Welcome back to The Sitcomologist’s rankings of the 50 best sitcom episodes of the 2010s. This article ranks episodes 50-41. Continue through to read the breakdowns that follow.
50. Little Bo Bleep — Modern Family
S3E13, 2012, ABC
It’s impossible to tell the story of this decade of sitcoms without talking about Modern Family. I mean, it won the first five Outstanding Comedy Series Emmys of the decade. Probably undeservedly so, but still, this show produced high-quality episodes for at least six or seven seasons before it started to trail off.
And it’s hard to remember this with the hindsight of thinking of this show as stale and formulaic, but there were moments where Modern Family sparked controversy. Take Little Bo Bleep, the phenomenal Season 3 episode that’s capped off by Lily saying the F word in front of the altar at a wedding where she was the flower girl. But the episode was so much more than the controversy that people definitely are still mad about seven years later.
Little Bo Bleep is one of the best and most interesting Claire episodes Modern Family ever produced, with Julie Bowen having to play the oft-hilarious trope of fighting her own facial expressions to seem softer and more likeable. Like her TV mom Shelley Long did on Cheers, Bowen uses every muscle in her face to make comedy happen. And when she played that off awesome performances from Ty Burrell and the trio of actors playing her children, it made magic.
Modern Family didn’t age super well. It’s one of this decade’s few examples of a show staying on the air well past its welcome. But when it was at its peak, Modern Family was one of the best, fastest and most influential network sitcoms on television. For that, I feel like they earned one infant F bomb.
49. Dual Spires — Psych
S5E10, 2010, USA Network
Like so many other great shows of this century, Psych is a show that was at its best when it was paying homage to or referencing great media of the past. Dual Spires is the most specific and well-constructed homage Psych ever pulled off.
For an hour of television, Psych packed as many references to Twin Peaks as possible into a narrative that actually did pretty well to conceal its twists and turns. I’ve seen one claim that there were 724 Twin Peaks references in the last scene of the episode alone. Which is, like, absurd.
But the references wouldn’t work if there wasn’t genuine comedy underneath them. And Dual Spires highlights the undeniable chemistry between James Roday and Dule Hill as well as any other Psych episode from the 2010s. A majority of the episode revolves around Shawn and Gus interacting with increasingly bizarre and off-putting strangers, allowing for their ping-pong dialogue to flourish.
From the bit where a random child asks Gus if he’s Frederick Douglas to its weird, random digs at The Village, this episode is classic Psych. There are definitely better episodes from the early seasons, but this one illustrates Psych’s power of homage better than any other.
48. Andre and Sarah — Forever
S1E6, 2018, Amazon
Alan Yang was involved with quite a few shows on this list. And trust me, he’ll come up again later. But his tenderest and most melancholic turn of the decade came in the sixth episode of his show Forever, the surrealist comedy headlined by Fred Armisen, Maya Rudolph and a crap ton of ennui.
Andre and Sarah is probably the least funny episode in this top 50, and that’s the only reason its so low on the countdown. Because I’ll be damned if this isn’t beautiful storytelling. In the span of 30 minutes, this episode introduces us to and breaks our heart with two characters who seem perfect for each other but just can’t get the timing right. It’s a romantic comedy without the romance, and with long periods absent of comedy.
That said, Andre and Sarah is one of the few episodes on this list I’d describe as saccharine. The time jumps toy with viewer emotions, and the reveal at the end is downright heartbreaking. But in between that we have sweet bits of character development, headlined by the quest to open an unreachable cabinet.
If it feels like I’m being vague about this episode, it’s intentional. Forever is such a specific and bizarre show, and if you haven’t seen it, I don’t want to deprive you of the twists and turns. But if you have, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that this diversion from the season arc strengthened the show more than any other standalone episode of the decade.
Related Reading: The Decade SNL’s Not-Ready-For-Primetime Players Went Primetime
47. Chase Drops His First Album — The Other Two
S1E9, 2019, Comedy Central
Chase Drops His First Album, the penultimate episode of The Other Two’s fascinatingly awesome and weird first season, is, at its core, an episode of television about a man dying because he froze his penis against the roof of his house. This creates a national moment of catharsis, as people all of the country confess to having loved ones who died in the same way.
Former SNL head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider have created one of the best new shows of 2019, stacked with stellar performances from comedy legends like Molly Shannon, Wanda Sykes and Ken Marino. But this episode takes the cake on surreal stupidity in all the best ways, with the titular other two Dubek siblings having to watch in horror as their international pop star younger brother tries to raise money for cancer charities on a live stream album release party inside an airplane still circling the runway at JFK airport.
