Despite historic dual strikes, 2023 was a banner year for bonkers TV. Movie stars took to the small screen and delivered free-spirited performances, a gangbusters Netflix show led to a surprisingly gutsy reality series and the TV gods delivered a fan-favorite "Justified" character from the graveyard of all-time-great portrayals. Below, we spotlight the top 10 wildest TV moments 2023 had to offer.
The following roundup features Reese Witherspoon doing what she does best these days (besides the Book Club, of course): Terrorizing and delighting those of us who hate-watch "The Morning Show." We also give it up for Jon Hamm's (fake) body parts in "Fargo" Season 5 and go behind-the-wheel with everyone's favorite nepo baby Jamie Lee Curtis.
On the unscripted front, too, 2023 was, ahem, golden. One "Golden Bachelor" contestant did the unthinkable on national TV and lived to tell the tale. Elsewhere, a tasteless recreation of an era-defining tragedy and a girly version of cannibalism proved that we, as a society, are sicker than ever. Finally, taking the crown for 2023's most unhinged TV moment is an on-screen death so accidentally funny you might forget that the whole misbegotten scene absolutely defies common decency.
Here goes. We narrowed down a year's worth of binge-watching to reach the top 10 wildest TV moments of 2023, ranked from the mildly nuts to Put it in a straitjacket!
Boyd Crowder Returns - 'Justified: City Primeval'
FX
"Justified: City Primeval" functioned less like a prestige limited series and more like a proof-of-concept: Does Timothy Olyphant's cowboy lawman Raylan Givens still work in 2023? Not without Boyd Crowder, apparently.
Walton Goggins traded his Baby Billy wig for Boyd's prison orange in the "City Primeval" finale, reprising his role as Harlan County's most-wanted with unbelievable panache. He did the whole Revival-preacher schtick, broke out of prison and buttoned his shirt allll the way up to hitch it to Mexico. It was as if TV's wild, joyful id awoke after years of slumber. Please, take us back to Kentucky for Season 2.
Shauna Gets an Earful - 'Yellowjackets'
Showtime
No series captures the psychopathy of teenage girlhood (speaking from experience here) quite like Showtime's "Yellowjackets," about a 1990s girls' soccer team who crash-land in the wilderness on their way to nationals. We knew the girlies would descend into cannibalism eventually, but we had no idea how wickedly metaphorical it would be.
In the Season 2 premiere, Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) tears the ear from her dead frenemy Jackie's frozen corpse and bites into it like so much taffy. The depths to which we'll go to consume a rival, or to keep pieces of a beloved friend with us...
Jon Hamm's (Fake) Nipple Piercings - 'Fargo'
FX
Jon Hamm is an adjective. It used to be synonymous with Don Draper, but, now that Hamm has lent his signature, intoxicatingly toxic masculinity to a season of "The Morning Show," Jon Hamm, the adjective, connotes something infinitely more silly. Does that make sense?
Case in point: Jon Hamm's pierced nipples in "Fargo" Season 5, Episode 2 are sooo Jon Hamm. They're in-your-face, and they're worn with a mixture of pride and self-abnegation. They say, "And? What ya gonna do about it?" They're a challenge and a promise. And, alas, they're completely fake:
"They cast a resoundingly lifelike pair of nipples, which they then pierced and placed over my own nipples, and we shot said nipples," Hamm said at a panel. "The crew doesn't get enough credit, but there was a dedicated nippleologist."
Tom Wambsgans Takes It All - 'Succession'
HBO
We knew that someone would take over Waystar Royco upon the death of the patriarch-mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox). It's in the title of the show, after all. But handing the win to Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), the goofball husband of Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook)? A delightfully unhinged outcome considering the lengths to which the Roy children went to secure their birthright.
Sandra's Oopsies - 'The Golden Bachelor'
ABC
If you, too, have the funny bone of a 5-year-old, this moment is for you. In the "Women Tell All" installment of "The Golden Bachelor," one contestant, Sandra, fulfilled all our nightmares and passed gas (in the most cartoonish way possible) on national TV. Watch the clip here.
Surely Sandra's most-embarrassing moment proves once and for all that the "Bachelor" producers are maybe the most evil people on the planet. Much to her credit, Sandra took it on the chin. She was sick at the time of filming, and they pumped her full of electrolytes. "I said, 'Eff it. It is what it is.' And I let go," she recalled.
