The 30 Best FX Series of All Time (and Where to Watch Them)

TV Lists FX
The 30 Best FX Series of All Time (and Where to Watch Them)

Since the debut of The Shield in 2002—due respect to Son of the Beach and the other original series that came before it—FX and its sister network, FXX, have emerged as the home to a number of the boldest voices in television. From Ryan Murphy (the impresario behind a remarkable four series on this list) and Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) to Donald Glover (Atlanta) and Pamela Adlon (Better Things), FX Networks’ John Landgraf, the programming whiz credited with coin the term “peak TV,” has cultivated a wide range of talents and supported series in a dizzying array of genres. Espionage thrillers, superhero adventures, romantic comedies, legal dramas, cop shows, even the family sitcom and a fucked-up Friends.

If FX has a “house style,” it’s to twist convention further than any of its competitors, producing a slate that might be the medium’s best. And though it has faced—and continues to face—plenty of challenges, including the 2019 Disney and Fox merger that led to a confusing streaming setup (please don’t ask us to explain the original shows on Hulu again), FX’s track record, as seen in the titles below, promises ongoing success in a fast-changing art form. Without further ado, comrades, read our list of the 30 best FX series of all time.

 


30. Rescue Me

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From the opening moments of the series when off-color but very funny jokes are made about the amount of sex these firemen have been able to have since 9/11, Rescue Me distinguished itself as the rare series that could easily handle the tragedy and humor that life brings. No show before or since has so eloquently portrayed the long-lasting and haunting effects the attack on the World Trade Center had on those who were the first responders. As the soul of the series, NYFD firefighter Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary) is simultaneously utterly despicable and utterly lovable. You’ll root for him and you’ll want to slap him. The show had its faults—creating fully realized female characters was not its strong suit—but the raw emotion and huge laughs the show delivered on a weekly basis still linger. —Amy Amatangelo

 


29. Wilfred

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Wilfred, along with Archer, was one of the brash weirdo comedies that helped FX become a clever stoner alternative to places like Adult Swim, diversifying the network’s slate beyond its edgy dramatic calling cards. The Aussie adaptation of the man-in-a-dog-suit comedy also helped reintroduce Elijah Wood to American audiences after The Lord of the Rings. He was weird, he was funny, and he was so different that it was hard to remember what it was like when he was just Frodo. Stealing scenes from him is creator/star Jason Gann, whose brash yet heartfelt performance made the show just confusing enough for alt-comedy nerds and late-night surfers to get lost in their feelings. Its short but sweet run was destined to be a cult classic and a launching pad for strange and genre-warping shows like You’re the Worst and Man Seeking Woman to follow in its psychotropic path. —Jacob Oller

 


28. Legion

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The second half of the 2010s saw, if not the creation of the bat-shit crazy fantasy, at least its blossoming. Shows like Preacher, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and Happy! were all packed with the weird, the impossible and the insane, each seemingly trying to outdo the others. But the champion of bat-shit crazy TV is FX’s Legion, whose characters, both real and imagined, meet in an actual ward for the insane. Its first season proved that Marvel is willing to experiment with a very different kind of superhero tale: The story is as much about David Heller’s (Dan Stevens) grasp on reality as it is his struggle for survival. Its second then reached a new level of surreal, with David and his friends working for the shadowy Division III that was hunting them down in Season 1. Like all good bat-shit crazy TV shows, every scene feels like a riff on the dream sequences from Twin Peaks. But what really separates Legion from its absurdist brethren is acting and writing usually reserved for the rarified airs of prestige drama. Stevens, Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza are all given scenes to devour, and Navid Negahban counts as 2018’s best villain not named Killmonger. Creator Noah Hawley’s vision, ambition and impishness have made a comic book show about mental illness both bleak and fun. —Josh Jackson

 


