‘Twas 2012: Top Ten Television Episodes of the Year

Here are the best episodes of 2012. Obviously this contains spoilers:

10) “Argentina” — Dexter

One of the nicest surprises on television this year was Dexter’s renaissance in quality. After some misguided years and a true nadir of a season in 2011, Dexter finally embraced a real progression in the story—having Debra find out about her brother’s “hobby”—and was all the better for it. The tension between Deb and Dexter led to some of the show’s best scenes ever. And since Dexter didn’t spend the entire season chasing his usual Big Bad Guy, Season Seven actually had decent subplots, including great guest performances from Ray Stevenson and Yvonne Strahovski. In “Argentina,” the show was even able to address the weirdest element of last season—Deb’s crush on her brother—in an impressive and compelling way.

Monday Medley

What we read while we all just got along…

• A look at how Jim Messina is running Obama’s reelection campaign like a business. Part of that, presumably is this recently-released list of Obama’s accomplishments that’s mostly a list of people he’s killed. Speaking of which, a young Yemeni explains how drones help Al Qaeda.

• Thoughts on the career of Vladimir Guerrero.

• In addition to banning soda, Mayor Bloomberg is trying to sell off the city’s parking meters.

• Matthew Weiner talks about the Mad Men finale in a couple of interviews.

• How have we only recently discovered the online existence of the original series bible for The Wire?

• Elizabeth Wurtzel says what it takes to be a real feminist. And speaking of feminism, a depressing look at Barbie and Ken.

• I’m sure Karl Marx would at least appreciate the irony…

Mad Men and Morality

Mad Men’s recently wrapped-up fifth season was possibly its best season yet, and at least its best since season two. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the most ambitious season thus far because it dealt most directly with morality—and was the least preoccupied with subject of happiness.

Most of the time, Mad Men is all about happiness: Is happiness an illusion? Is it ever sustainable? Are the things that make people happy the same? Etc. This can be compelling, but it tends to get self-indulgent and repetitive quickly.

What made Season Five so different, though, was that it took as its starting point the idea that Don Draper, the perpetually self-loathing protagonist, was actually happy. He was finally in a happy marriage; he had a cordial relationship with his ex-wife and he was getting along with his kids; his company was relatively safe, and his relationships with most of his co-workers were good. This was so jarring to some viewers that they seemed intent to find problems where none existed. Every fight with he had with Megan supposedly hinted at the faulty foundation of the marriage—even if the fight was minor and they made up afterwards. People seemed completely unwilling to accept the idea that Don could be happily married and generally content; it was so unlike the Don we were used to.

Monday Medley

What we read after Carlos Beltran’s “foul ball”…

• A Met finally threw a no-hitter! Mike Vaccaro of the NY Post pulled the old columnist’s trick of driving to the ballpark after the fifth inning (worth it) while Brian Costa told the story inning by inning. Faith and Fear in Flushing puts Santana’s no-hitter in perspective. Joe Posnanski offers his views on the matter.

• Last week’s New York Times story on President Obama’s “Kill List” caused quite the controversy, particularly its revelation that the Obama Administration considers all military-aged males combatants. Harper’s also has the accounts of the inevitable unintended victims of this administration’s drone policies. Of course, liberals get very upset when you say negative things about Obama sending killer robots to other countries.

• The best part about watching the Stanley Cup Finals (GO DEVILS!) is listening to Mike Emrick, sports’ master of verbs.

• Chris Hayes, who was one of those attacked for criticizing Obama’s drone wars, got in trouble from the other side of the spectrum for daring to question whether all soldiers are heroes. And on Memorial Day!

• Jeff Pearlman chats with Shawn Green about what retirement from baseball is like. Can you guys believe Shawn Green once hit 49 homers for the Dodgers?

• This Week in Oral Histories: Maxim uses the tenth anniversary of the premiere of The Wire to look back at the greatest series in television history.

• In other TV news, Christina Hendricks discusses Joan’s controversial decision from last Sunday’s Mad Men.

• 100 years of Woody Guthrie.

• The sad state of Conan. 

