2021 In Review: The 15 Coolest Scenes

We admit: We're probably biased. But even when you take into consideration all of the big-budget movies that premiered on streaming sites this year, we're still of the mind that some of the most awesome visuals on your small screen in 2021 came courtesy of TV shows.

As part of our ongoing Year in Review series, the TVLine staff is looking back at the year's coolest scenes: the dazzling shots and gotta-watch-that-again! sequences that made us sit up and marvel. (Indeed, a couple of them are from Marvel.)

Our 2021 picks include a brutal Squid Game gambit, a flashy WandaVision barrier breach, a Cowboy Bebop fight sequence in very tight quarters and a Midnight Mass shot that seems to go on forever. (Don't worry, our list isn't all sci-fi and such: Schmigadoon!, Insecure and The Big Leap also made our list, and wait 'til you find out why!)

Read on to see which scenes made the cut (we've included videos wherever possible, so make sure to press PLAY!), and then hit the comments and tell us which scenes really wowed you in 2021. Still to come in TVLine's Year in Review: Best Needle Drops, Dumb Things TV Did, our Performer of the Year winner and more!

The premiere scene, in which Gabby lures her high school ex to try out for the titular reality show, is enjoyable on several levels. First there's the sweeping action, gravity-defying choreography and that amazing behind-the-ball shot as it follows Justin down the lane. Then on top of that, there's the fact that the scene forwards the Fox dramedy's plot and kinda makes you feel better about life in general. C'mon — it doesn't get cooler than that.

Netflix's live-action reboot of the anime classic boasted plenty of epic gunfights and karate kicks, but the most thrilling action took place in very close quarters. While tracking a bounty at a wedding, Spike had a run-in with a knife-wielding assassin in the bathroom, leading to a fantastically claustrophobic fight sequence. Armed with only a towel at first, Spike fended the guy off in a dazzling display of kung fu, parkour and slapstick comedy. We just hope he washed his hands afterwards.

There was Naomi, adrift from her time bomb of a ship, untethered, oxygen dwindling. Floating in a sea of black, the scene went dead silent, her fate seemingly doomed. Her face frozen with acceptance. But then there was a faint noise. And another. A muffled voice, and then the sound of an oxygen line connecting. Bobbie had sneaked up on her (and us), and deftly saved the day.

In the pantheon of cinematic car chases, the Disney+ series secured itself a high-ranking spot by dangling Kate Bishop out a passenger window while Clint navigated city streets and FDR Drive (sometimes backwards). Adding high comedy to the big thrills was Kate's on-the-spot experimentation with unlabeled trick arrows, waylaying the Tracksuits who were in hot pursuit in ways both intended and very much not.

From The Golden Girls to Living Single, female friendship foursomes are all over movies and TV. That's why when the besties squad on Insecure paid homage to the four legends of Waiting to Exhale (which will celebrate its 26th anniversary Dec. 22), the reverential tribute just felt right.

Hey, if we're going to let Lucifer and Chloe spend decades upon decades apart, at least they got in a gorgeously filmed, incredibly intimate "goodbye kiss" sequence first. (Good thing the detective doesn't suffer from vertigo!)

Mare and Colin's encounter with a kidnapping suspect teemed with palpable tension, as an unarmed Mare was left to save missing girls and survive the madman's fire all on her own. Kate Winslet perfectly sold the dangerous cat-and-mouse game as she (and the camera) fled through cramped quarters to deliver an action-packed, edge-of-your-seat conclusion to one of the series' main mysteries.

The creepiness of what's happening at the outset of the Netflix horror show's Episode 2 — a lot of exsanguinated dead cats wash up on a beach after a nasty storm — is dwarfed only by the camera work here: a continuous, 7-ish-minute shot involving multiple players who come in and out of frame in a scene so intricately choreographed that it looks and feels incredibly natural.

Schmigadoon!'s old-fashioned costumes and visually stunning color palette may have initially distracted you from the fact that Kristin Chenoweth's "Tribulation" performance was done in a single continuous take. The four-and-a-half-minute oner was a feat of TV production on its own, but it was Chenoweth's flawless recitation of a very wordy song that left us rewatching this number over and over.

The 456 strangers enlisted for the mysterious game had no idea what they were in for, nor did we... until they stepped onto a giant playground, at the far end of which was a tall, robotic doll. She eerily announced the game — "Red light, green light" — and as those players who were slow to pick up on the hard-and-fast rules were mercilessly gunned down, their red-splotched bodies left splayed on the field, the series' stakes became brutally clear.

We almost went with the rousing car/motorcycle chase through the streets of Mexico from the same season premiere, but Hondo single-handedly dispatching with a small army of local thugs — with a variety of moves, and while barely breaking a sweat — was the sequence that really made us cheer.

A superspeeding Superboy, alas, arrived a millisecond too late to defuse the bomb attached to Hank's chest by Red Hood. The Wayne manor bedroom thus exploded into balls of flame that enveloped the impervious human/Kryptonian hybrid, who could only look on at what became of his superfriend. A beat later, it was not Hank but a sad-looking Krypto who emerged from the fiery, smoky haze of death.

Monica Rambeau pushed her way through the treacherous energy barrier surrounding Westview, then came out on the other side with superpowers. That part's cool enough! But the Disney+ series made Monica's transformation so compelling to watch, with different iterations of the character pulling apart from one another in a swirl of color, then reuniting, before Monica ultimately landed like a hero on Westview's grass.

Moiraine fending off the Trollocs in the series premiere was plenty thrilling (and a nice introduction to the series' caliber of VFX), but the way that Episode 4 juxtaposed the forest attack by Logain's army with what was going on between the "False Dragon" himself and the Aes Sedai was the fantasy series' first very big, epic swing — and a heartbreaker in the end.

As horrified as we were that Dakota had shot John, we couldn't help but be awed by the tragic beauty of his descent to the bottom of the lake. While the mournful strains of the Cinematic Orchestra's "To Believe" played, Garret Dillahunt's beloved character was surrounded by a dazzling display, golden sunlight cutting through not only the murky water but his own blood and — yes, we'll admit it — our tears. That he lived long enough to swim back to the surface only added to the shock and heartbreak when wife June found him downstream... zombified.