27. The Old Man

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Adapted for TV by Jonathan E. Steinberg & Robert Levine from the 2017 novel of the same name by Thomas Perry, The Old Man stars Oscar winner Jeff Bridges as Dan Chase, a mysterious and dangerous man who fled the CIA decades ago for reasons that aren’t immediately clear, but which begin to unspool over the course of the seven-episode first season. When an assassin tracks him down after years in hiding, Chase goes on the run and is forced to confront his past to preserve his future. At the same time, his one-time compatriot Harold Harper (portrayed by Emmy winner John Lithgow), now the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, is brought in to hunt Chase down. The result is an engaging and sometimes thrilling two-hander made even stronger by excellent performances from co-stars Amy Brenneman and Alia Shawkat. After years of producing so-so dramas in the latter half of the 2010s, The Old Man is a return to form. —Kaitlin Thomas

 


26. You’re the Worst

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It isn’t just that creator Stephen Falk’s dramedy is a rom-com for people who hate rom-coms. It isn’t just that it brings up issues like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, dead relationships, and getting older with the same candid realism that it aims at sex scenes and the absurdity of the Los Angeles film industry alike. It’s that the four leads—Aya Cash’s needy Gretchen, Chris Geere’s narcissistic Jimmy, Desmin Borges’ loveable Edgar, and Kether Donohue’s underestimated Lindsay—say and do and make us admit the worst things about our own selves when we watch from home. And for that, this show is the best. —Whitney Friedlander

 


25. American Horror Story

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Even fervent fans of Ryan Murphy’s high-camp horror anthology American Horror Story would have a tough time defending its later seasons, from Freak Show through Apocalypse. But the first three story arcs—Murder House, Asylum and Coven—pushed the bounds of scary storytelling on television and helped kick off a small-screen horror renaissance. AHS’ evolution since its genuinely terrifying first season debuted in 2011 mirrors just about every major horror film franchise: a shockingly strong start followed by unexpected space shenanigans, complicated continuity callbacks, distracting guest stars, openly humorous installments and the departure of key players (most notably Jessica Lange, Murphy’s muse for the second, third and fourth seasons after her supporting turn in the first). This murderous medley of elements clutters the show, but can’t suppress the glee that a horror hound feels seeing so many well-known genre tropes recycled and repurposed by Murphy and his rotating cast of players, from the chameleonic Sarah Paulson to Misery’s Kathy Bates. American Horror Story may be a big, bloody mess, but it’s still clearly in love with the genre in its title. —Steve Foxe

 


24. Welcome to Wrexham

Reality AF: 5 Reasons Why the Unique Welcome to Wrexham Has Been a Winner

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When rich people buy a sports team, the risk is always that it’s a vanity project, and when a minor league Welsh soccer team is purchased by two Hollywood celebrities who don’t know soccer, don’t know each other, have never been to Wales, and are making a documentary about it… well, the red flags are waving. In this case, though, Rob McElhenney (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Ryan Reynolds are convincing in their ambition to return Wrexham to its former glory, and that ingredient is enough to propel FX’s Welcome to Wrexham—the lone unscripted series on this list—into the upper tiers of TV docuseries. McElhenney, in particular, is relentless in his quest, ensuring that the club has a top-notch manager and one of the best goalscorers in lower-league British soccer. This singular drive, and the buy-in from the town, is the engine of what makes Wrexham such a resounding success. The documentary itself focuses just as much on the town, and the terrific, funny, heartbreaking stories of its citizens, as it does on McElhenney and Reynolds, and the final product is overflowing with heart. Wrexham is in this for a long haul, but it seems like the Americans are, too. —Shane Ryan

 


