Some of the most memorable TV moments from the past year are the ones that stick with us for all the wrong reasons.
From a sexual experience on Outlander that literally raised the dead to a disturbing back-alley encounter with Mickey Mouse on South Park, this year’s list of the most twisted TV moments has range. (That said, an alarming number of our entries do involve poop. Go figure.)
Before we continue, here’s an IMPORTANT SPOILER ALERT: Because we’re looking back at the events of the past year, you might not want to proceed if any of your favorite shows are collecting dust on your DVR. In addition to the series already mentioned, our list also includes cringeworthy moments from 9-1-1, The Alienist: Angel of Darkness, Big Mouth, The Boys, Bull, Dancing With the Stars, Dave, Doom Patrol, Evil, The Good Fight, Grey’s Anatomy, I May Destroy You, Lovecraft Country, Outlander, The Oval, Perry Mason, The Resident, Schitt’s Creek, Sex Education, South Park, Utopia and The Walking Dead.
Scroll down (if you dare!) to experience 22 TV moments from 2020 that we desperately wish we could unsee, then drop a comment with the bleach-worthy scenes you would add to our list.
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9-1-1
Image Credit: Fox screenshot Hands down, this had to have been one of the crew’s most eye-popping calls yet. (Season 3, Episode 12)
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THE ALIENIST: ANGEL OF DARKNESS
Image Credit: TNT screenshot Baby dolls are horrifying enough on their own. But it’s downright chilling when the doll in question is a real baby, after it’s been poisoned, drawn on, and stuffed onto a department store display like the monstrous killer Libby did to this poor child. (Season 2, Episode 1)
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BIG MOUTH
Image Credit: Netflix screenshot Poor Andrew, he found himself badly constipated at camp and suffering from “poop madness.” And poor us, we had to endure not only the sight of an angry talking poo, but an extended birthing sequence as Andrew finally got things moving. (Season 4, Episode 3)
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THE BOYS
Image Credit: Amazon Prime screenshot In a season full of many exploding heads, Kimiko ripping off a gangster’s entire face with her bare hands like it was simply a band-aid takes the trophy for Most Gruesome Scene. (Season 2, Episode 5)
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BULL
Image Credit: CBS screenshot We absolutely get it, of course — no one wants a bona fide baby on set during these COVID times. And yes, maybe we’re simply spoiled by the CGI on cable and streaming shows such as Lovecraft Country and The Mandalorian. But man, the way that Faux Astrid stared blankly a us and mouthed that wail, for a moment we thought she was not Izzy’s baby but Rosemary’s. (Season 5, Episode 1)
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DANCING WITH THE STARS
Image Credit: Courtesy of ABC The most egregious part of this Disney Night samba wasn’t Carole Baskin’s ghastly dancing, or even those questionable velvet onesies: It was the prosthetic lion nose on poor Pasha Pashkov, who we can only assume wronged someone in the hair and makeup department. (Season 29, Episode 3)
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DAVE
Image Credit: Courtesy of FX We’ll do you a solid (heh) and not include a screenshot of Dave getting explosive diarrhea while on a hike, leaving him with no choice but to crouch over a pond and do his business. Instead, we’ll just marvel at how this scene was one of the year’s grossest and funniest, thanks in part to the unexpected turd that rolled out of Dave’s pants as he raced to pull them down. (Season 1, Episode 9)
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DOOM PATROL
Image Credit: HBO Max screenshot No one asked Doom Patrol to one-up its nauseating rat-cockroach hookup from the Season 1 finale, but that didn’t stop the DC series from giving us a full-on rat birth scene in the second season premiere. (Season 2, Episode 1)
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EVIL
Image Credit: CBS screenshot Movies and TV shows about exorcisms have found all kinds of ways of showing us that an unborn baby just might be a bit eeeeevil. But to see a fetus’ foot actually KICK a clergyman’s cross off of its mommy’s belly, from inside he womb? Heaven help us! (Season 1, Episode 13)
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THE GOOD FIGHT
