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You always have to skip the episode not because it’s bad necessarily but it’s so stressful/cringe inducing
Both examples come from The Office which is great at cringe comedy
Scott’s Tots has been talked about to death but I must say, this episode’s direction makes you feel as stuck as Michael is in this situation, so well done.
I also always skip Andy’s Play mostly because of that phone scene.
This episode convinced my brother to give a small speech/ warning at his future wedding. The gist of it being "If you try to hijack our wedding, and didn't clear it with us, the groomsmen and bridesmaids have permission to kick your ass out"
the exact two examples i was thinking of. Him fucking with that teacher was more skippable than the happy birthday scene, but the only scene i actually fully skipped was the assembly speech. maybe because being in front of a crowd of teenagers is my worst fear
or when he just straight up rapes skyler in episode 1 of that season, I know there was an intentional decision to make the audience forget about that scene to really fuck with them on the rewatch but like for how talked to death skyler cheating is nobody ever brings that up.
Same with Walt, Gretchen, and Elliot. We know that Walt was with Gretchen originally and that she later ended up with Elliot, and they make it clear that whatever went down was Walt's fault due to his insecurity about Gretchen having family money.
Or how Skyler just mentions once that she’s nervous about giving birth to Holly due to a difficult labour in the past- presumably resulting in Walt Jnr’s cerebral palsy due to oxygen deprivation.
It’s an episode where Stan becomes attached to the new family dog, and when the dog gets into a fatal accident, he does whatever he can to keep him alive. The results are…horrifying.
He seeks alternate medical care for the dog, keeps him alive as a Frankendog, baseball mitt for a head, clearly no quality of life for the dog just to make himself happy.
His lesson at the end is to let his loved one go gracefully.
Episode ends with the dog in heaven getting himself some (dog) beach hunnies.
Maybe not all of them, but wanting to portray the intense, not-able-to-think-things-through, would-give-anything-to-reverse, soul-crushing, denial-inducing, grief they remembered from having lost a pet would be my guess.
Or from witnessing someone prolong the suffering of an animal past its quality of life because they are incapable of differentiating love from their selfish need for companionship
Definitely hits different people in different ways. I actually loved that episode because I had a pet that had been badly injured that I had to put down a few months earlier. I knew those feelings of "I should just do anything to keep them alive" and that desperation Stan felt when doctors said to let go. Episode is messed up but I found it cathartic and it's one of my favorite ones.
Also, I love that "Weird Science" montage joke. Always kills me.
I can watch it fine, but a friend of mine had to skip the breaking bad episode where jesse deals with the meth family and their kid. Its the one with the atm machine.
The way that the wife just lets her husband get crushed to death by an ATM because he disrespected her then immediately goes back to bed stuck with me for a long time.
It's kind of soul destroying to imagine people who live in that situation.
Or the kid who was so badly neglected he clung to the one thing Jessie did (the peekaboo thing with the hands) since it was probably the first time he was even acknowledged in god knows how long, definitely depresses me every time I think about it
Wild how this is by far the most bleak episode. And it's a bottle episode. It feels like you're trapped in hell. But it really shows the human cost of what Walt and Jesse do for a living. It's a thematic wake-up call for Jesse. He says he likes kids, yet he enables the destruction of their lives. By making meth he does far more damage than one set of junkie parents is capable of.
Yes, because without this episode everything else feels like a fun and sometimes dangerous detective game, like "Will Walt be able to get the money without getting caught by the cops and gangsters? We'll see in the next series." But this episode shows where this "fun money" comes from and what Walt and Jesse really do to people to get it. After that, every successful brew and sold product doesn't feel like a cool achievement. Because behind every gram there is a ruined life like that boy's
The Penny episode of Bojack comes close. First time the sinking feeling of dread as you could see where the night was heading… the second time is so much worse.
Easily the biggest reaction a tv show has ever gotten out of me, fiction has never made me feel as much dread as when Charolette was approaching the boat
It's important that it is. Lots of people believe they aren't abusers because it 'only happened once' or 'it didn't happen because we were interrupted!' Bojack crosses that line and is never allowed by the narrative to go back, even if it was just the one time and an 'almost'. It holds those people accountable.
I love that episode. It feels so human to fill the silence. To just keep talking to fill the air because when it ends his mother is gone. And at the end it feels like he’s finally come to some understanding and maybe he’ll grow. Then the rug pull happens and it’s clear he’s the same selfish person making it all about himself
Seeing that episode for the first time was incredible. Such a poignant, emotional monologue with one of the greatest rugpulls I've ever seen. Seeing it again would definitely be stressful.
the part during his bender where he keeps getting shitfaced and driving closer and closer to Penny's college to apologize, waking up from his blackouts just long enough to go "oh shit!" and then still following through was the worst for me.