23. Fosse/Verdon

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The legendary dancer and choreographer Bob Fosse was a pathological philanderer, a raging egomaniac, a needy pain in the ass, and seriously out to lunch on drugs. And in FX’s eight-part biopic Fosse/Verdon, he spells it out—at times to the series’ detriment. Sam Rockwell is excellent as the passionate, manipulative, adulation-seeking Fosse. As Gwen Verdon, Michelle Williams is very nearly perfect; she nails Verdon’s look, her vocal affectations, her way of moving; her conflictedness and loyalty, her frustration and codependency. The production is sleek, with a lot of well-rendered semi-dissociative or depersonalized moments, particularly from Fosse’s viewpoint. And while self-destructive artist tropes can become tiresome easily, in a biographical show like this, they can also function as a useful reminder that there’s something to them: In Fosse/Verdon, both leads come across as brilliant cautionary tales about over-reliance on external validation. —Amy Glynn

 


22. Pose

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Pose, from Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Steven Canals, is an exuberant portrait of ball culture in the 1980s, a sort of soapy, fictionalized, mad hot rendition of Jennie Livingston’s classic Paris Is Burning, reinterpreted by trans women creatives Janet Mock and Our Lady J. The ensemble cast—featuring the sensational Billy Porter as the silver-tongued emcee, Pray Tell—is full of shape shifters, fierce queens, underdogs, wits, such that its stories of the AIDS epidemic, transphobia (especially among gay men), racism, and poverty in the decade’s gilded New York become an object lesson in the ongoing nature of struggle: a political parable in floral pastels (Mother’s Day) and pearl-hued brocade (royalty), or an ecstatic dance musical of Reagan’s America. “Pull up. Work harder. Triumph!” Pray says near the start of the season, stating the series’ own credo in the process. “If not today, maybe tomorrow.” —Matt Brennan

 


21. Sons of Anarchy

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Take the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype, replace the hooker with a rough-around-the-edges bike club set in the ironically named town of Charming, California, add a conscience and things always going wrong, and you have the basic setup for Sons of Anarchy. Kurt Sutter’s gang of motorcycle-riding brothers and their lovingly nicknamed “old ladies” constantly find themselves in hot water trying to do the right thing while bending the rules just a little… which turns into bending the rules a lot. Having the town chief of police in their back pocket, along with Charlie Hunnam as the conflicted vice president of the club who is carrying on his father’s legacy doesn’t hurt, either. It would be really easy to make the show’s motorcycle club reminiscent of a gang of pirates on bikes, pillaging and plundering with a complete lack of morals, but Sutter resists that temptation and makes the gray area of right and wrong the driving force behind each episode and each decision. —Patty Miranda

 


20. Feud: Bette and Joan

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The anthology series American Crime Story and Feud have proven that auteur Ryan Murphy is at his best when he has a short, concise story to tell. And so Murphy’s examination of the long-running rift between Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) during Feud‘s first installment (the second examines Truman Capote’s falling out with New York high society) was more than just an examination of their experience filming Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, it’s also a condemnation of an industry that abused them and cast them aside and what happens when your self-worth is completely tied to your public persona. We could debate for weeks whether Lange or Sarandon gave the better performance. I say let’s call it a draw, because both women had career highs with this series. Jackie Hoffman had a breakout performance as Crawford’s maid, Mamacita (I would so watch the story re-told from her perspective). Aided by strong performances from Stanley Tucci, Judy Davis, Alfred Molina, Alison Wright and Kiernan Shipka, with just the right amount of camp and Pepsi thrown in, we wanted to be friends with Feud the whole time. —Amy Amatangelo

 


19. Under the Banner of Heaven

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Based on the popular true crime novel of the same name, Under the Banner of Heaven will likely introduce a whole new generation to the horror of the Lafferty murders—in which a young mother and her baby were brutally murdered by her Mormon fundamentalist brothers-in-law—and spark renewed interest in the darker corners of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its history. But while the show is unflinching in its honesty about the dangers of religious fanaticism and the horrors of violence done in (any) God’s name, it’s also a thoughtful look at what it means to believe in something enough to trust that it can not only withstand scrutiny, but that such questioning ultimately makes one’s faith stronger in the end. Andrew Garfield shines as everyman detective Jeb Pyre, who must balance his devout belief in the church he’s dedicated his life to with the horror slowly unfolding in front of him, as their case continues to pull back the curtain on some of that church’s darkest secrets. —Lacy Baugher Milas