Image Credit: CBS All Access screenshot The final shot of the CBS All Access drama’s unintentional Season 4 finale featured late, disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s cryogenically frozen brain and penis floating in glass chambers. For the purposes of this tasteful exercise, the latter organ has been buried in the background of the above screen shot. (Season 4, Episode 7)
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GREY'S ANATOMY
Image Credit: ABC screenshot We nearly lost our heads — and our lunch — when ABC’s long-running medical drama aired a graphic O.R. scene in which Jackson and Owen peeled back Simms’ scalp like they were about to make a new mask for American Horror Story’s Bloody Face. (Season 16, Episode 10)
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I MAY DESTROY YOU
Image Credit: HBO screenshot Make no mistake: We 100-percent love the fact that the HBO dramedy got so real as to show Arabella having period sex with an utterly unbothered Biagio. So we are rightly ashamed by the part of us that, as he played with a blood clot, desperately wanted to take a page from Valerie Cherish’s book and cry out, “I don’t need to see that!” (Season 1, Episode 3)
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LOVECRAFT COUNTRY
Image Credit: HBO screenshot Not that he didn’t deserve punishment, but after watching Ruby viciously penetrate her department store manager with her high-heeled shoe, we can’t help but wince every time we see a stiletto. (Season 1, Episode 5)
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OUTLANDER
Image Credit: Starz screenshot Look, we know Claire is a white witch and all, but watching her, um, handiwork bring a lifeless Jamie back from the great beyond was a LOT. And yes, we know it’s in the book — it’s ridiculous there, too. (Season 5, Episode 9)
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THE OVAL
Image Credit: BET screenshot “Troubled” doesn’t even begin to describe Jason, the son of the president in Tyler Perry’s BET drama. After being spotted creeping around the White House in his birthday suit, Jason was caught touching himself under the table during a casual luncheon with his mother… and sister… and grandmother. In fact, it was dear old granny who confronted him. (“Zip up your pants!”)
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PERRY MASON
Image Credit: HBO screenshot Violence against children is always horrifying, but the sight of the murdered baby with its eyelids stitched open was particularly disturbing. (Season 1, Episode 1)
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THE RESIDENT
Image Credit: Fox screenshot We understand that Rapunzel Syndrome is a very real condition, but did we have to see the hairball the docs extracted from their patient’s stomach? (Season 3, Episode 16)
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SCHITT'S CREEK
Image Credit: Pop TV screenshot It should never have happened to our favorite button face. But in hopes of taking an engagement picture in which he didn’t look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, Patrick allowed fiancé David to send him off for a little spray tan — a little spray tan that turned him into an Oompa Loompa! (Season 6, Episode 8)
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SEX EDUCATION
Image Credit: Netflix screenshot Gillian Anderson’s expression in the above photo is all of us watching Otis touching himself before accidentally finishing on a car window in front of his mother. (Season 2, Episode 1)
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SOUTH PARK
Image Credit: Comedy Central screenshot We never thought that an image featuring Mickey Mouse would require censoring, but South Park loves a challenge; the animated comedy’s literal “Pandemic Special” cursed us with the mental image of Randy Marsh having sex with a bat and a pangolin in a back alley while the Disney mascot cheered him on in a drunken stupor.
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UTOPIA
Image Credit: Amazon Prime screenshot The Amazon drama’s swift cancellation might have had something to do with viewers tuning out in droves as soon as Arby gouged Wilson’s eye out with a spoon. (Season 1, Episode 2)
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THE WALKING DEAD
Image Credit: AMC screenshot In what is sure to go down in TV history as one of the freakiest “love scenes” ever, Whisperers leader Alpha offered henchman Negan a “crass reward” after taking off everything except her walker mask. “Does my true skin disturb you?” she asked. Us? God, yes. Him? “Weirdly,” he said, “the opposite.” (Season 10, Episode 9)
