fresh perspective leads to a breakthrough in the investigation. Hawke and Dinklage’s chemistry makes it easy to believe that these two have been frenemies for decades. They can’t stop taking swipes at each other (sometimes literally), but the love between them runs deep. When Lee tells his friend that he doesn’t want him to die, it’s a plea to save his own life, too. “Together, we’d make one hell of a person,” Wendell replies. “We’re too fucked up to be whole.” [Jenna Scherer]
“We Is Us,” Pluribus (season one, episode one)
Not since Severance‘s 2022 series premiere has a sci-fi TV series delivered such an enticing debut. Pluribus kicks off with the daunting task of depicting a virus outbreak, something that has been shown in 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, and so many other works. So series creator and episode writer-director Vince Gilligan takes inspiration from past hits to put his own spin on it. In “We is Us,” a disoriented romance author loses her partner, realizes the global population has been taken over by an optimistic hive mind, and has to face all of this (almost entirely) by herself as one of a dozen survivors. Things are only about to get worse for Carol Sturka, and Better Call Saul‘s Rhea Seehorn proves she’s up for the challenge by deftly navigating her character’s confusion, misery, and fear—all while nailing the writing’s darkly funny tone. [Saloni Gajjar]
“I Won. Zoom In.,” The Chair Company (season one, episode five)
The Chair Company is a rabbit hole, and “I Won. Zoom In.” is the ultimate rabbit hole within a rabbit hole. Every single person Ron Trosper (Tim Robinson) encounters on his quest to figure out what the hell is going on with Tecca is an absolute freak, but he has no choice but to follow their lead. This sends him on a road trip with Mike (Joseph Tudisco), where we meet a coked-up and Scrooge-obsessed actor, a man with a dented head and a shirtsleeve full of cheddar soup, and a couple of gun-toting, blackmailing adulterers. Per usual, we get no closer to solving the show’s central mystery, but that couldn’t be more beside the point. The HBO seriesis always surreally funny, but nowhere else is it this high-octane. [Drew Gillis]
