2025 was not just a good year for television. It was also a refreshingly diverse year for the medium.
The year’s best shows range from a star-driven neo-noir on FX and a “Star Wars” spin-off to a breakout HBO Max hit that felt like both a return to old-fashioned, procedural TV medical dramas and a mature, thoughtful evolution of them. The best TV episodes of the year did not all come from the most acclaimed shows, either. In 2025, there were a number of uneven, undeniably flawed series as well, which nonetheless briefly overcame their shortcomings and delivered episodes so memorable that they still stand out, in some cases, months later.
With all of that in mind, here are the best TV episodes of 2025.
“Slow Horses” Season 5, Episode 6 – “Scars”
“Slow Horses” viewers have been waiting years to learn more about Slough House leader and MI5 veteran Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman). In the Apple TV thriller’s Season 5 finale, aptly titled “Scars,” viewers finally get the moment of insight they have been seeking in the form of a jaw-dropping, last-minute shot of Lamb’s feet. The moment, brilliantly executed by director Saul Metzstein and departing showrunner Will Smith, both pays off a memorable scene from earlier in “Slow Horses” Season 5 and justifies viewers’ ongoing commitment to the show.
Before that, the finale also delivers a 1-on-1 conversation between Oldman’s Lamb and James Callis’ arrogant Claude Whelan that is as exciting as any action set piece. Together, these two moments form an astonishing one-two punch that reestablishes Oldman’s anti-hero as the show’s single greatest strength. There was no episode of TV this year more purely satisfying than “Scars.” — Alex Welch
“Paradise” Season 1, Episode 7 – “The Day”
“Paradise” was the first real surprise of the year for me and its penultimate episode, which explained what truly happened out in the world to lead all these people to life in a nuclear bunker underneath a mountain, felt like a disaster movie on the small screen. Where Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite” failed to capture the tension of people in power grappling with making a country-altering decision, “The Day” keeps you hooked, engaged, and white-knuckling your seat.
James Marsden who, for story reasons, had not had a ton of time to shine in his own right, came out swinging in this episode. He’s phenomenal from start to finish as a flawed president looking to do right by his country in what may be the last decision he has to make. – Jacob Bryant
“Pluribus” Season 1, Episode 1 – “We Is Us”
A disaster movie in slow-motion. That is the best way to describe the first episode of “Pluribus,” titled “We Is Us.” Written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan, the Apple TV dramedy’s premiere offers viewers a sensational entry into its story of a hive-mind pandemic that wipes away the individuality of nearly every human being on Earth.
Much like he did in “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” Gilligan charts his demented alien invasion in obsessive, step-by-step detail, an approach that only makes it all the more satisfying to watch the dominoes fall in all their uncanny, fiery glory in the second half of “We Is Us.” Gilligan’s process-first style additionally sets viewers up to expect a last-minute resurrection in the final moments of the “Pluribus” premiere that never comes. In doing so, he brilliantly pulls the rug out from under both the viewer and Rhea Seehorn’s Carol and, at the same time, sets up her grief-driven crusade moving forward. It is just about as effective and efficient as TV writing gets. — AW
“The Rehearsal” Season 2, Episode 3 – “Pilot’s Code”
No episode of “The Rehearsal” Season 2 better captured the oddity and heart behind Nathan Fielder’s look into airline safety than “Pilot’s Code.” This club truly had everything – Sully Sullenberger cosplay, Nathan being breastfed by a papier-mache puppet mother, Evanescence – as the star tried to figure out what it was about the famed New York pilot that helped him pull off the Miracle on the Hudson.
The entire episode felt like a fever dream with a heart of gold and was the first point in the season where it was clear Fielder might be spending the season examining himself and why he does what he does as much as the very real passion behind this airline safety episode. And I’m not too afraid to admit that, whether it was the first time or a rewatch – I still get chills every time Fielder reveals the runtime of the “Bring Me To Life” chorus syncs up perfectly with Sully’s silence before making the decision to land his plane in the Hudson. That’s just generational television. -AW
“Wheel of Time” Season 3, Episode 4 – “The Road to the Spear”
“The Wheel of Time” is a rare show that improved every season across its three-season run on Prime Video. While the first was rocky for both fans of Robert Jordan’s sprawling book series and TV viewers looking for the next “Game of Thrones,” the third – and unfortunately final – season found its footing and still stands as one of the best shows of 2025.
Nowhere is that more on display than in the season’s fourth episode, “The Road to the Spear.” While the rest of the series featured a sprawling cast and multiple POVs in every episode, this entry honed in only on Rand and Moraine’s journey through Rhuidean. Rand’s path takes him through the history of his ancestors and Josha Stradowski pulled every trick out of his bag playing, each member of his bloodline while hidden under makeup. This might not be the episode to show new viewers to sell them on the show, but it will stand as the crown jewel of the series. – JB
“Black Mirror” Season 7, Episode 5 – “Eulogy”
“Black Mirror” Season 7 was, as is often the case with the Netflix sci-fi series, a mixed bag. Hidden among the season’s various installments, though, was “Eulogy,” a heart-wrenching, reflective drama that ranks high on the list of best “Black Mirror” episodes. The entry is a contained drama about a middle-aged man (Paul Giamatti) whose invitation to provide memories for an ex-girlfriend’s funeral sends him down an immersive journey into his own past. “Black Mirror” is known as a show that often highlights — and sometimes predicts — the biggest dangers of modern technology.
