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The 20 Best TV Scenes of 2020

Television offered comfort and escapism this year, but its best moments also showed us some hard emotional truths.
Best Tv Scenes
By  · Published on December 21st, 2020

10. What We Do in the Shadows: “On the Run”

What We Do In The Shadows On The Run best TV scenes 2020

One could fill several pages with a list of things to love about What We Do In the Shadow’s goofiest Season 2 side plot. We’ll try to keep our love letter short. After penning a dramatic farewell message to his wife Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), Lazlo (Matt Berry) goes deep undercover in the working-man costume that has apparently been his go-to for centuries. The trick to staying inconspicuous is all about chewing on a toothpick, he says, as he dons a pair of blue jeans, moves to Pennsylvania (because it sounds like Transylvania, naturally), and takes on the epic persona of one Jackie Daytona.

Jackie is a hilarious assemblage of modest small-town qualities, all of them conveyed in a single montage set to the man’s own jukebox favorite, “Simply Irresistible.” “Your average American Yankee Doodle Dandy,” as he calls himself, is spicing up the local scene by magicking the women’s volleyball team into a winning streak, beating up benign bikers, and injecting some life into the town bar, which he took over after killing its owner. It’s a mythology download that takes just a few minutes but hits your funny bone in a way that lasts.


9. PEN15: “Opening Night”

Pen Opening Night best TV scenes 2020

Maya Erskine, Anna Konkle, and Sam Zvibleman’s series about the perils and pleasures of the seventh grade is full of emotionally specific moments that often offer the exact opposite of nostalgia. In the second season finale, though, best friends Maya (Erskin) and Anna (Konkle) experience one of the most undeniable highs of adolescence: the opening night, post-production theater kid dinner. The two roll out of Maya’s mom’s minivan with all the swagger of A-list celebrities, and the camera follows them from behind as they greet a few adoring fans (actually just classmates), giggle their way through the restaurant’s kitchen, and finally stop for a photo op with Maya’s dad acting as photographer. The whole time, The Four Seasons’ “December, 1963” underscores their giddiness and anticipation of what they imagine is a major moment on their path to adulthood. Oh, what a night, indeed.


8. The Queen’s Gambit: “Adjournment”

Queens Gambit Adjournment best TV scenes 2020

The Queen’s Gambit uses chess matches to signify many different things, but it’s never more effortlessly employed as a metaphorical stand-in than during Beth’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) foray into the New York bohemian scene in the series’ penultimate episode. Her mentor and low-key crush Benny (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) invites some friends over to the studio apartment Beth shares with him. Among them are a French model, Cleo (Millie Brady), and her two boyfriends, both of whom are instantly awestruck by Beth’s chess-playing ability. Beth and Cleo talk coyly about sex, food, and Paris, but things really start to heat up when the men in the group give Beth a significant look and Benny suggests they do “a simultaneous.” Beth plays all three men in speed chess at the same time, putting bets on each game. Each time Benny loses, she demands they play again. The fast-paced energetically shot scene is so ripe with erotic tension and power plays that when the crowd finally clears and Benny and Beth make their way to the bedroom, it’s no surprise the series skips their sex scene entirely: we basically already just saw it.


7. DEVS: “Episode 1”

Devs Episode best TV scenes 2020

Alex Garland’s limited speculative fiction series is so well-crafted that every episode has several scenes that could be counted among the best of the year. It’s the pilot episode scene in which Sergei (Karl Glusman) meets his grim fate that earns a spot on this list, though, thanks to its ability to mix together necessary exposition, ultra-cool visuals, and a total shock of a plot twist. Sergei’s first day at super-secret tech project DEVS ends with him attempting to steal information from the company he works for, Amaya. The company’s CEO, Forest (Nick Offerman), meets him outside. A score composed of what sounds like menacingly grinding machinery kicks in, and the trees on the Amaya campus are ringed with uncanny halos of artificial light.

“The universe is deterministic,” Forest says, explaining that everything that happens is godless, neutral, and based on cause and effect. He’s explaining DEVS, but he’s also explaining why what happens next has to happen next. “You made no decision to betray me,” Forest says. “You could only have done what you did.” With that, Sergei makes a break for it and is quickly dispatched by Amaya’s head of security (Zach Grenier), a plastic bag suffocating his gasping breaths. The philosophical thesis of the series is now clear; it’s also incredibly bleak.


6. We Are Who We Are: “Right here, right now #8 and last”

We Are Who We Are Right Here Right Now best TV scenes 2020

Much of Luca Guadagnino’s Italy-set coming-of-age series lingers on the impact of disconnect and frustration. Although artistic, outburst-prone Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) and confident, gender-exploratory Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamón, whose character also goes by Harper) quickly become thick as thieves, their relationship is ever-shifting, underscored by misunderstandings and jealousies and untapped yearnings. That is, until the last few minutes of the final episode, when Fraser runs through Bologna to catch Harper at the train station, then climb a historic portico to see “the most beautiful place on earth.” Fraser’s run itself is gorgeously captured. It’s thrillingly romantic, energetically scored, and spliced with stray shots of Bologna’s streets. Once they make it to their scenic sky-drenched destination, every awkwardness between the two melts away. There are shared glances. There are sweet kisses. There’s a rightness to the duo’s teenaged happy ending, and Guadagnino’s signature swooning intimacy, which had been reigned in for much of the emotionally fraught season, is on full display.

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Valerie Ettenhofer is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer, TV-lover, and mac and cheese enthusiast. As a Senior Contributor at Film School Rejects, she covers television through regular reviews and her recurring column, Episodes. She is also a voting member of the Critics Choice Association's television and documentary branches. Twitter: @aandeandval (She/her)