 


18. Baskets

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FX’s wonderfully weird comedy series stars Zach Galifianakis as Chip Baskets. a Parisian-trained clown (or “cloon”) who must return to his hometown of Bakersfield, California. The series utilizes Chip’s clowning pursuits as a way to include now rarely seen physical humor into the series, but Baskets is really at its best when it leans into its sweeter side. That’s especially true when it comes to Chip’s mother, Christine, played without a shadow of irony by Louie Anderson. As the Baskets’ fortunes rise and fall (and fall and fall, and rise a little again), the series—which features a beautiful visual aesthetic thanks to co-creator and director Jonathan Krisel—becomes a mesmerizingly strange and surprisingly emotional exploration of a very unusual “ordinary” suburban family. —Allison Keene

 


17. Archer

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The sign of a good show is that it evolves over the course of its run. Archer, which itself is already an evolution from creator Adam Reed’s Frisky Dingo, layers its self-references, constantly reinvents itself, and is never afraid of sacrificing story or character for a single piece of wordplay. Blessed with characters of far more hilarious depth than any Ian Fleming dreamed up, not to mention its instantly iconic tone, style, and voice acting (looking at you, H. Jon Benjamin and Jessica Walter), the parody of super-spy tropes is a masterpiece of silliness, living and dying by a singular unit bound together in one sense of humor. Through all its boredom-beating tangents and constant winks, though, one thing remained consistent: Archer is one of the funniest shows on television, and is that in a completely different way than any other contemporary adult-oriented animation. —Jacob Oller

 


16. Justified: City Primeval

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Running from 2010 until 2015, Justified is a neo-Western based on a novella by renowned crime author Elmore Leonard. The show, which you’ll find further down the list, stars Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens, a U.S. marshal quick with his sidearm who is reassigned to his home state of Kentucky after one too many issues in Miami. Once there, he comes face-to-face with Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins, in a career-defining performance), his sometimes ally but not quite friend. Their story comes to an end in an emotionally and narratively satisfying finale. However, nothing in Hollywood stays dormant for long, and the eight-episode limited series Justified: City Primeval brings Raylan back, retrofitted into yet another Leonard property, the novel City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. Set 15 years after the show’s original ending, the companion series-slash-revival takes Raylan to the Motor City, where he crosses paths with the violent sociopath Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook); his loyal girlfriend, Sandy Stanton (Adelaide Clemens); and his formidable lawyer, Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis). While this isn’t the Justified we once knew—the show fully adapts to its new location and doesn’t forget its protagonist’s age—City Primeval proves that there is more to say about Raylan Givens, specifically about who he is as a father to Willa (Vivian Olyphant), and for that, it has more purpose and value than most other revivals trotted out within the past decade. —Kaitlin Thomas

 


15. Terriers

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Terriers will always be the one that got away. A cautionary tale about what you name your TV series (was it a reality program about the Westminster Dog Show?), the dramedy ran for an all-too-brief 13 episodes in the fall of 2010. Perhaps it was ahead of its time: unable to capitalize on the niche audience cable and streaming platforms now cultivate, and before Netflix got into the business of saving cult hits. The heart of the series was the easy, hilarious rapport between former police officer Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue) and his best friend/former criminal Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James). The pair forms a PI firm, and their rag-tag approach to solving crimes leads them to commit a few of their own, in addition to all sorts of questionable but entertaining adventures. Logue and Raymond-James are both fantastic actors who’ve gone on to many other wonderful roles, but nothing has ever quite matched the fine work they did on Terriers. It’s well worth your time and money to stream the series. Every couple of years, showrunner Shawn Ryan (The Shield, Timeless, The Unit) teases the idea of reviving the show. So I keep holding out hope that Terriers will be back. —Amy Amatangelo