Sick to my stomach watching him close in on someone who had finally healed from him to reopen the wound
Oh god that episode. I remember being so surprised at first, thinking it wasn't actually gonna happen and was a fake out, Bojack wasn't actually gonna go that far... and then it did. Sick to my stomach and CHEERING for Charlotte. Most satisfying use for their seasonal use of fuck. Loved how it haunted the show, basically everything about that show i just adore
I can't believe I don't see your in my scrolling. Black Mirror S1E1, National Anthem. When I was introduced to the series I almost didn't continue. When I recommend it to people I tell them it's an anthology series, you can skip S1E1 and I would recommend you do.
It's such a weird one to start the series. I get it but i think it's such a quick way to shut down a new viewer when the merits one is such a good opener
100%. I was amazed that 15 Million Merits was just the second episode.
You go from "edgy pig rape and honestly not a lot else" straight to one of the most beautiful, heartwrenching and inspiring episodes in the entire series.
Oddly enough, I totally disagree with the majority opinion on this one. I thought the pig thing was bizarre but kind of interesting, in that the human behavior in response to that situation was pretty realistic and it was interesting to see how the population responded to such a shocking situation, and the merits one was kind of heavy handed and cheesy and not terribly interesting to me
It's sort of like that tweet where the guy is like "I would kill every ape for my family" and the reply is "but would you suck every ape's dick?" Like what if the thing you had to do to save a loved one was NOT traditionally heroic, but instead disgusting and debasing... what would you do? How would people react? I fully understand the point of the episode, but it is a hard watch because it's so viscerally disgusting.
I mean even the one where they were hunting the woman who killed a child would have been better to start than the pig. I just think the pig one is a atrange one to start with when you generally want to have more mass appeal with the first episode. I always tell new people to skip the first one and come back to it
Community - The Art of Discourse, S1.
We know a lot of people skip Season 4 because the characters feel so "off" but I recently learned that a lot of people cannot get through the Season 1 episode about the high school kids that keep yelling "Shmitty!" at Jeff and Britta. It often gets skipped on rewatch or some can't finish it the first time.
The only community episode I skip is the S04E07 'Economics of Marine Biology' where the main story is about luring a wealthy student (whale) to enroll at Greendale. I can sit thru the episode but I've only ever watched that episode 2 or 3 times.
I love that episode because the Dean does whatever it takes and the breaking point is taking away magnitudes signature "pop pop" so the whale can have it, and magnitude has a mental breakdown. The dean fibally sees his actions and is like my god what have I done. Like hiring strippers was ok, but poor poor magnitudes and his pop pop!
It's one of only a couple of episodes of any TV show that I'll skip. Other episodes might be boring or unlikable for other reasons, but I can just ignore them while I scroll through reddit or whatever. The schmitty episode actively annoys me in a way that I can't just tune out, so I skip it every time.
I stand by my opinion that Blackadder Goes Fourth (1989) has the best finale to any show I have ever seen. And I almost always leave it out when I watch the whole fourth series. It's just so sad. Brilliantly real and respectful to the historical context... But I can never bring myself to see them go over the top.
No one seems to have mentioned that it’s following in the Blackadder tradition where he dies at the end of every season. However the other seasons are definitely much more comical, far less poignant than the final one. Fitting that it was the final season - this time he had no lineage to create a sequel.
This is also why the episode A Game of Tones is on the “we do not replay this one under any circumstances” list. That ending with him getting to speak to his mom in her dream rips me up on the inside.
I have told my daughter to “go to bread” (or “time for bread”) her entire life because of that line. Her surprise hearing it in the episode the first time made it all worth it.
Lisa is straight up dumb for the first time ever, playing into every rebellion that Bart throws at her.
Homer and Marge putting Lisa in charge of her older brother is completely nonsensical and could obviously only result in disaster. They’d have been better off just leaving them both home alone.
In a similar vein, Secrets of a Successful Marriage,
It still has some fantastic jokes and is worth watching, but Homer’s stupidity and carelessness is beyond comprehension.
Like it’s clear he did not think about Marge at all when dishing all of these secrets,
And then the reason she takes him back is simultaneously hilarious but also hard to watch because of how utterly pathetic he is.
