Much has been written of the recent renaissance in
quality television, with the small screen attracting an unprecedented amount of
top writing, acting and directing talent, and we hit peak level for all three
in 2012. Here are 5 of the best moments television gave us in 2012. Be warned,
spoilers follow.
5.
Richard Harrow’s Rampage (Boardwalk Empire, “Margate Sands”)
Tragic, disfigured World War 1 veteran Richard
Harrow (Jack Huston) was a breakout fan favorite, but for most of the season he
was removed from the main plot, which involved the escalating war between
Atlantic City boss Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) and volatile Brooklyn gangster
Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale). Richard’s storyline mostly involved his budding
romance and his determination to protect Tommy, the young son of his late
friend Jimmy (Michael Pitt). But when Rosetti’s crew took Tommy hostage, all
bets were off; in an artful, brilliantly-shot homage to the climax of “Taxi
Driver”, Richard (a man so desperate for companionship he keeps a scrapbook of
photos of happy families) unblinkingly waded through the gangsters with an
arsenal that the NRA would call excessive, all for the sake of a little kid.
Awww, we think.
4.
Sherlock and Moriarty’s Confrontation (Sherlock, “The Reichenbach Fall”)
As
long as it took for the second season of the BBC’s
brilliant modernization of the Sherlock Holmes stories to arrive, it was
just
as well that it was even more brilliant than its predecessor; in the
finale,
the legendary detective (Benedict Cumberbatch) found himself on the roof
of St.
Bart’s Hospital with his nemesis, “consulting criminal” Jim Moriarty
(Andrew
Scott), who had managed to get acquitted for a jewel heist he was on
tape
committing and then proceeded to falsify seemingly airtight evidence
that
Sherlock was a fraud. Now, Moriarty, his giggling psychopathy reaching a
fever pitch, revealed the final phase of his plan: Sherlock could
either leap to his death
in disgrace, or, at Moriarty’s signal, snipers would kill Sherlock’s
closest
friends. The two actors each give their best performances of the show as
we see
what happens when a man who seemingly has all the answers finds that he
doesn’t.
3.
Joan Lays Down the Law (Mad Men, “Mystery Date”)
When office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) was
raped by her fiancée in the drama’s second season, it was (and still is) one of
the show’s most disturbing scenes; almost as chilling was the fact that she
went through with the marriage, as would be expected of a woman in the era, and
maintained the illusion of marital bliss, until this year’s fifth season, when
her husband Greg, back from Vietnam, revealed that he would be returning of his
own volition, Joan had finally had enough, accusing him of needing the army to “feel
like a man”. “You’re not a good man,” she spat. “You never were, even before we
were married. And you know what I’m talking about.” While throwing Greg out makes Joan a single
mother in the mid-60s, far from advantageous circumstances, it was extremely
cathartic to see someone so abused by the time and system she lived in getting
to fight back.
2.
When Arya Met Tywin (Game of Thrones, “A Man Without Honor”)
The appeal of “Game of Thrones” is more than just
its fantasy setting, its obligatory sex and violence, or even the brilliant
Peter Dinklage. Rather, its secret is how it finds universal human connections
in a fantasy context. Case in point: an arc in the show’s second season wherein
sword-wielding tomboy Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), on the run after her father’s
execution, found herself disguised as a servant girl selected to be a cupbearer.
The man who selected her was Lord Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance), the icy patriarch
of the same family whose schemes had led to her father’s death. As Arya
attempted to conceal her identity, the two ended up making a genuine
connection, with Tywin displaying exceedingly rare vulnerability as he told her
of his son’s learning disability (strongly implied to be dyslexia). The kicker?
None of this was in the novels that the series has otherwise meticulously
followed; it was just great writing and acting that made perfect sense for the
characters.
“Parks & Recreation” is a show that, as bizarre
and outlandish as it can get, never loses its underlying heart, and the romance
between Pollyannish city councilwoman Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and her
tightly-wound political consultant boyfriend Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) was always
one of the show’s most sincerely sweet plot threads. Viewers were led to fear
the worst when Ben was offered a job managing the campaign of a senatorial
candidate in Florida, a world away from Leslie’s beloved Pawnee, Indiana. And
then, in the episode’s final scene, Ben quietly, unexpectedly returned, dropping
to one knee and telling her “above everything else, I just want to be with you
forever”. Leslie, her usual perkiness giving way to tears of joy, exclaimed “yes”
before Ben could even finish the question. Poehler’s performance is even more
exceptional when you consider that she was only a few months removed from her
separation from Will Arnett at the time.
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