While most people have been following the “Safe-At-Home” order, it’s easy to allow things to snowball. As a coach, teacher, and general human being, I’ve always felt that negativity attracts more negativity. Now I know that’s not how magnets work, but life is less about Newton’s Laws, and much more about enjoying as much of it as you can in the finite amount of time you have on Earth. While my last post leaned heavily into the possible disaster scenario we’re in, I want to channel more positivity and focus on some of the best episodes of television to watch while cooped up for the foreseeable future. One of the most satisfying television watching experiences is the escapism that truly great TV shows, or episodes, can provide to us. This list is comprised of the six best SINGLE episodes of television to turn your brain off and just sink into a different world. This is not a definitive of the best episodes of TV ever, but at least one episode on here would overlap, nor is this a list of the best TV shows ever, but I’d recommend all of these for a quarantine binge. For the most part, the overarching plots of the series won’t matter as much as the feelings these episodes bring out of you. I will be explaining and possibly spoiling the episodes to follow so here’s the list if you want to watch spoiler-free:

6. “Total Rickall” Rick & Morty S2E4 (streaming on Hulu)

The Show: For those unaware, Rick & Morty is an adult-animation phenom on Adult Swim. I’m sure half of my followers feel like they’re above “grown-up cartoons” but to the 6.5 of you who doubt the hilarity this cartoon I say “dude, don’t be a dick.” Rick Sanchez is the smartest man on Earth, and after mastering interdimensional travel he discovers an infinite amount of worlds with an equally infinite amount of parallel versions of himself. He becomes a jaded drunk, and takes his grandson Morty on various adventures with little to no overarching theme to the series as a whole.

The Case for This Episode: I’ve always been a big fan of irony and life imitating art. In this episode; Rick, Morty, and the rest of the family have to self-quarantine due to the presence of a deadly alien parasite. Sound familiar? Over the course of the episode, the parasite multiplies through the family’s various “memories” that they themselves implanted in the family. Cabin Fever quickly sets in and the family is on the brink of turning on each other, until they realize only people they share bad memories with are the real family members. Rick, Morty, Summer, and Beth (Jerry is unsurprisingly useless) then go on a shooting spree, killing all the parasites, and critically wounding a dear family friend. Now this may sound closer to a high-brow sci-fi movie than a late night cartoon, here are a few of the parasitic characters: Photography Raptor, Reverse Giraffe, Ghost In A Jar, Mrs. Refrigerator, and Tinkles who gave us this banger, are just a few that we see during a frenetic 22 minute runtime. Rick and Morty found the sweet-spot with this episode as it combines real world relatability, a ridiculous menagerie of characters, and a heartbreaking line from a character named Mr. Poopybutthole is delivered via note after he was mistakenly shot saying “sorry you don’t have any bad memories with me.” All of this combines to make one great way to shut your brain off.

5. “Mrs. George Devereaux” Golden Girls S6E9 (streaming on Hulu)

The Show: Set in the 80’s, The Golden Girls was a truly groundbreaking sitcom due to its cast and subject matter. Structurally speaking, this show is classic fodder for syndication as most of its episodes almost completely stand on their own, and the vast majority of its episodes are light-hearted. I mean even the most serious arc, Rose has a heart attack and needs surgery, centers around pretending to be other people to sneak into a high school reunion, and a dream sequence where Rose convinces all of her friends to freeze their heads when they die so they can always be together. Let the nostalgia ensue and take a deep dive into Miami (the second best city in Florida) with our favorite sexagenarians.

The Case for This Episode: For my GG Stans, it’s clear that this is going to be a Blanche-centric episode. Blanche is my girl. She is a confident, trailblazing, independent woman, who is in tune with her sexuality, and is an intelligent museum curator. Blanche Elizabeth Marie Devereaux is iconic with claps between every syllable, and I’m glad Buzzfeed told me I’m her. The cornerstone of Blanche’s identity, at least when looking at the construction of her character, would be the death of her husband George. So when this episode begins with Blanche receiving flowers from a secret admirer only to realize they’re from her dead husband George it’s jarring. Throughout the course of this episode we see Blanche, normally a paragon of self-confidence, go from angry that George fakes his death, to unsure about getting back with a man who would leave her that way, and eventually elated to get a second chance with the love of her life. Upon crossing the room to finally embrace him, Blanche wakes up. The episode was all a dream. She tells the girls about it and is content as she confesses, “I actually got to hug him this time.” As if this heart-wrenching and Inception-inspiring tale of love isn’t enough to be a legendary episode of The Golden Girls, there’s also a subplot of Sonny Bono and Lionel Waggoner literally fighting over Dorothy AND Rose gives us the greatest St. Olaf story ever.