But its best episodes (see also: “Hang the DJ,” “San Junipero,”) more often than not use high-concept sci-fi conceits to offer some hope for humanity’s failings. In the case of “Eulogy,” Giamatti’s Phillip learns too late, with the help of the episode’s futuristic tech, how much his own, limited perspective has cost him. Giamatti’s performance is among the best in “Black Mirror” history, and its final 10 minutes are similarly among the show’s outright weepiest. Watching the episode calls to mind that simple, sucker-punch line from “Magnolia,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 epic: “The goddamn regret!” — AW
“The Lowdown” Season 1, Episode 5 – “This Land?”
Practically every episode of “The Lowdown,” the new FX neo-noir from “Reservation Dogs” creator Sterlin Harjo, felt like a gift. But perhaps none more so than “This Land?” This mid-season gem features a one-episode guest turn from Peter Dinklage as the estranged former business partner of Ethan Hawke’s self-destructive, reckless Lee Raybon who skydives back into the latter’s life to help him with his ongoing, amateur investigation and force him to mourn the death of a mutual friend.
Dinklage and Hawke have electric chemistry on screen, and there were few funnier lines of dialogue you could find on TV this year than when Dinklage — mid-wrestling match — ordered Hawke to “Drink my piss!” It is only 20 minutes later in the episode that the two actors are sharing an emotionally explicit, vulnerable conversation about their thorny care for each other, and it all just works. “The Lowdown” proved to be a show that could do it all, and no episode better exemplifies that than “This Land?” — AW
“Alien: Earth” Season 1, Episode 5 – “In Space, No One…”
Episodes set entirely in a flashback are the bane of my TV-going experience for the most part. It slams the momentum of the story to a violent halt to go off and overly explain something. I was confident in my unanimous hatred for the all-flashback episode – and then something like “Alien: Earth” comes around and has me questioning myself entirely.
“In Space, No One…” pauses the forward narrative to the days before the Maginot landed on Earth with its deadly cargo and how the whole situation played out. If you fell off the show because the “Alien” show didn’t feel “Alien” enough for you, this was creator Noah Hawley’s flex on how well he understood what worked about the franchise and how to implement and expand on it for the small screen. The episode also gives the already great Babou Ceesay’s Morrow the space and time to shine as the cyborg does what needs doing to ensure Weyland-Yutani gets their cargo, while also showing the man behind the machine parts. — JB
“Severance” Season 2, Episode 7 – “Chikhai Bardo”
“Chikhai Bardo” is one of those episodes in a puzzlebox show like “Severance” that fans yearn for. After seasons of waiting, and plenty of talk about it, the episode finally dives deep on Mark and Gemma’s relationship before the “crash” that led to her being reprogrammed as Ms. Casey and Mark decided to become a severed employee.
All of that interspersed with what Gemma/Ms. Casey’s real purpose as a part of Cold Harbor was and how she had been forced to work for Lumon after leaving the severed floor. The episode is a master class at answering big questions while replacing them with larger ones, but at the core its a love story about two people who slipped away from one another. I’ll say it now – “Chikhai Bardo” will go down as the “Severance” equivalent of fabled “Lost” episode “The Constant,” which is about as high of praise as I can give any one TV episode. – JB
“The Pitt” Season 1, Episode 12 – “6:00PM”
Of all the episodes of “The Pitt” that we could have picked, the most obvious may have been Season 1, Episode 13, which ends with Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) experiencing a traumatic breakdown that rightly earned Wyle widespread acclaim and, in all likelihood, his eventual Emmy win. But, when looking back at the first season of “The Pitt,” it is Episode 12, “6:00PM,” that stands out the most. This breakneck episode is the first chapter of the series’ multi-installment mass shooting arc, and it follows its various nurses and doctors — led by Wyle’s Robby — as they treat countless shooting victims as they arrive with the sudden force of a tidal wave.
The resulting episode is terrifying, anxiety-inducing, thrilling and, perhaps most surprising of all, deeply comforting. “The Pitt” Season 1 was often at its best when it was both delivering thought-provoking drama and celebrating the world’s health care workers. “6:00PM” does just that by allowing its heroes’ shared competency under enormous, unimaginable pressure to speak for itself. In the end, there was just something profoundly affecting this year about getting to watch trained professionals be very, very good at their jobs. — AW
“Andor” Season 2, Episode 9 – “Welcome to the Rebellion”
“Andor” Season 2 is not lacking in noteworthy episodes. But there were simply few TV episodes this year that felt as operatic and vital as “Welcome to the Rebellion.” The climactic installment of the season’s third, multi-episode arc follows Diego Luna’s beleaguered Cassian Andor as he mounts a daring mission to escort Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) to safety after she delivers a career-ending, life-threatening public denouncement of the Galactic Empire and its leader, Emperor Palpatine. All of “Andor’s” threads come together in “Welcome to the Rebellion,” an episode that is as nerve-wracking as any other but also unexpectedly, viscerally cathartic.
Coming off the brutal, disheartening chaos and violence of the season’s eighth installment, “Who Are You?,” “Andor” manages to deliver the victory that its heroes — and viewers — desperately need in “Welcome to the Rebellion.” The episode hammers home the cost and importance of standing up for what is right, and the bittersweet departure of Adria Arjona’s Bix in its closing moments cements “Andor” as the kind of sweeping, mythic tragedy the likes of which we rarely see anymore — on TV or in the movie theater. — AW