• Andy Samberg is officially leaving SNL. Is Taran Killam the next big thing?

• Some of history’s most powerful photographs.

Monday Medley

What we read while President Obama’s position on gay marriage was intelligently designed…

• Twitter tried to stand up for a user’s privacy, but was blocked by the courts. Speaking of Internet policing, a look at Anonymous, the online hacker collective.

• The Intelligence Squared debate on banning college football is worth watching, if only for the spectacle of Buzz Bissinger.

• In case you weren’t paying attention: On the heels of North Carolina’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and rights for gay couples, President Obama announced his personal support for gay marriage (just as John S predicted he would do three months ago). This is one of Obama’s better flip-flops. Posner and Becker opine on gay marriage.

• The NYPD released troubling numbers on its “Stop and Frisk” policy.

• Roger Ebert likes women.

• A DFW link to more DFW links!

• How did Wall Street kill Dodd-Frank?

• NBC surprisingly renewed all of its low-rated but well-regarded comedies. One of them, Parks and Recreation, aired its season finale last week. Showrunner Michael Schur broke down the season with Alan Sepinwall. Presumably, noted sabermetrician Schur would love this spinoff.

• Brewers’ closer John Axford sums up all postgame interviews in a note.

• Mad Men paid a small fortune for the rights to air a Beatles song last week, as I’m sure John Lennon would have wanted…

Monday Medley

What we read while putting away our hoodies and Skittles…

• It’s been a week since the day that shook the world: The revelation of “A” on Pretty Little Liars, in an episode that broke social media records. The cast discussed their favorite “A” moments, while Morgan Glennon discussed the show’s feminism.

• Will the Democrats remove civil liberties from the 2012 platforms after Obama has spent four years dismantling them? Meanwhile, Michael Tomasky doesn’t think Obama should announce support for gay marriage until after he gets re-elected.

• This week in oral histories: Vanity Fair looks back at The Sopranos.

• Gizmodo wonders if Google has reached the point where it can’t follow its original slogan.

• Support our atheist troops! Speaking of atheism, Sam Harris wonders why more liberals won’t call Islam on its bullshit.

• Metacritic has 50 films to look forward to in 2012, which is basically like The Dark Knight Rises and 49 other films.

• A look at Craig James’ weird campaign for Senate in Texas.

• If you’re not already sick of hearing about Mad Men‘s return, here’s a video of the women of the cast singing (kind of). Also, a look at the double standard fans apply to Don and Betty.

• Should we tax the obese?

• Apropos of nothing, the short story that inspired Rear Window.

• Happy Birthday to the interrobang! We wish we could have phrased that sentence so that it could have reasonably been punctuated with an interrobang.

• Newt Gingrich or Kanye West?

Monday Medley

What we read while reading great cosmic significance into a Broncos game…

• It seems a little early to be at college basketball’s midway point (we’ve only had two Double Bonus podcasts, after all), but Seth Davis has written his midseason recap, and the rest of Sports Illustrated‘s staff are making predictions. As Duke fans, of course, we got a kick out of North Carolina’s drubbing at Florida State, which literally chased the Tar Heels off the floor and reminded us of this memorable game.

• From the darker side of the NCAA, the latest story of injustice for a student-athlete.

• Do The Black Keys represent a war on indie rock?

• At The Awl, Maria Bustillos has a problem with that study claiming better teachers equals higher income.

• Giancarlo Esposito, aka Gus Fring, took to Reddit to answer fans’ questions about Breaking Bad and other highlights of his career. In other AMC news, Mad Men got an official premiere date for the new season.

• Josh and Tim have spent all week debating which Met took the Wilpons to task.

• The New York Times was slightly embarrassed when its Public Editor, Arthur Bisbane, wondered if maybe newspaper should try reporting the truth, you know? As opposed to just printing whatever people say… He explained himself later on.

• Some Amazon movie reviews.

• Hey, what kid hasn’t gone through a urinating-on-corpses phase? Sebastian Junger blames…us.

• Some old year-end stuff that Tim was too lazy to link to in the past: humor-writing, sitcoms that haven’t been effusively praised, and broadcasting moments.