 


14. Better Things

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Pamela Adlon’s almost experimental comedy never generated the excitement of its network counterpart, Atlanta, but it’s no less novel for elaborating a multigenerational portrait of women in which sex and romance are not the determining factor in life’s equation. Defined by Adlon’s perceptive direction and poetic ear, Better Things is far more interested in the testy, soused relationship Sam Fox (Adlon) maintains with her mother (Celia Imrie), the wan roles she’s offered as a moderately successful middle-aged actress, and the ceaseless chaos of single motherhood. Indeed, as Sam raises Max (Mikey Madison), Frankie (Hannah Alligood) and Duke (Olivia Edward), she emerges as the flawed “Superman” of the series: half mournful and half expectant, she’s committed, despite the obstacles, to squaring the same feminist space for her three children that Better Things does for women on TV. —Matt Brennan

 


13. Fargo

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The trick of creator Noah Hawley’s anthology series isn’t just that he finds a way to take his source material—Joel and Ethan Coen’s extremely smart movie about stupid criminals—and turn the dial to 11. It’s that he’s done it for multiple seasons. Each 10-episode installment has created indelible characters that stay with you long after the last tragic turn of events has unfolded thanks to a cadre of terrific actors. Hawley also has a knack for discovering talent, including Alison Tolman as the first season’s quietly determined detective Molly Solverson and Bokeem Woodbine as the second’s unforgettable, calmly terrifying Mike Mulligan. Hawley deftly explores universal themes like the death of the American dream, the struggle to feel self-worth, and the potential evil that lurks inside many of us. He does this with dark humor, eloquent violence and thought-provoking plot twists. Hawley upends our expectations. Things never unfold the way we expect. And after the revitalizing fifth season starring Juno Temple, we cannot wait for more. —Amy Amatangelo and Whitney Friedlander

 


12. American Crime Story

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American Crime Story, which dramatizes high-profile cases (the O.J. Simpson trial, the murder of Gianni Versace, Clinton-Lewinsky scandal) from the recent past, finds Ryan Murphy at the height of his powers: Poetic license feeds his creative impulse, while the historical record reigns it in. The result, thanks in no small part to his brilliant collaborators—Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski on The People v. O.J. Simpson; Tom Rob Smith on The Assassination of Gianni Versace—and his starry casts, can’t be dismissed as a ripped-from-the-headlines docudrama. Rather, American Crime Story has emerged as a potent consideration of some of the central fault lines—race, class, gender, sexuality—in American life, an enthralling study in the systemic crimes that inform our understanding of justice. —Matt Brennan

 


11. Shōgun

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Set during a time of political upheaval when Japan’s powerful Taiko has died and left behind a child who isn’t yet old enough to rule, Shōgun is an ambitious adaptation of James Clavell’s popular novel of the same name. Though a Council of Regents has been established to ostensibly hold power until the heir comes of age, competing factions—led by aging war hero Lord Yoshii Toranaga (the great Hiroyuki Sanada), former right hand to the Taiko, and the scheming Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira), who has plans of his own—are already on the brink of shattering the tenuous peace. So when a mysterious ship arrives, Toranaga sees an opportunity in both the ship and its leader, the English sailor John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), who becomes an unwilling but invaluable element of Toranaga’s plans as their fates become increasingly intertwined.

