2024 in Review: The Scenes We Can’t Stop Thinking About

Jin and Jack disappear into the increasingly addictive video game after which the Netflix series is named, with things getting freakier every time they put on the helmets. On this go-around, while the pair are hanging out with Kubla Khan at his pleasure dome, a syzygy makes gravity go bye-bye. Everyone — including a massive army arrayed on the lands below — starts to float into the heavens, and the dazzling visuals are something that played out in our minds’ eye for a long time after. (Those poor, confused horses!)

Talking about playing a trump card. With her triumphant reveal of the Tower card, upright, Patti Lupone’s Lilia set in motion just that — an inversion of the castle in which the Salem Seven had cornered her, sending the septet of witches (and a selfless Lilia herself) oh-so-slowly falling, upwards, to their deaths on the swords that’d been dangling from the ceiling.

Richard Gadd’s stand-up comic Donny Dunn spent most of his Netflix series bottling up the simmering rage and shame inside of him — until it all came spilling out in a messy, cathartic 11-minute monologue on stage, where he came clean about everything. The sexual abuse he suffered, the guilt he felt for allowing himself to fall victim to it, the unbearable self-hate he harbored as a result… it was a scorchingly honest, heartbreakingly intense baring of the soul, and we couldn’t take our eyes off of it.

There are a plethora of reasons why we’ll never forget BB26‘s Angela Murray. High on that list: her charcuterie meltdown. After fellow houseguest Brooklyn Rivera (among others) went to town on her hard-earned meats and cheeses, an exhausted and beyond dramatic Angela lay on the floor to cry it out. Then shed more tears in the Diary Room. Then didn’t let it go for what felt like the entire season. Who knew brie and prosciutto could cause so much chaos and sadness?

After a season filled with bloody gunfights and nasty double-crosses, there was something beautiful about FX’s crime anthology wrapping up with a quiet scene around the dinner table. Otherworldly hitman Ole Munch came to Dot’s door intent on settling the score between them, but Dot defused his anger with soothing words about the power of forgiveness… along with a freshly baked biscuit. We’ll never forget the joy that broke across Ole’s face, like he was finally liberated from a lifetime of violence, as he bit into that biscuit. In fact, we’re getting hungry just thinking about it.

It could have been a throwaway, a nothing, when Sam flashed the sign for “I love you” as she was wheeled into surgery to donate part of her liver to significant other Dante’s ex-wife, Lulu — but it very much wasn’t. “It was not scripted,” Sam’s portrayer Kelly Monaco tweeted afterwards. Keenly aware that she was being killed off after 21 years with the soap, the actress used the gesture to acknowledge her fans on her way out.

As with all true-crime dramas, we assumed that Netflix would take more than a few creative liberties when crafting its limited series about cocaine queen Griselda Blanco — so imagine our surprise to learn that one of the show’s biggest jaw-droppers actually happened in real life. From behind bars, Griselda’s hitman coerced secretaries at the District Attorney’s office into having phone sex with him, a scandal which destroyed the case against his boss. If this plot twist had been pitched in a writers’ room, it would have been shot down for being too ridiculous.

After Deborah lied to Ava about her late-night show’s head writer position, Ava confronted her boss in the fieriest of showdowns. We could feel Ava’s deep hurt thanks to Hannah Einbinder’s fantastic showing. And when Deborah told her scribe that the show had to be “bulletproof,” Ava lashed out calling the comic selfish and saying that Deborah would die alone. Betrayal, shock, devastation, tears. This episode released back in May, and we’re still recovering, thankyouverymuch.

How much do we simultaneously love and hate the moment at Sahar’s Halloween party when Nick breaks down and cries on Tao’s shoulder? On one hand, it’s a beautiful illustration of how far the former adversaries have come since Season 1’s passive-aggressive offer of a crisp; Tao now understands that if anyone loves Charlie more than he does, it’s Nick. On the other hand, it’s an absolutely devastating demonstration of how terribly Nick misses his boyfriend while he’s away seeking treatment for his eating disorder

When Yasmin revealed she was marrying tech billionaire Henry Muck on HBO’s high finance drama, it was like a dagger straight to the heart of her on-again, off-again boy toy Robert… and to our hearts, too. The scene was filmed with incredible artistry as well, with all the other dinner guests suddenly vanishing, leaving just Yasmin and Robert staring at each other across the table. “I’m sorry,” she told him, to which he bravely replied: “I understand.” An absolute knockout, on a technical level — and on an emotional one, too.