• Roger Ebert with some thoughts on the Oscars.

Monday Medley

What we read while the Indians were mathematically eliminated…

• We couldn’t let Opening Day go by without a link to Joe Posnanski, could we? Here he breaks down the 32 best players in baseball. And a uniform roundup from Paul Lukas!

• The best longish piece about baseball we read this week, though, comes from Andy McCullough at the Star-Ledger, providing an inside glimpse at one of New York’s most misunderstood stars, Jose Reyes. It’s almost as good as Charles Pierce’s magazine piece on Red Sox prospect Ryan Westmoreland from a few weeks back, which includes about as good a paragraph of sports journalism as we’ve ever read (we’re not telling you which one, except to say it’s pretty early on). For short, conversational pieces, The Awl has Yakkin’ about Baseball, which will hopefully be as consistently hilarious as Yakkin’ about Football was.

• Chipotle in Chelsea is a little bit different than the other Chipotles.

• A documentary about legendary comedian Bill Hicks is getting released this week.

• A lot of fuss over Matthew Weiner’s contract talks with AMC came basically to nothing as Mad Men was renewed with pretty much all of Weiner’s demands met.

• What’s it like to have lunch with Roger Waters?

• Oh, some band you may have heard of played its last show ever on Saturday. It apparently went well.

• John Wray is using Twitter to explore a character cut out of his most recent novel. We’re all for Twiterature experiments.

Hindsight 2010: Top Five Most Memorable Episodes of TV

5. “God,” Louie

One of the reasons the superlative in the title of this post is “memorable” and not “best” is to make room for episodes like “God.” It wasn’t the funniest episode of the first season of Louie—and it wasn’t even necessarily my favorite—but it was certainly the most distinct and memorable episode of a show that was consistently original. I remember watching the scene in which the creepy, nameless doctor tells a young Louie to stab Jesus Christ in the wrist and thinking, “It’s very unusual that this is on television.” The dark humor, the nuanced take on religion, and the controversial point of view are all things rarely seen on TV, and yet they were precisely the kinds of things that made Louie such an innovative and enjoyable show.

Monday Medley

What we read while intentionally walking Josh Hamilton….

• Mad Men‘s fourth season, which John S reviewed this week, concluded last Sunday, and Vulture featured a series of interviews with the show’s cast and creative team. They also wondered when Betty Draper became such a monster, and if Don disappointed his fans. Also, here’s Alan Sepinwall’s breakdown of the finale.

• One of the Tea Party’s founders tells the Tea Party to go screw itself.

• There are A LOT of people with college degrees and they do things that, you know, lesser-educated people do.

• If there’s anything more intriguing than a literary mystery, we don’t know what it is. This week: Jane Austen wasn’t as good as everyone thought! (Psh…we’ve known that for years.)

• “This site records my foolhardy attempt to illustrate Finnegan’s Wake.” We at NPI cannot express our enthusiasm for foolhardy attempts enough.

• FiveBooks recommends, well, five books for just about any subject, including, and here’s the callback, the five Jane Austen books to read.

• Our favorite Canadian magazine, The Walrus, views the travels of a bust of Lenin as a metaphor for the Soviet Union as a whole.

• With the Giants now officially in the World Series, here’s an interview with Wiley Wiggins (a.k.a Mitch Kramer in Dazed and Confused) about looking so much like Tim Lincecum.

• South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker had to issue an apology when their spoof of Inception bore too close a resemblance to Dan Gurewitch’s on College Humor. Gurewitz accepted the apology. Speaking of films John S reviewed this year: Robert Wright wondered if Mark Zuckerberg is actually a visionary.

• Simon Rich explores the intricacies of Google Dictionary.

• Finally, a shallow look into whether her run-in with Kanye West helped Taylor Swift’s career.

• How many Cam Newton highlights can Tim link to before it gets tiresome? Can he have one more? Newton’s 49-yard run against LSU on Saturday left veteran broadcasters Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson (NPI faves, btw) incredulous. The Tigers, meanwhile, are now No. 1 in the BCS standings.