Each element of the show’s world, from its gorgeous costumes to the detailed rituals it frequently depicts, is treated with meticulous care and obvious respect. The breathtaking landscapes and bloody battle sequences are undoubtedly some of the best you’ll see on television, and its international cast is truly next level, led by Sanada’s magnetic and quietly emotional performance at its center. The result is a genuinely remarkable achievement, the sort of epic, sweeping saga many might have wondered if television as a medium was still capable of creating. A bold, ambitious update of a classic that finds genuine humanity in its tangled, sprawling tale of politics and betrayal, Shōgun certainly aims high—and more than hits its target.  —Lacy Baugher Milas

 


10. The Bear

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The Bear puts us on the back of Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), an accomplished chef who cut his teeth in the fine dining world who has returned to Chicago to take over his family’s grungy sandwich shop after his brother’s tragic death. He immediately butts heads with his brother’s best friend Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who detests Carmy’s pretentious attitude, but finds common ground with Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), an accomplished chef in her own right who wants to learn from Carmy. Still, there are a slew of line workers who aren’t interested in wearing matching aprons or following orders from a relative newcomer. The show shares some tonality with stereotypical culinary shows like Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Confidential, but also subtly pokes fun at the idea that every kitchen has to be an aggressive atmosphere. The frenetic energy is a byproduct of Carmy taking this role too seriously and trying to transform the sandwich shop into something much bigger than it’s ever been destined to be, and the clash of the two worlds is fascinating to watch in real time. Shows like The Bear—with its fully formed tone, presentation, and performance—don’t come around often. It’s a chef’s kiss of a show, and definitely worth the binge. —Radhika Menon

 


9. What We Do in the Shadows

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Based on the vampire mockumentary from Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, What We Do in the Shadows brings the sadsack bloodsuckers Stateside. The Staten Island roommates— vampires Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), as well as Nandor’s servant, Guillermo (Harvey Guillen)—are all ridiculous and slightly pathetic. The handheld camerawork is the deadpan punchline, with every shaky zoom in on a character during a confessional implying, “Can you believe this weirdo?”

More of the humor comes from the macabre wordplay and deadpan goofiness—often thanks to Berry’s stark, blustery delivery, straight from his BAFTA-winning Toast of London, and the exasperated looks it draws from Demetriou and Guillen—which are then punctuated by violent slapstick, featuring gallons of blood. In bringing the vampire-out-of-water conceit’s mix of comic elements down to the granular level, What We Do in the Shadows harkens back to the strongest parts of the film, which thrived on its charming re-imagining of dopey mythical creatures failing through the world in a way very particular to Kiwi… or, now, Staten Island. And with its documentary style taken just as seriously as its campy effects and extravagant costumes, the cretinous cosplay is beautifully straight-faced and completely winning—especially when the show goes to oxymoronic extremes of mundanity, like a city council meeting about zoning ordinances. —Jacob Oller

 


8. Mrs. America

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Equality is at the heart of Mrs. America. The series, which starts in 1971 and runs through 1979, examines the national debate taking place over the Equal Rights Amendment, meant to put women on the same legal footing as men. For some housewives across America, though, the amendment was concerning because it was ushered in by second-wave feminists who (they believed) threatened to dismantle traditional family values. And at the head of that anti-ERA movement was Illinois housewife and mother of six, Phyllis Schlafley (an elegant Cate Blanchett).

Phyllis is the nexus of everything happening in Mrs. America, but each episode also spends time with one or two other important women on the opposite side of the movement, from Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) to Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman) to the first black woman to run for President, Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba). Where the limited series, created by Dahvi Waller, really excels (and manages to eschew the issues of other series dealing with similar topics) is that it’s not overly reverential to these real-life people. It also, crucially, doesn’t treat them as caricatures—there is a deep, recognizable, and very true humanity to each of these women that is immediately authentic, as they move in and out of each other’s lives.

Mrs. America is juggling a lot, but it never feels like too much. Like the ever-present (worthless) question of “can a woman have it all?” Mrs. America does have it all, and more. It illuminates an essential part of the women’s liberation movement and the real women behind it (and against it) in ways that are engrossing, enlightening, and sometimes enraging. —Allison Keene

 


7. Reservation Dogs

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FX has found its niche in telling close-up, intimate stories extremely well, and Reservation Dogs is no exception. It focuses on four friends—Bear (D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai), Elora (Devery Jacobs), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis), and Cheese (Lane Factor)—who accidentally form an unofficial “gang” dubbed the “reservation bandits,” because of their penchant for light crime. Their hope is to get enough money to get to California, an ideal that’s always just out of reach.