After getting walloped by a booby trap set up in the jungle, Jane came to and embarked on a walkabout of sorts, traversing gorgeous Hawai’ian vista after gorgeous Hawai’ian vista, before finding respite in a hermit’s shack. The dynamic between Jane and her gun-toting host was familiar and yet fraught, which made sense once we realized it was an injured Tennant’s hallucination — and that the woman was her dead (?) mother!

Jerrod spent an entire season grappling with his mother’s conditional love now that he’s come out as gay, and everything came to a head in the haunting finale. We audibly gasped when Jerrod’s mom said she would be turning to Jesus to help “take the desire” from her son to reverse his gayness. We gasped even louder when Jerrod offered to join her in that prayer. What followed were two of the most honest reactions we’ve ever seen play out on TV: Jerrod’s clear, immediate regret and his mother’s twisted hope. Despite the series wanting to play with fiction, it couldn’t help but deliver something this real.

If you had approached us in the mid-1990s, when Grease and Sonic the Hedgehog were all the rage, and claimed that Stockard Channing (aka Betty Rizzo) would someday share a scene with Knuckles the Echidna, we wouldn’t have believed you. And if you’d have told us that she would introduce her unexpected houseguest to Pretty Woman after treating him to a delightful Shabbat dinner, we’d have called you crazy. Come 2024, however, we’d owe you one heck of an apology. Not only did this exact scenario play out, but Knuckles’ take on the classic Julia Roberts film was surprisingly heartwarming: “I don’t understand. This young streetwalker with the heart made of gold, why do the others treat her with such disdain? Is it so wrong to walk the streets?”

After opening on Charles’ wedding day, in which he gives a toast and tells everyone at the reception just how much he loves his wife, we cut to the present day and see that Charles is all by himself. It’s all we can do to stop ourselves from reaching through the TV and letting the widower know that he’s not alone as he attempts to maintain a daily routine — and for what? We stay with him from sunup to sundown, and it’s just about the saddest thing we’ve seen since the opening minutes of Up.

There’s simply no other show on television like The Masked Singer. One minute you’re watching a man dressed like a gumball machine crying about his dead wife, and the next you’re rocking out to a cover of The Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’t Cha” by Carnie Wilson with almost no segue whatsoever. Tonally speaking, it’s the most unhinged hour of TV since Hoda Kotb co-hosted the Today show with Kathie Lee Gifford — and that’s the highest of compliments.

Outlander‘s Lord John Grey and Jamie Fraser have been friends for decades, but that doesn’t mean they always say exactly what’s on their minds… or they didn’t, that is, until Episode 12. When Jamie doesn’t quite understand how bereft both his wife, Claire, and John were when they thought Jamie was dead, or why they wound up sleeping together, Grey puts a fine point on it: “Neither one of us was making love to the other,” he says heatedly, “we were both f–king you!” Sassenachs, we gasped!

“You do know, don’t you…? That man is your father.” As if Annika crashing Noa’s weekly dinner with Hansu wasn’t rude enough, her (admittedly spot-on) speculation that the men were father and son crossed a line. Or, more probably, it voiced a truth that Noa had suppressed, ergo his abrupt and violent reaction, choking his girlfriend before stealthily saying farewell, forever, to his mother.

One day, we all will have to sit our grandchildren down to explain the historic showdown between Heather Gay and Monica Garcia (aka Reality Von Tease). After orchestrating the perfect set-up to face Monica head-on, Heather delivered her now-iconic line to back up her accusations: “Receipts. Proof. Timeline. Screenshots.” And the theatrics only continued as Heather’s Limoncello-colored dress billowed in the wind and she dropped another long-awaited bombshell: It was indeed Jen Shah who gave Heather her infamous Season 3 black eye. And the woman ended the scene with a Housewives first — she fired a fellow cast member on the spot! A Wifetime Achievement Award-worthy performance!

We’ve seen some crazy ish go down in the Werk Room over the years, but not even we could have imagined Roxxy Andrews twerking on an actual Teletubbie. (And if we did imagine that happening, it would have been with Tinky Winky, not Laa-Laa.)