Jamie Lee Curtis Drives a Car Into the House - 'The Bear'
Hulu
2023 was a huge year for nepo babies — chief among them Jamie Lee Curtis. The Oscar winner guest-starred as Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Natalie's (Abby Elliott) chain-smoking mother Donna in "The Bear" Season 2, Episode 6, "Fishes." The episode featured a star-studded flashback to a chaotic Christmas dinner, with Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, John Mulaney and Gillian Jacobs also dropping in as supremely dysfunctional members of the Berzatto clan.
But Curtis' performance goes down as the most memorable. At the tiniest perceived slight, Donna crashes her car into the house. Back in the present, Carmy uses the memory of that ruined Christmas to craft a new cannoli recipe. It shouldn't work, but it totally does.
The Glass Bridge - 'Squid Game: The Challenge'
Netflix
The "Squid Game" reality show was never going to be as compelling a study of human nature as the blockbuster South Korean series on which it's based, but boy did it come close! The series transcended reality TV a few times and mirrored our folly back to us: The hero-worship of good-guy T.J. after Human Battleship was heartwarming and inane, and Mai's ruthless game was a level of Machiavellian genius not seen since "White Lotus" creator Mike White ruled that one season of "Survivor."
But we're spotlighting the glass bridge from Episode 8 because it's just too entertaining to watch people fall from extreme heights as the folks they met a week ago literally sob with grief. Like...could they not see the foam pit at the bottom?
Diana's Ghost (And the Defense of It) - 'The Crown'
Netflix
Speaking of falls from extreme heights, the final season of Netflix's "The Crown" was largely cheap and tawdry — and not in the fun "Morning Show" kind of way. After a truly offensive look-away recreation of Princess Diana's death (complete with an offscreen crash), the show brought her back in spectral form to console Prince Charles and the Queen.
Hilariously, the creators cried that it wasn't literally Diana's ghost. As if audiences didn't understand that it's all a metaphor! No, the problem is how supremely dumb the "ghost" dialogue is. Telling Charles he looked handsome in his grief? Telling Her Majesty that it's her turn to learn how to be British?! Not what any of us had in mind for the denouement of this once-magnificent show.
Reese Witherspoon In Space, At the Capitol - 'The Morning Show'
Apple TV+
It's increasingly clear that "The Morning Show" doesn't know it's the funniest series on TV. It's a star-studded soap opera about messy morning news anchors, and it keeps commenting on the biggest issues of our time as if it has something to add to the discourse.
Season 3 saw "The Morning Show" tear off any remaining restraints keeping it remotely believable. Reese Witherspoon's news anchor Bradley Jackson was sent into space with no warning. Then, the show recreated the January 6th Insurrection and placed Reese Witherspoon's intrepid reporter inside the Capitol on the day. You have to admire the blind ambition!
Lewis Pullman Gets Hit By the 'Speed' Bus - 'Lessons in Chemistry'
Apple TV+
At last, the wildest moment of the 2023 TV slate: When Lewis Pullman—one of the most exciting talents of young Hollywood, an "Outer Range" star and a good kind of nepo baby—was unceremoniously pulverized by a bus in the final seconds of "Lessons in Chemistry" Episode 2. Sounds sad, right? Wrong! It's wacky in the extreme.
First of all, Lewis Pullman was the best part about "Lessons in Chemistry." He outperformed Oscar-winner Brie Larson, and those of us who didn't read the book assumed he was the co-lead in the TV adaptation until his grisly death — which, by the way, was such a jarring departure from the candy-colored '60s tone of the series that you couldn't help but laugh!
Plus, the last really famous person to be hit by a bus is Regina George of "Mean Girls." We're primed to laugh at this stuff. Especially when the bus is absolutely flying through a residential neighborhood. You haven't seen a bus going this fast since "Speed."
Then there's the canine element. Lewis Pullman's dog, named Six-Thirty, pulled him towards the bus for no apparent reason. The next episode picks up with the dog staring at his flattened owner and narrating a flashback to that time he escaped an army training camp. Did we mention the dog is voiced by funnyman B.J. Novak? Be serious!