This is probably the episode on my countdown with the most bathroom humor. Literally. Most of this episode takes place inside an airplane bathroom. (Plus a few good fart jokes.) But the episode is also surprisingly sweet, which is the way I would describe most of the series. The fact that The Other Two portrays Chase as a sweet, caring kid instead of an egomaniacal child star is where most of the show’s charm comes from, and this episode just oozes charm.
I’m really excited to see where The Other Two takes us in future seasons. It seems built to last a handful more seasons for Comedy Central, and I hope it does. Because Kelly and Schneider have found a winning formula of packing random, absurdist jokes into a slightly off-kilter version of New York City to tell a different version of a story we all thought we knew. I’ll take a show like that any time.
46. Cheesecake To A Fat Man — Everything Sucks!
S1E7, 2018, Netflix
In an era with more TV networks and streaming platforms than you can count, good shows don’t really get cancelled prematurely anymore. Especially on a platform like Netflix where ratings don’t exist. Which is what makes the one-season run of Everything Sucks! all the more painful.
There are obvious comparisons between Everything Sucks!, the 2018 Netflix sitcom about high school kids navigating the perils of growing up unpopular in 1990s Oregon, and Freaks and Geeks, the cult-classic NBC show that I’ve spent my entire adult life proselytizing for. They’re both period pieces. They both focus on the outcasts. They both oscillate between resentment and nostalgia for suburbia. They both thrive with music choices that transport you directly into the moment. And they both got unfairly cancelled after one season.
But I think Everything Sucks! differs from Freaks and Geeks in one major way. Freaks and Geeks was a show about characters growing and changing. In a span of 18 episodes, almost all of the main characters became different people than they were at the start. But in the 10 episodes of Everything Sucks!, the theme has more to do with acceptance; we watch the main characters on this show stay the same in personality, but they come to accept the people they are.
All of this is build-up to say that Cheesecake To A Fat Man, the show’s seventh episode, is a perfect illustration of what this show was able to do in its brief peak. From the lame-dad dance moves to Breakfast at Tiffany’s to the Tori Amos and Fiona Apple inspired nose piercing fiasco to wannabe burnouts trying to get high off nutmeg, this episode is a turning point. Whereas the previous episode, the painfully-affecting Sometimes I Hear My Voice, shifted the show’s plot, this episode re-centered our characters.
Mr. Messner is OK with his selfish pursuit of happiness. Kate ditches her teeny-bopper disguise in favor of a riot grrrl edge. McQuaid and Tyler find older students to idolize and pine after. No one changes. They just become the people they actually want to be.
If only we got to see where this one went. Maybe in the meantime, wait and see.
45. Beach Blanket Sting-O — Angie Tribeca
S2E3, 2016, TBS
The biggest internal debate I have about comedy is how to toe the line between loving satire and loving silly. Because on one hand, I love the bite of a good satire. Deconstruction is necessary for art to progress forward, and satirizing the stale ways of the past is a great way to do that.
On the other hand, silly rules.
Angie Tribeca reveled in its silliness. The 2010s needed a Naked Gun inspired spoof, and Rashida Jones carried this one like a champ. Take this season two episode as an example, an episode I picked mainly because I’m a sucker for anything that spoofs Jaws.
But beyond that, this episode is unflinchingly stupid in all the right ways. The male lead of the show, a character named J. Geils, goes undercover as a beach lifeguard to thwart drug sales. But he goes in too deep and becomes addicted to the very weight-loss drug he was trying to get off the beach. So what started as a Jaws parody also became a Baywatch parody. And then it turns out that literally every lifeguard at the beach was an undercover operative. Even the guy who works for ADT Home Solutions. Which made the murder they committed a little unfortunate.
Satire is great. And we’re gonna have plenty of space for serious comedy later on this list. But silly for the sake of silly? If you’re looking for a couple cheap laughs and misdirections, Angie Tribeca should be in your top 3 shows from this decade to go back and give another try.
Episode 1.04 — Catastrophe
S1E4, 2015, Channel 4/Amazon
Man, I wish more people stateside watched Catastrophe. Because this show, and in particular this season one episode, had everything.
Sex jokes. Family dysfunction. Religious conversations. Problematic pregnancies. A teacher vomiting on her students. A man falling down trying to run away after his best friend’s wife kissed him. Significant others lying to each other for laughs. A single-tear-shedding moment where a woman realizes she’ll be a loving mother. And perhaps the decade’s only laugh-out-loud moment off a joke about a mastectomy. All in 24 minutes.