You know that nightmare where you’re inexplicably performing something on stage and you completely forget your lines? That became an unfortunate reality for Drag Race favorite Mayhem Miller, who traveled all the way across the pond just to crash and burn in the first challenge of the season. And she didn’t even bother to cover it up. At one point, she just looked off camera and yelled, “Aw, f–k!” The secondhand embarrassment wasn’t just real, it was painful.

In a spectacular sequence near the end of FX’s samurai epic, one woman brought an entire army of warriors to its knees. Lady Mariko, played with powerful grace by Anna Sawai, challenged Lord Ishido’s men to stop her from leaving his castle, leading to a tense standoff where Mariko calmly sidestepped arrows and swung a naginata blade at the castle guards. We could hardly take a breath during the entire scene… which we’re pretty sure cinched Sawai her Emmy.

The first time Alice exchanged words with Louis, there was nothing but rage. But the next time the two crossed paths, she somehow found the ability to empathize. The scene in Louis’ apartment — where he expressed deep sorrow for the drunk driving incident that killed her mom — felt so deep and so real thanks to masterclass performances from Lukita Maxwell and Brett Goldstein. We’ll never forget the sweet stories Alice and Brian shared about Tia, or Louis’ soulful response, a true turning point for the show’s sophomore season. Maybe forgiveness really is divine.

Of all the couples that the already-much-missed Grey’s Anatomy spinoff put forth over the years, we were never surer that one was endgame than the unit that was formed by besties Vic and Travis. So it wasn’t just rewarding, it was PROFOUNDLY rewarding — thrilling, even — when the series ended with him surprising her at the airport to join her as she left Seattle to take Crisis One national. “As it turns out,” he told her, “my life is wherever you are.” #RelationshipGoals don’t get any loftier.

The term “roller coaster” gets thrown around a lot while discussing TV, but there’s simply no more accurate description for the final episode of Superman & Lois — specifically the 10-minute closing sequence, whose emotional impact will remain with us well into the new year. From the moment David Giuntoli (aka Bitsie Tulloch’s real-life husband?!) showed up as a grown-up Jonathan, our jaws were on the floor. By the time Clark reunited with Lois (and that red dress!) in the afterlife, we’d been reduced to blubbering puddles.

Maria Shrime Gonzalez was the contestant to beat in Season 46, so much so that two of her competitors had to work together in order to best the challenge beast. But Maria’s devastating loss raised more than a few eyebrows, as fans questioned whether Liz Wilcox should’ve even been allowed to help Kenzie Petty during an individual immunity challenge. Regardless, it happened. And Maria, the fan-favorite to win it all, was promptly voted out at the next Tribal Council – a crushing blow to the season’s best player and her fans.

Three Women’s mushroom-induced four-way had it all: stunning visuals as the group got down in a floral greenhouse, sexy French lyrics and strings playing in the background, a feeling of euphoria as Sloane and Richard explored the boundaries of their marriage, and the harsh crash as everything fell apart. The perfectly choreographed, 15-minute sex scene ended in a memorably maniacal monologue from Sloane, as she reassured the group, “We all wanted this!” Pure cinema!

Before Will places Angie under arrest, the GBI Special Agent envisions their future — marriage, two daughters, a foster son… growing old together and slow dancing well into the night— knowing full well that what he’s about to do will destroy any chance they’ll have at a happy ending. It’s bittersweet, to say the least, knowing this may be as close as we come to seeing this fan-favorite couple go the distance.

Hell may freeze over before Beth lets Carter call her mama. But that was exactly what she became when she consoled her ward over Colby’s death as he protected the boy from an ornery stud. After Carter gave the impression that he was spending the night in the tack room, she gently suggested, “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to wrestle with this by myself. I’d want to be with my family.” Carter replied, as he’d been trained to, that he didn’t have one. “Sure, ya do,” Beth assured him with a warmth that we’d rarely — never? — seen from her. Consider our hearts melted.

George Sr. is expected home for a family photoshoot. Instead, Mary opens her front door to find a visibly upset Tom and Wayne, who are there to relay the news that her husband of nearly 20 years — and the father to her three children — has passed away. We’re not sure what’s more devastating: Seeing Mary, Missy and Meemaw burst into tears, or a shellshocked Sheldon collapse into a chair behind them.