The lived-in, slightly surrealist comedy is a low-fi exploration of an Indigenous community in Oklahoma, whose leads shuffle around the “rez” among other misfits and sundries, and stumble into a variety of adventures that range from stealing a chip van to dealing with a snarky and overworked healthcare system. FX touted Reservation Dogs, created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, as revolutionary. In many ways it is; it features an all-Indigenous writers room, for one. But the show makes its boldest statement by not feeling like it’s making a statement at all. It’s an easy-going show, foul and funny, specific and accessible. It’s not about the kids being noble heroes or crime-loving villains; they’re just people. But they are also Indigenous people, which does mean something, and is all-too-rare to see on television—especially portrayed in such a wonderfully casual way.

But more than anything, Reservation Dogs is a languid series that moves at an unhurried pace. The kids make plans, scrounge for food, wander around, get into fights. They don’t talk or act like adults, and they’re not beaten down by cynicism. They have hopes and dreams, a love for family, an un-ironic embrace of community, and make a lot of silly mistakes. To say there is an innocence or even wholesomeness to Reservation Dogs would not be to quite hit the mark on how casually crass the show can be (it is ultimately a comedy for adults); but like its leads, it has a good heart. The friends are trying their best and hold each other close, even as they rib one another for their choices. It’s this balance that the show gets so right; not overly precious nor incredibly vulgar, just truth with an edge. Or as they would say, “Love ya, bitch.” —Allison Keene

 


6. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

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Made on a shoestring, with scripts that average about three insults a minute, the exceptionally long-running It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (now in Season 16!) follows The Gang, a group of egomaniacal degenerates who run an Irish pub in South Philly: Glenn Howerton and Kaitlin Olson’s twins, Dennis and Dee; Danny DeVito as their dad Frank, and Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney as their friends Charlie and Mac. Storylines have included attempting to solve the gas crisis, attempting to get record-breaking drunk on a cross-country flight, and one heck of a coming-out episode in which Mac uses interpretive dance to tell his incarcerated dad that he’s gay. —Whitney Friedlander

 


5. Justified

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I’d argue that when FX was at its creative peak, it was because its great TV series were almost novel-esque—watching them was like reading an insanely good book, with every episode functioning as a gripping chapter. (A much better thing for a TV show to be than “like a movie.”) Damages, early Sons of Anarchy, and Justified all captured this feeling at its best, and as good and even great as FX shows have been since, I don’t feel quite the same way when I watch them (Fargo is arguably the exception). Of the aforementioned series, Justified was the only one actually based on a book (an Elmore Leonard novella), and showrunner Graham Yost’s desire to approach the series as such (with a “What Would Elmore Do?” mantra) is a large reason for its success. As flawed as Justified’s Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is, he’s the rare great FX character who fits squarely into the hero mold—albeit roughly, as he’s a more modern-day cowboy—instead of the antihero one. Olyphant is an underrated strength of the series, on top of obvious all-time great performances from Walton Goggins (as Boyd Crowder, the necessary villain to Olyphant’s hero) and Character Actress Margo Martindale. Maybe that’s how the show got away with a country rap theme song. —LaToya Ferguson

 


4. Damages

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Glenn Close created one of TV’s greatest characters in Patty Hewes, a lawyer who will do anything (legal, illegal, somewhere in between) for her clients. The series is worth watching just for Close’s nuanced, duplicitous, Emmy-winning performance. Just when you thought Patty was pure evil, she would reveal her more vulnerable side. But there’s plenty more reasons to watch, too. The series is anchored by Patty’s relationship with Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), a recent law school graduate who is unwittingly manipulated as part of Patty’s grand scheme, and it only grows more complex and dysfunctional as the series progresses. Adding to that is the way the show tells its story. It’s become commonplace for TV shows to play with time and the sequence of events—to start at the end and work their way backward—but Damages owned this narrative device, simultaneously confusing viewers and allowing them to put together the puzzle. And last but certainly not least is the parade of accomplished actors who appeared on the show throughout its run, from Martin Short and Ted Danson to Marcia Gay Harden and Lily Tomlin. Viewed together, it’s clear that Damages was the total package. —Amy Amatangelo and Kaitlin Thomas

