10 Best TV Episodes of the Decade

by Julian Spivey

10. "Finale" - Late Show with David Letterman (2015)

​The final six months of David Letterman’s tenure as host of ‘Late Show,’ a show he created for CBS, was one of my favorite television moments of the decade. Letterman was my guy – not just my favorite late night comedy TV host, but somebody I looked up to and felt formed my own personal sense of humor. I knew he wouldn’t be on TV forever, but always hoped that day would never come. The last few months were incredible with frequent guests having their last hurrah being interviewed by Letterman. The final episode was a moment filled with great laughs, favorite guest stars and some tears. 

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9. "Remedial Chaos Theory" - Community (2011)

​NBC’s “Community” was easily the most high concept sitcom on network television at its time and one of the greatest, if not greatest episodes, of the series was “Remedial Chaos Theory” which sees our favorite study group meeting at Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed’s (Danny Pudi) new apartment for a get together, but it quickly becomes divided into six different timelines when Jeff (Joel McHale) devises a plan to decide who runs downstairs to grab the pizza being delivered. The episode is a great example of the ways that “Community” thought outside of the box and why it developed a cult-like status among its fans. 

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8. "Episode 6" - Fleabag (2019)

​I think “Fleabag” creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge was able to get every conceivable emotion one could feel into the finale of the series “Episode 6” and knocked them all out of the park. The episode is incredibly funny, heartwarming and sad all at the same time. Going into the reasons why would spoil it for those who haven’t seen it yet and I highly recommend doing so, but the performances in this episode by Waller-Bridge and Andrew Scott’s Priest, better known to the Internet world as “Hot Priest” are among the best on television all year. 

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7. "May God Bless & Keep You Always" - Parenthood (2015)

​Series finales are hard to do because it’s incredibly hard to wrap up a story viewers have loved for years. I think NBC’s “Parenthood” and creator Jason Katims found the perfect way to wrap the series with “May God Bless & Keep You Always,” which took its title from Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” that served as the show’s theme song. “Parenthood” was a realistic view of a family and all its good times and struggles and could be heartwarming at times and heartbreaking at others and the finale hits all these points brilliantly – we have a beautiful wedding between Sarah (Lauren Graham) and Hank (Ray Romano), one of the decade’s truly underrated TV couples, as well as the loss of a major character. That’s life and this show did life better than almost any show I’ve ever seen. 

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6. "Alive in Tucson" - The Last Man on Earth (2015)

​As it’s hard to have a perfect series finale it’s equally as hard to have a perfect pilot, but Will Forte did a series premiere brilliantly with “Alive in Tucson,” the pilot episode of Fox’s “The Last Man on Earth,” which he both wrote and starred in. The episode finds Forte’s Phil Miller believing himself to be the titular last man on earth after a virus has wiped out the rest of humanity. The episode sees the highs and lows of life on one’s own – Phil gets to play racquetball inside the White House (probably the episode’s funniest moment) but being the last man on earth can also be incredibly lonely. Toward the end of the episode Phil is set on killing himself until he sees smoke in the distance and realizes he’s not alone. 

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5. "Terra Incognita" - Person of Interest (2015)

​Just picking one episode of the incredible and incredibly underrated CBS drama “Person of Interest” for this list was hard. The show had a handful of jaw-droppers. But, the one I’ve settled on is season four’s “Terra Incognita.” The episode sees Taraji P. Henson return to the series in flashback form as Det. Joss Carter, who’s death earlier in the series was among the most shocking of the decade, when she’s being hallucinated by John Reese (Jim Caviezel) who’s taken on a personal journey in trying to solve a cold case that Carter couldn’t and has been seriously injured. “Person of Interest” was likely the smartest network drama of its time and this episode featured more complex storytelling through flashbacks than many of its other excellent offerings. 

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4. "ronny/lily" - Barry (2019)

​“ronny/lily,” a second season episode of HBO’s “Barry,” had me in stitches its entire 30 minute runtime. It’s one of the funniest episodes of television I’ve not only seen in a long time, but all time. The episode sees hitman, who wants to give up the violent life and become an actor, Barry (played by an eye opening Bill Hader) out to do a hit to get him off the hook for a previous murder. Not wanting to kill again he tries to let his target off easy by forcing him to move elsewhere, but it turns out the target is a taekwondo expert and isn’t going to go easily. What happens next is the longest fight scene I’ve ever seen and certainly the funniest. That was Ronny. Then walks in Ronny’s daughter Lily who believes Barry has killed her father … and Lily just so happens to be even more ferocious than her father. The antics that play out between Lily, Barry and Stephen Root’s Fuches are so unbelievably hilarious you might pass out from laughing so hard. 

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3. "We Just Decided To" - The Newsroom (2012)

​Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of HBO’s “The Newsroom” that ran for three seasons from 2012-2014 you’ve probably seen the terrific “America isn’t the greatest country in the world” Aaron Sorkin monologue that the show’s lead Jeff Daniels gives somewhere on the Internet. It’s one of my all-time favorite television scenes and shows the wonder and glory that can simply be a great actor reading incredible writing. I think this one scene is likely the reason for Daniels’ surprising Emmy win as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for the show’s first season. “The Newsroom” pilot episode titled “We Just Decided To” introduces us to these incredible journalists trying to tell the real story of the biggest stories of the day with facts and their efforts to cover a potentially disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 

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2. "Vincent and the Doctor" - Doctor Who (2010)

​There were likely a dozen or so terrific episodes of “Doctor Who” this decade I could’ve spotlighted here, but the first to come to mind was “Vincent and the Doctor,” which aired June 5, 2010, during Matt Smith’s first season as the titular Doctor. The episode sees our friendly time traveler head back in time to the time of legendary painter Vincent Van Gogh (played brilliantly by guest Tony Curran). The most touching part of the episode was when they bring Van Gogh, who famously never got to see what he meant to the artistic medium, to modern times to see fans admiring his legacy. But this is capable of ultimately saving Van Gogh as we realize not everything in time can be rewritten. It’s at the same time a beautiful and devastating episode. 

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1. "Teddy Perkins" - Atlanta (2018)

​Throughout its first two seasons on FX the Donald Glover created “Atlanta” has shown there isn’t anything it won’t try to do and the second season horror-inspired “Teddy Perkins” episode, which was originally shown without commercial interruption to help build its suspense, was like watching one of the all-time great horror movies in the form of a 30 minute TV show. Excellently written by Glover, the episode sees LaKeith Stanfield’s Darius going to a house of a recluse former pop star after answering an ad for a piano. It quickly turns into a tale of glorious horror in which Glover in an obvious parallel to Michael Jackson plays the mysterious Teddy Perkins. 

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What was your favorite TV episode of the decade?