LOST - "Walkabout". Written by David Fury. The final flashback forces you to re-think the whole episode (similarly to season 3 finale) and also sells you an emotional story. It was only the fourth episode in the series, but it sold me the complete show, right to the bitter end.
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: "Papa's Got a Brand New Excuse". Will Smith does a great job from subtle moments to the rant at the end of the episode. There were even some members of the cast that were crying.
But that wait wasn't nearly as bad as the year-long wait between seasons 5a and 5b, where we had to be patient for Hank to finish taking the longest dump ever. I vividly remember screaming at the TV at the end of that episode, pissed off knowing that had to wait an entire year for the final set of episodes. lol. I'm not mad anymore, obviously ... The wait was more than worth it.
Sammy's Visit (All In the Family): This is how you do a celebrity-as-themselves guest appearance right. I won't spoil the ending, but Sammy Davis Jr. is really funny in it.
Well I've read through the thread and my show's not here so here we go:
"Self-made Man" - Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
This show was wildly under-rated and unfairly cancelled. Damaged in S2 by the writer's strike but still delivering a powerful punch in the finale. Cast was rarely less than excellent with Lena Heady as Sarah Connor, Thomas Dekker as John Connor and Summer Glau surprisingly good as "Cameron", a Terminator of unspecified model. (And that lack of specific model grows more and more suspicious as the show continues). And supporting cast with Richard T. Jones and Shirley Manson (pretty decent performance, actually) and others.
Anyway, supposed to be talking about the best single episode rather than generally gushing so... I picked "Self-made Man". The titles blur so for people's benefit, that's the one where Cameron visits a library and 'makes a friend'. I put the quotes because is she really being friendly, is she simply manipulating him - and just how self-aware is she when she talks about being broken inside? It's easy to interpret it either way and that's why this episode is so exemplary of one of the themes of the show - her ambiguity. Whilst we mostly believe that she genuinely is on John's side, it keeps you guessing right up until the end of the show (maybe beyond) just if she is psychologically manipulating him or not and if so on whose behalf - his future self? Her own reasons? John Henry's ?
Okay, I will spoiler the rest now. If you've seen the show, great. If you haven't and intend to give it a watch - no super-hard spoilers, but definitely some.
So it's pointed out by John and Sarah in the episode that Cameron doesn't sleep. Which begs the question of what she is doing with the extra eight hours she has that they don't. In this episode, we get a surprising answer that at least some nights she has been going to the city library to do research. There she meets Eric whom she seems to have already established a friendship with, bringing him his favourite doughnuts. He's a cancer survivor in a wheelchair who works there overnight sorting books, etc. You get the impression he's kind of lonely so it's not surprising that he latches onto the pretty Cameron and overlooks her oddities and almost blank canvas of a life. Conversely, it's one possible interpretation that Cameron is trying to understand him because she sees a parallel in him to herself - she's damaged. If her chip malfunctions again she could kill John, as she almost did in the opener. And for that reason she has placed a bomb in her skull that John (and only John, explicitly not Sarah) can activate. She asks Eric questions like "Have you ever thought about killing yourself?" Again, he's kind of lonely, she's pretty and interested - he gives her a pass on all this stuff until right at the end of the episode. But why does she ask him? Is it because she wants to help him? Is it because she is trying to assess killing herself as a solution. Is it just learning more about humans. Again, this episode is great because there are SO many different possible interpretations on her behaviour.
It also has a very sad arc. Eric's cancer returns and he's a really likeable person you don't want to see suffer more than he already has and we share in his joy when he assists Cameron in her research (a plot about a Terminator that went back too far in time). We see him lose it with Cameron - understandably when she matter of factly tells him his cancer is back and at the very end, when Cameron shows up, he's no longer there but replaced by a new worker, a girl. Who Cameron simply begins the process of forming a new friendship with. Eric is gone, she continues.
We never fully learn just how aware Cameron is. Near the end of S2 there is a deliberately sexual scene between her and John subverted when she makes him cut her open and feel the metal inside. Ostensibly she wants him to check for a leaking powercore but it's obviously much more. But why? Part of it feels like a confession - that she knows she has been manipulating him and wants to finally make clear to him that she is and always will only be, a machine. Another read on it is that she is deliberately hardening him, forcing him to put aside romantic aspirations for anyone ever, to make him the leader he needs to be, isolating him from others. At the same time, John is a very bright person - we see in the Riley situation that he is very well-aware how those around him - his mother, Derek, Cameron, Josie, etc. are all trying to control who he becomes.
There are other great episodes that really highlight these themes but Self Made Man is possibly the one that does the most to bring them to the fore and force the viewer to think about exactly how they choose to interpret what they're seeing.
Eric: "You have no clue, do you? You don't know what it's like... to have something inside of you, something that's damaged."
Cameron: "It's like a bomb. Waiting to go off".
This exchange - right near the end. We see, we're fairly sure we see, a point of connection between Cameron and Eric. His cancer seems to be a thing that on some level she recognises as a parallel to her own damage. When she asks "Have you thought about killing yourself?" the hint is that she is considering it and studying him for answers. Is she feeling empathy?