One of the prevailing trends this decade was auteristic shows with singular perspectives. One man or one woman writing and directing and performing in every episode to make his or her vision clear.
The strength of Catastrophe was that Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan perfectly split that responsibility. The show wasn’t singularly focused. The focus was always shared between two separate but kindred comedic perspectives. And for four series, that split worked wonders.
Related Reading: How A Decade Of Iconic Sitcoms Ended In One Spectacular Spring
43. Happy Bert Day — Trophy Wife
S1E15, 2014, ABC
Trophy Wife passed through this world like a comet and was never seen again. But for 22 frenetic episodes in 2013-14, we got what might’ve been the least cynical depiction of family life in the 2010s, a welcomed change of pace compared to the layers and layers of irony we’ll discuss later in the countdown.
For those of you who don’t remember (read: 99 percent of you), Trophy Wife was a one-season-wonder on ABC starring Malin Akerman, Bradley Whitford, Marcia Gay Harden and Michaela Watkins. Akerman played Whitford’s third and current wife, but Whitford’s previous two wives, playing by Harden and Watkins, were still around, as were their children.
The premise took ABC’s beloved blended nuclear family trope, but replaced commonplace dysfunction with so, so much passive aggression. That passive aggression was multiplied to its peak in the 15th episode Happy Bert Day, in which Akerman threw a birthday party for youngest child Bert, the adopted son of Whitford and Watkins.
In between Aladdin references, a delightful B plot about cake art and a hilarious C plot about a brother and sister fighting over a potential friend/boyfriend, we get a story about one stepmother spreading rumors about another. Watkins turns in a powerhouse performance, as she always does, bringing her manic energy and zany facial maneuvers to the forefront of a fast-moving and slapstick-heavy episode.
It’s hard to say how Trophy Wife would’ve aged if it got another season or two. In all likelihood, the show would’ve gotten bogged down in adding extra kids and new husbands into the fold, like all other nuclear family shows. But for one season, and for this one episode, we got a near-perfect show about raising children in an era where that type of show doesn’t get made anymore.
42. Virgins — New Girl
S2E23, 2013, FOX
I couldn’t bring myself to rank the best sitcom episodes of the decade without including an old sitcom standard: the flashback episode. And for my money, the most effective and affecting example of the flashback episode in the last 10 years is this offering from New Girl’s second season.
The premise of Virgins is simple: Each main character tells the story of they lost their virginity in a contest to see who has the most embarrassing story. Told in real time and in flashback, we get to see the old sitcom trick of aging down actors to look like teenagers and the even hokier but funnier bits of exaggerating fashion trends from 10-15 years earlier. Not to mention the hokiest but funniest sitcom trope: good looking actor in a fat suit.
But let’s not reduce Virgins to just the tropes it borrows from. Virgins is also a smart, well-written episode that reveals a lot about the characters we’re watching. The second and third seasons of New Girl are two of the best rom-com sitcom seasons of the decade, and the drama between Nick and Jess is as high as its ever been in this episode.
Even if Virgins didn’t have the relationship pay off at the end, though, this episode might still have factored in to the countdown. I’m a sucker for a show that builds off the tropes of the past to make something new and exciting. (Much more on that later.) And even if New Girl did fall off a little bit in the later seasons, this episode makes it all worth it.
41. Threat Level Midnight — The Office
S7E17, 2011, NBC
I have a deeply complicated relationship with The Office. I loved the show as it was airing. I tried my darndest to get people to watch it with me. But only two or three of my friends would. Then the show ended, so I stopped watching it. And suddenly it’s the most popular show in America. Cool. Thanks for listening to me in 2008, jerks.
If I’m being honest, I’ve never given The Office a full rewatch. I don’t really feel the need to. But one episode from the later seasons that I’ll never turn off if I see it on cable is Threat Level Midnight. It has the energy of a clip show that’s replaying all our favorite memories from the past, but they aren’t memories. They’re just wigs.
All the jokes in Threat Level Midnight land for me. The satirical ones picking on the action tentpoles that came to dominate the decade in film. The off-color ones that probably wouldn’t fly today about murder and sexuality. The existential ones of knowing that this episode is functioning as a prolonged goodbye to one of television’s great characters. All of it.
Sure, there are about five good episodes of The Office that ever aired after this one. That’s hella unfortunate. But at least we all learned how to do The Scarn. No one can ever take that away from us.
The Sitcomologist 
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