There are scores of TV shows out there, with dozens of new episodes each week, not to mention everything you can find on Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming, and HBO Go. How’s a viewer to keep up? To help you sort through all that television has to offer, Flavorwire is compiling the five best moments on TV each week. This time, two exceptionally strong freshman comedies wrap up their debut seasons.
Ilana Has an Allergy Attack
We bid farewell to the gals of Broad City this week, and the first season finale did not disappoint. Abbi’s dad foots the bill for a schmancy shellfish prix-fixe dinner… but Ilana’s allergic to shellfish, and doesn’t tell Ilana until she’s already downed a few courses. Ilana’s face balloons, Abbi stabs herself with an EpiPen, and the episode culminates in a slow-mo rush to the ambulance, with Ilana splayed out in Abbi’s arms. It’s as ultra-romantic as Abbi and Ilana’s best friendship deserves, not to mention choke-inducingly funny.
Stephen Colbert Spoofs Redskins Owner, Spawns Hashtag
In an effort to satirize Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder’s foundation for Native Americans, Stephen Colbert (or rather, Stephen Colbert’s ultra-conservative alter ego, Stephen Colbert) offered up his own blatantly offensive charity. Comedy Central tweeted it out of context, noted Twitter user Suey Park spun a hashtag out of it, and the rest is the last 24 hours of Internet history. Twitter is probably not the best medium to argue about complex issues of satire and race, but let’s all agree that Dan Snyder is terrible and move on.
Gina Linetti Invents Emoji-Speak
And Brooklyn Nine-Nine wrapped up its amazingly strong first season, but let’s focus on what’s important here. Chelsea Peretti’s character, the show’s only non-cop, has had some trouble fitting into Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s otherwise seamless ensemble. But the finale featured a running gag that’s a perfect encapsulation of Gina’s absurd, vain, Donna-from-Parks-and-Rec style fabulosity: using emoji in everyday speech in order to accurately communicate “the depth and complexity of her emotions.”
Joan Rivers Returns to Tonight
After a quarter-century-long ban. There’s a new sheriff in town, though, so Rivers was free to kick things off on a decidedly off-key note: a Holocaust joke. She’d previously been barred, first by Johnny Carson and then by Jay Leno, for daring to leave a permanent guest spot for her own late-night show on FOX. Watch as she makes up for lost time with Jimmy Fallon in her first-ever interview on Tonight (she was previously a stand-up comedian).
Robin and Barney FINALLY Get Married
It’s the wedding that’s taken up the entire final season of How I Met Your Mother, and it finally happened. With the assistance of a “ring bear.” With just one episode left of CBS’s inhumanly long sitcom, Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulders’ characters are at last bound together in eternal matrimony. Yay?