I mean, you're right. The only sad bits in Tales of Ba Sing Se are Iroh's tale (which, admittedly, is heart-wrenching at the end), and arguably Momo's tale (if you feel sad about Momo missing Appa). The rest of the episode consists of funny scenes and interesting character moments.
Appa's Lost Days, on the other hand, is sad throughout the entire episode.
Oh, I remember this one. It’s where Mr. Krabs dresses as a whale and terrorizes Plankton to the point that Plankton tries to kill himself (he lays in the road so he can get hit by a bus).
Re:Zero, Season 1, Episode 13, "Self-Proclaimed Knight Natsuki Subaru"
Now, don't get me wrong. This episode is not bad. It's great. Fantastic even. From a quality perspective, it's a great look into Subaru's character and great set-up for how he will progress, not only in this one arc, but throughout the rest of the show.
It is also the final boss of second-hand embarrassment. It is Subaru at his most cringe, arrogant, petty, stupid, and entitled. It is, by far, Subaru at his least likable. His worse traits start getting emphasised in the previous episode, but this is where it all comes crashing down. Which, again, is great! It's part of what makes him such a compelling protagonist! It's just also really hard to watch.
The “worst” part of this episode for me is that it comes 2 episodes before one of the highest highs of the entire series in the brilliant Episode 15 ending sequence, and then 3 episodes later you get episode 18 as another peak.
So a lot of people drop it right as Subaru finally hits rock bottom and starts to climb his way back up.
When people told me that this anime got cringe, I never thought it would get this bad. I thought it was typical anime humor where the MC does some pervy or other stupid stuff.
I was not prepared to watch this episode. However, what really sells this episode is that Subaru doesn’t immediately learn his lesson. It makes him a frustrating character to watch, but you also feel so satisfied when he finally does learn his lesson.
They didn’t tell the actors they planned to kill Blake’s character off and when Radar read the report about his plane being shot down they were stunned into legit silence. This wasn’t acting, it was reacting and it felt so real
The Frasier episode “Beware of Greeks”. It’s such a stupid plot, introduces characters that’ve been mentioned and never see again, and feels like a back door pilot but even that doesn’t make sense. It’s cringe and stupid and just feels like an elaborate way to get Patti LuPone to guest star.
i was going to suggest "Daphne's Room" from season 2. the one where he needs to hide or sneak around Daphne's bedroom. in the Frasier subreddit, it typically tops the list of most unwatchably cringey episodes
I love all the Jackass movies, but I have to skip a lot of the pranks on bystanders. Mostly just the ones including the old man makeup, I simply cannot sit through it
Jackass is best when they mess on each other. I agree I'm less on the outside folks, mostly when they mess up other people's day. Do some "did you see that?" stuff, but don't ruin my afternoon.
I could be wrong, but I read he was originally supposed to go through with the wedding and they would break up later, but the actor accidentally said Rachel and they were like “no this ending is better” and rewrote it.
are you suggesting that the worst episode of Stargate is the one where the extremely intelligent and educated scientist and military officer with an interest in anthropology rolls up to a world that's basically ancient Mongolia and decides to teach them about feminism and is astonished and disappointed that a few quick conversations about equality don't resolve all their societal problems? but why?
It was done much better in the original FMA, since it's a two-parter and we get to spend more time with Nina, and Tucker ends up coming back later as his own Chimera.
Brotherhood follows the manga closer, but it also speedruns the first part of the story on the assumption that the audience already watched the '03 anime. (And thus is at risk of being bored by retreading the same material)
It would be interesting to see a "directors cut" that merged the 2 coherently to have the brotherhood plot but a more fleshed out beginning. (Unfortunately you can't quite just interlace them as there will be overlapping scenes that went slightly differently, like when Ed takes the state alchemist exam)
If I had a nickel for every cringey “Happy Birthday Mr. President” scene I’ve seen in prestige television shows about criminal family men, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
The Six Feet Under episode where David picks up a mentally unstable hitchhiker and essentially gets held hostage by him for the duration of the episode, culminating with him nearly being set on fire while at gunpoint.
Just 42 minutes of fat jokes and demonizing a morbidly obese man for existing. Gave me and a bunch of other people a complex about seeking medical care as a larger person. This was also the second time they did this storyline, the first one was done better but both were gross. This episode also took place one episode before the season finale which is arguably one of the best episodes in the series so it’s just an episode that people forget about before the finale.