 


3. Atlanta

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Atlanta has always been about Atlanta and not about it at all. Though it has traces of an anarchic streak, the FX series’ first season reads mainly as a laconic slice of life, rendering the experiences of Earn (series creator Donald Glover), Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry), Darius (Lakeith Stanfield), and Van (Zazie Beetz) in all their hilarious particulars. Its second (or robbin’) season, by contrast, comes as close to understanding the uncanny as any series on television: As directed by Glover, Amy Seimetz, and Hiro Murai, the germ of Darius’ “Florida Man” parable—an “alt-right Johnny Appleseed” forcing his chaotic, angry, and even violent fantasies on an innocent populace—bears its strange fruit across 11 arresting, often unsettling episodes, woven from the same materials as fairy tales, folklore, fables, and myths. The show’s third season, after an extra-long pandemic hiatus, wanders over to Europe and splits its stories between the surreal journeys of its four leads and more one-off, Georgia-based fables on race. It works for some, less for others, but by Season 4, after documenting struggle in its early seasons, the show becomes preoccupied with the esoteric, ephemeral nature of success. It mostly runs off vibes, filled with ennui, as its characters exist adrift in their own lives. There’s a weariness that permeates it, a sort of paddling endlessly against the waves of a systemically broken society. Whether it’s saying something, or nothing, or doesn’t want to be seen as saying anything (or not saying anything) is anyone’s guess. But in its languid final chapter, the series doesn’t seem bothered in answering that or really any other question. —Matt Brennan and Allison Keene

 


2. The Shield

the shield 75.jpg

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Shawn Ryan’s cop drama masterpiece premiered on FX a few months before David Simon’s cop drama masterpiece premiered on HBO. Years later, if you ask anybody which cop drama masterpiece they believe to be the Greatest Of All Time™, they’ll probably say The Wire. That’s fine. The Wire’s laurels are well-earned, but give a little more consideration to The Shield, too, huh? In many ways, The Shield is The Wire’s equal. In some, it is superior; a vivid, graphic entertainment that’s no less profound than Simon’s musings on Baltimorean crime and punishment. The Shield is grimdark stuff from back before grimdark became de rigeur in our pop cultural diet; there are no straight-up good guys or bad guys here, just good guys who occasionally do bad things and bad guys who occasionally do good things. The series is fueled by enough doom to make the Bard himself crack a wry smile, and it’s loaded with dubious morality. We were caught in the thrall of Vic Mackey’s reckless, self-serving corruption long before Game of Thrones made character survivability a guessing game, and Breaking Bad made us root for ethically suspect protagonists. Most of all, though, The Shield put a spotlight on law enforcement malfeasance without irrevocably blurring the line between social critique and theatricalized excitement. —Andy Crump

 


1. The Americans

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Over the course its six-season run, The Americans completed a remarkable evolution, beginning and ending as a blisteringly suspenseful spy drama. Of course, by the time Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields’ masterwork reaches its devastating conclusion, with deep-cover KGB agents Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (the magnificent Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell) returning to Russia and surveying what they’ve lost, and gained, in the process, The Americans is about so much more than safe houses and dead drops. At once a parable of family, faith, and nation; a pitch-dark examination of the Cold War’s moral calculus; a coming-of-age tale (twice over); a wrenching depiction of friendships formed and betrayed; and an indelible portrait of an American marriage, FX’s pet project was worth every ounce of patience it demanded: We may well remember it as the last great drama of the Golden Age of Television. —Matt Brennan


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