The Coolest TV Scenes Of 2019
It wasn't just the acting or writing that elevated this year's television: It was also the stunning technical achievements pulled off by more than a dozen shows. Scroll down to see our look back at the year's coolest TV scenes, from those Game of Thrones dragon wings to an epic Stranger Things battle.
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American Horror Story: 1984 (Season 9)
The synths! The fonts! The VHS-tape glitches! Like, OMG, the super-stylized opening credits for the latest installment of FX's anthology series were as much a showstopper as a show-starter. They so perfectly captured the gnarly vibe of the decade in which the season was set that we'd have believed Ryan Murphy found 'em in a time capsule.
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Stranger Things (Season 3, Episode 7)
R.I.P., Hopper's cabin. It wound up holier than a slice of Swiss cheese after the crazy-intense fight in which the Mind Flayer stuck El between a rock (one of its screeching tentacles) and a hard place (yet another tentacle) before leaving her with "The Bite" that gave Season 3's penultimate episode its title.
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The Flash (Season 6, Episode 1)
Barry's trip into a black hole gave us a beautiful shot of the speedster in the cosmos, all set to Queen's catchy theme for 1980's Flash Gordon.
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The Magicians (Season 4, Episode 13)
What a visually spectacular way to go: Quentin's minor mending spell caused the mirror behind him to burst into a stunning, shimmering wave that then tragically consumed him in slow motion.
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The Handmaid's Tale (Season 3, Episode 6)
Maybe someday we won't find a sea of red robes and white caps such a striking visual. But in the dystopian drama's third season, the effect remained astonishing (and chilling) — especially when combined with that horrific alteration to the Washington Monument.
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The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Season 3, Episode 5)
From the way Midge's cape flowed behind her to the way the camera swooped around the Fontainebleau's gorgeous lobby, there's nothing we didn't love about the one-shot opening to Midge's time in Miami.
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Watchmen (Season 1, Episode 7)
The eyes have it: Do shots come more elegant than the transition from Angela's scene at Lady Trieu's compound to Adrian Veidt's trial at the manor house?
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Arrow (Season 8, Episode 1)
For nearly a year, we knew the Crisis was coming — but what does it look like, on a broadcast-TV budget, when a wave of anti-matter obliterates entire worlds? Not only did Arrow's final season premiere positively blindside us by vaporizing Earth-Two (many loved ones included), but it did so with a swift, terrifying and apocalyptic-looking sandstorm of destructive energy. Quick, someone grab Moira's hand!
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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Season 4, Episode 17)
To sum up four seasons' worth of musical rom-com misadventures, Rebecca Bunch retreated to "an abstract theatrical space" in the series finale to sing a traditional "11 o'clock number" titled, appropriately, "Eleven O'Clock." Performing a heart-swelling medley of favorite songs from the series, Rebecca paced on a rotating disc while costumes from all four seasons spun around her — and she ended up lying on the floor, with her arms pointing to (of course) 11 o'clock.
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Euphoria (Season 1, Episode 1)
HBO's shocking teen drama took us inside the mind of recovering drug addict Rue as she got high at a party: As she stumbled out of the bathroom, the room started spinning, and she was forced to walk on walls to stay upright as everyone else stayed put around her. (To achieve the effect, they built a rotating set that actually spun, with the other actors strapped down in place.)
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Game of Thrones (Season 8, Episode 6)
Argue all you want about the merits of the final season, but we can all agree that this highly metaphorical shot in the series finale — of a triumphant Daenerys surveying her kingdom while Drogon unfurls his wings behind her — was totally cool, right?
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Legion (Season 3, Episode 1)
One of TV's most mind-bending flights of fancy this year was new mutant Switch's method of time travel: She drew a door with her finger and zapped herself away to a stark hallway lined with markers that indicated how far back in time ("20 minutes," "4 hours") she wanted to go.
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Mr. Robot (Season 4, Episode 5)
Really, we could put this entire dialogue-free episode on our list, but it peaked with Elliot and Darlene frantically trying to hack into a server while being pursued by a security guard... and with their time left to hack ticking away, too. It was a stripped-down thrill ride, with the lack of dialogue only amping up the intensity.
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Russian Doll (Season 1, Episode 8)
To be totally honest, we're still not exactly sure what took place in Russian Doll's very last Season 1 scene. (How did Nadia and Alan get back in the same timeline?!) But we do know that the split-screen sequence, which merged into one scene as Nadia and Alan joined a rowdy parade, messed with our minds in the best way.
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Why Women Kill (Season 1, Episode 10)
Why Women Kill's first season mostly took place in three separate timelines... until the high-stakes finale, where all three storylines converged on the same set. As Simone and Karl (in the '80s) tangoed past Beth Ann and Rob (in the '60s), they also danced near Eli and Jade (in the present day), with each room of the house decorated for a different decade. Add in an appropriately dramatic score, and this was one killer way to close the show.