4. “Remedial Chaos Theory” Community S3E4 (streaming on Netflix/Hulu)

The Show: I will confess that I was one of the small minority of people who thought Community was the best of NBC’s big 4 of The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, and Community. In this series we see a study group becomes a family over the course of 6 seasons (no movie YET), and hilarity ensues. The cast combines peak Joel McHale with some relative unknowns who were destined for bigger and better things, Donald Glover and Alison Brie, and the visionary minds of Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty) and the Russo brothers (Arrested Development, Avengers Infinity War and End Game). This is truly one of the most creative sitcoms of its time with episodes where: the whole campus got into a paintball war, a musical episode where the cast is replaced by puppets, a Ken Burns-esque documentary about a pillow war, a Black Mirror precursor, and an 8-bit video game episode are just a few of the innovations this show pulled off during its run. It is absolutely worth a binge on Netflix.

The Case For This Episode: Like most sitcoms, Community has a loose plot that easily explainable, the cast is trying to get through community college and shenanigans ensue. This episode in particular places our study group in Troy and Abed’s apartment. When the pizza arrives no one wants to go grab it, so Jeff devises a plan. He’d roll a die, and whatever number it landed on the corresponding member of the group would go grab the pizza. Abed, the 4th-wall breaking character of the group, points out this splits everything into 6 different timelines. Instead of this being a throwaway quote, it becomes the plot of the episode and we see what happens when the die lands on its six different sides. When each member goes to get the pizza we see the different aspects of the group highlighted (or is it highlit?). When Shirley goes to get the pizzas, the group bullies each other without her motherly presence and they let her pies burn hurting her feelings. When Pierce goes, Troy and Britta have a moment and we see the potential for a love connection between the two. Abed leaves and the toxicity of the group comes out as things are uncomfortable when he’s gone. When Troy leaves, we see the worst possible timeline (the darkest timeline) as Pierce is bleeding to death from a gunshot wound, and the apartment is on fire. I like to think this is unintentional foreshadowing for what would happen to the show when Donald Glover leaves. In every timeline we see a few constants as Pierce mentions having sex with Eartha Kitt, Jeff stops Britta from singing “Roxanne,” and Jeff hits his head on the ceiling fan. Eventually, Abed points out Jeff is number 7 in the group, and rigged it to where he’d never have to go get the pizzas. Jeff then laughs, and goes to get the pizzas in the “prime timeline.” When he’s gone we see the group possibly living their best case scenarios. With no one to interrupt Britta, everyone sings “Roxanne” together, everyone enjoys Shirley’s pies, the group dances together, Pierce gets rid of his present for Troy that was supposed to scare him, and Abed asks Annie to move in with he and Troy. Jeff eventually returns to see the group without him, and he smiles trying to hide the fact that he feels like an outsider amongst them. Between the editing, writing, and acting, this is a gem of an episode that really dives into what makes group dynamics so interesting, and hits on the always interesting “what would happen if…” question masterfully. It also gets bonus points as 2020 makes it seem like we are in the darkest timeline.

3. “The Last Supper” Broad City S1E10 (Hulu)

The Show: Abbi Abrams (Abbi Jacobsen) and Ilana Wexler (Ilana Glazer) are two single girls in NYC. This went from a youtube series to comedy central and is arguably one of the funniest shows of the 2010s. Abbi tends to be the more reserved and creative one, she paints celeb’s favorite foods for example, and Ilana is the ultra-extroverted independent woman who smokes a lot of weed and hooks up with whomever she wants (sometimes they look just like her) whenever she wants. In these 5 extremely binge-able seasons, Abbi and Ilana get into a wide range of sitcom antics. We follow these two from working random jobs to save up for Lil Wayne tickets, to trying to have the perfect night and ending up at Val Bar, to accidentally working for the Clinton Campaign in 2016, to not being able to orgasm because of the results of the Election of 2016. This show is hilarious, and mostly light-hearted. I had an extremely difficult time picking just one to watch, so I HIGHLY recommend everyone saying “Yas Queen” to a binge of this brilliance.

The Case for This Episode: The defining thread for Broad City is the friendship of Abbi and Ilana. They are the gold standard when it comes to BFF’s. This episode is able to find a balance that both highlights their devotion to each other, as well as the ridiculousness of the situations they get into. While at dinner for Abbi’s 26th birthday we see: Abbi and Ilana thirstily staring at guys playing pickup basketball to the point where the guys (in gym attire) are uncomfortable in a mastery of gender role reversal, a chef (Amy Poehler producer of the series and director of this episode) and her waiter ex-husband hatefully argue with each other, a condom falls out of Abbi, they get high and realize every pet from their childhood animal movies are probably dead now, Abbi realizes the condom wasn’t from her current boyfriend so she “has to deal with that!”, Ilana begins to have a horrible allergic reaction to the shellfish she ordered, but it’s all good because she planned this out, and Abbi accidentally stabs herself with Ilana’s epipen and carries Ilana to an awaiting ambulance. This whole episode is everything that friendship and television should be.

