My Favorite Scenes in Television Shows.

I don't watch much TV, anymore, but here's the list.

10. Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Carl's Eyes

The apostrophe up there counts for contraction, not possession. The horror-movie characters of his neighbors in New Jersey, these monsters of fast-food food that walk around and bother him, tend to kill him like Kenny is killed, in South Park. But rarely does Carl face such abuse, as when he is turned into Eyes. The way he screams as he walks across the ground. Beautiful/terrifying.

9. Mad Men: The Pot Guys

One of two Mad Mens on this list. Don Draper walks into a room full of hippies, dirty, fucking hippies from the sixties, or just sort of Greenwich Village–type guys, and he smokes with them, after sort of hanging out with his missus, on the side, who is this artsy chick, and then he gets up to leave. They say, "Man, you can't leave, now, the Cops are out there." And he says, you can't leave. And he walks in his nice suit, with his respectable manner, outside.

8. Breaking Bad: Walt Walks In

Breaking Bad could get a lot of spots on this list, and I'm not necessarily excluding multiple entries for one show, but in any case, if this is the only one and something before it wasn't one, then this is a good one. Similar to the scene where Walt approaches Jesse outside his house, sort of lurking in the bushes like a scorpion, this one shows Walt walking past some colored windows outside of a drug dealer, Tucco,'s den, where he goes in, wrecks shit, opens up shop, and steals all the money, or rather, just takes what was owed to him. And then he goes into his car, sits there, and growls, "YESSS."

7. Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!: Paninis

The funniest skit, or at least the one that had the most lasting memorability along with being screamingly funny, is the one where John C. Reilly's mentally questionable news personality Steve Brule (Dr. Steve Brule) got to make paninis on the air with a woman who apparently makes paninis. He stands there and she guides him through what should be a simple process, and his inability to respond to her answers to his questions, which include, "What's a panini?" is so shockingly funny that when he burns his mouth at the end, you die.

6. Review: "Cocaine"

The show Review, which I've mentioned in my favorite shows ever and tends to match the rest of this list, for that, is about a guy who reviews not a specific medium of artistic appeal or a set category of things, like that guy on YouTube who reviews McDonalds products in a full suit, but rather just reviews life stuff. And in one episode where he's not reviewing getting shot or eating fifteen pancakes and then, more horrifyingly, 30 pancakes, Forrest McNeil reviews cocaine. These reviews tend to change his character's outside life, which you then see, in the show, but this one ended with him shouting at the screen, "Cocaine gets a million stars!" or something like that, as he harangues you for listening to what he's going to say, later, when, of course, he gives it a lower rating.

5. Rectify: Daniel Dancing with His Mother

This story, of a character who gets released, Damien Echols–style, from prison after being falsely accused on murder and spending the second twenty or so years of his life in jail, is just a revolting story of how horrible it is to come back to the world, and how wonderful, and to realize that everyone's left you behind. And there is one scene, later in the series, where he is dancing with his mother at an event, or something, and he's just slow-dancing with her, and it is the saddest case of a stunted Adolescence, I've ever seen.

4. Fargo: Season Two: Revolution

The character plated by Bokeem Woodbine in the second season of Fargo is a man who talks about aliens, I think, or given that there's an abduction in the show, or at least an encounter, he seems to be an alien. Like, this guy has the strangest, kind of hobbit-like energy you've ever seen, and he walks around with two effectively mute, giant Amish guys, wearing black suits. And in this episode, in this scene, he does a little circle in the air with his hand as he says something about how if revolution means to spin around to the same place, in astronomy, then why does it seem to be mentioned as a change, in real life?

3. True Detective: Season Two: The Tree Scene

Final episode. Minor spoilers. Colin Farrell's character, earlier in the series, talks about how his dad was the size of a tree, or that the trees were like giants, or something, and in the last, the final, episode, he sits against a giant tree in a forest, a Redwood tree, and looks like he's taking a rest to contemplate his whole life.

2. The Leftovers: The Grand Battle

The field scene in the first episode of The Leftovers, the HBO show about the rapture, told from the perspective, seemingly, of those who were left behind, was the perfect introduction to how heavenly this show could be. A group people wearing all white coming over a hill, not in a KKK way, although I'm sure you could find connections, if you wanted, or at least make an argument for some, and the other people going to fight them, and the monkish people in the white, who just stand there silently and smoke cigarettes, everywhere they go, are called "the Guilty Remnant," perhaps people who don't think there is something good to be said for having been left behind. While James Blake is playing. I love this artsy shit.

1. Mad Men: The Elevator

There is perhaps no better scene from my favorite show ever than the one where Don Draper, generally lost in life, goes from the empty office he's in to the elevator, which opens up and reveals an empty elevator shaft. It's also got some monolith elements, from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it doesn't even need that (the episode is also called "The Monolith," so [Oh, no, that’s another one). The scene itself is just pure poetry, and something truly elegant in television History.