2. “Hang The DJ” Black Mirror S4E4 (streaming on Netflix)

The Show: Black Mirror is a British anthology series that takes places at various points from the near to distant future. Most episodes revolve around a certain piece of technology, and how it changes human life. These changes are almost always for the worse. This dark and dystopian subject matter make the series as a whole a tough candidate for a binge, especially since it seems like we here in the United States are living through “The Waldo Moment” currently. I personally love the show, and have made an assignment for my senior students that revolves around the third season episode “Nosedive“, where we critique our collective addictions to social media.

The Case for This Episode: Remember when I said most episodes of this show are a dystopian downer? This episode is the antithesis of that statement. I’m going to make the bold claim that this single episode of the darkest show on TV is the best Rom-Com of the last 15 years. During a 51 minute runtime, we meet Amy and Frank. They have a great first date in a mostly technology free “couple’s resort setting, but we find their relationship had a predetermined end date. The tech of this episode is “The Coach”, which pairs potential couples for a predetermined amount of time while learning about the person to find them their soulmate, bragging about a 99.8% accuracy. Every time there is a new couple paired up, they check how long the relationship will last, varying from hours to years. This episode dives deep into interpersonal relationships, as we see Amy and Frank become quickly annoyed with their second pairings’ foibles. One does a heavy sigh after literally everything, the other is predetermined to be miserable from the beginning. Eventually Amy and Frank are paired up again and agree not to check the amount of time they will have together. There is a clear spark between the two, and they both feel it, but Frank breaks his word (men are trash) and checks. Their relationship is reduced from 5 years to a few weeks and he’s heartbroken. We see Frank go into a pouty tailspin telling his date he planned on imagining Amy (she agreed because she wanted to imagine her previous guy), and we see Amy go through a montage of random dudes (and one lady). The episode climaxes when Amy is paired with “her perfect match” and is told she can spend one last day with anyone of her choice. She chooses Frank, and they decide to break out of this resort. While escaping, we realize this was all a simulation (set up earlier when Frank mentions this could all be a simulation as a meta-joke), as everything goes black we see a thousand Franks and Amys, and find out that 998 (or 99.8%) of them escaped in the same way. The whole episode was just 1 of 1,000 simulations playing out, and it ends with the real Frank and Amy checking their phones to see “their perfect match” is in front of them. They lock eyes and smile. Cue The Smith’s, roll the credits. My typing did this show no justice, but I got the same chills as I do every time I watch this masterpiece. “Hang The DJ” twists the dark Black Mirror expectations we have, and turns it into a sweet love-story that transcends space, time and reality in a truly beautiful way.

1. “The Constant” LOST S4E5 (streaming on Hulu)

The Show: I’ve talked a bit about LOST before. I admit, this isn’t the best show ever (that’s The Wire btw), but it is my favorite. I binge it every summer. This show boasted one of the most diverse casts of all time, and used mystery and a gorgeous Hawaiian backdrop to pose weekly philosophical questions to its audience. Between the Easter Eggs, and the weekly debates of what the smoke monster is, LOST challenged its viewers to think outside the box and expect the unexpected. I will Stan this show for the rest of my life, and will eventually get a LOST tattoo.

The Case For This Episode: Admittedly, episodes of LOST probably aren’t the best candidate (I hope fans got that reference) to watch as one-offs. Built on its overarching mystery, almost every episode (not “Nikki and Paolo” nor “Jack’s Tattoo”) is needed to piece together the puzzle as a whole. While this episode is probably much better with connection to the characters, “The Constant” is a pretty unique bottle episode. Centering around Desmond, this episode puts a unique twist on time-travel. Desmond’s consciousness becomes “unstuck in time” and the show’s trademark flashbacks happen in real-time. Over the course of this episode we find out that if Desmond doesn’t find a way to merge his separate timelines he’ll die. In order to do so, he must find a constant from both timelines, and no one fit that moniker better than Penny, the love of his life and the “constant” driving force for his character arc. LOST was a show where the characters were often pitted against each other, and almost always in peril. This episode was special because Sayid, Faraday, single-serving character George Minkowski, big bad Charles Widmore, and almost every other person dedicated their efforts to helping Desmond. The empathetic Sayid, a former communications officer from the Iraqi Republican Guard, uses his technological expertise to get Desmond in contact with Penny. We see Penny kept her promise to Desmond, and learn she’s been looking for him this whole time. They confess their love for each other, and then their conversation ends. Penny’s love for Desmond saves his life. It’s so well-acted, and so beautifully written that I’m tearing up just typing about it. This episode of television is perfect. I read the script when I want to feel inspired. Watching this episode never fails to elevate my mood, and that was the whole point of this list. I could watch it 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, or 42 times and it, much like Richard Alpert, just won’t get old.