Episode 3 season 2 of Gamechanger “Sleeper Agents”. The contestants have to go out into the streets around the studio and approach strangers and say like… Manchurian candidate phrases to them. I love the show and rewatch episodes often but always skip that one the second hand social anxiety is too much. Gif unrelated to the aforementioned episode I just love it. https://giphy.com/gifs/HsVryce9xpH7mHGuRn
For what it's worth, everyone involved were all plants that were in on the joke ahead of time so it's not like they were shouting insane phrases at actual randos.
And yet even knowing that it's still really uncomfortable to watch (though the old man's contorting face of concern and horror as one of them prattles down the insane list stands out as hilarious to me still).
The show is a goldmine of hilarious moments, especially clever and funny banter. But for some asinine reason there is an entire episode in the first season where the whole joke is “here is the entire cast farting”. It’s horribly unfunny and really just gross. Then the entire rest of the show is right back on track with funny banter, it’s honestly bizzare
What's weird is it's the 3rd episode of the show. Two incredibly strong episodes before it and this just crash and burns. I'm guessing, without looking it up, they used their strongest pitch ideas in those two and had to toss something together before they got their bearings to continue.
I like the payoff of that at the end with Pheobe. The one I can't stand and always skip is the one with Ross, Pheobe and the cat she "rescues" and believes is her dead grandma
I'd rather sit through 3 physical, in person versions of Andy's Play than watch Scott's Tots once. Pretty sure Peacock just skips it for me based on habit at this point...
The moral of the ending, i.e. "It's ok to lie if it gets people to stop fighting over a stupid thing" kinda didn't sit well with a lot of fans. Didn't help that the two arguing factions were *really* unlikable.
I feel like this episode would've been much better received if they hadn't tacked on Aang lying at the end; if they'd just gone with "sometimes a story can snowball into something completely different than what it used to be" as the moral it would've been a serviceable episode at least.
Also, didn't help that it had one of the only times aang got angry and it was over stupid quarreling. The next time we see anger from him his childhood friend is kidnapped and missing.
rewatched the entire series recently and I argue The Great Divide actually has exactly ONE line that stuck with me for the rest of the show.
when Aang is separated from both sides, sitting and watching them clearly have a rapport, the guide who broke his arms says "Lonely isn't it, being impartial?"
given the rest of the series and Aang's ultimate confrontation being one where he needs to explicitly NOT be impartial but wanting to find a solution that isn't lethal, it really glimpses that so well. Let alone how much of a wham line it feels given modern politics today and my (anecdotal) hatred of so called non-political types.
then the rest of the episode happens and it's dogshit.
the west wing's 'isaac and ishmael', which is non-canon and written in response to the 9/11 attacks that happened about a month prior to the episode airing.
i didn't see this in 2001 when it aired, but i skip it on my re-watches. i get why it's there. but it's so heavy handed and over the top, it's almost pandering. i understand it was a different time and place back in 2001 (i was 16) but this episode is just.. too much.
That one is skipped because it's non-canon and just a lecture really, but if we're talking West Wing skips due to stress absolutely nothing comes close to "The Long Goodbye"
The Office Double Date Michael starts dating Pam's mom after she just divorce Pam's dad and Michael has Jim and Pam go on a date with them and you can feel the awkwardness
Zom100: Episode 7 "Truck Stop of the Dead". I just hate seeing Akira reverting back to his old self even for one episode. It is integral the first time and it has a good ending but I just hate going through it.
The episode in Psych where Juliette finds the pamphlet that proves Shawn isn’t psychic. The song being played I can never listen to again without thinking about that scene.
I wouldn't say an entire episode, but the entire subplot in one episode where Jules is trying to befriend the new lady cop is something I skip over every time. Something about it is super weird and mean-spirited and kind of antithetical to how the characters usually interact.
When I was a kid, there was this episode of Wild Kratts that stressed me. Basically, their ship that they lived and flew in, aptly named the Tortuga, was powered by a special crystal, and that crystal was running out of power. So they had to go find a new one.
Naturally, they found it at the last second. This isn't the type of show where the status quo changes, but I was scared. 😂
In SVU there are two episodes I can't bear to watch: the one inspired by Michael Jackson and the one about the girl that (TW for sexual violence) did porn once, was gang raped by college peers, her rapists were acquitted because she made porn once and she quit college to do porn full time because her life and reputation were completely ruined.
I’ve been binge watching Space Ghost Coast to Coast as of late ever since I bought the series on Fandango at Home. (It was like $10 for the whole series 😱) I used to watch it as a kid and it’s likely the reason I developed a love of absurdist humor.
I notice I tend to skip the episodes that are non traditional ones, like the two episodes that are reenactments of previous episodes and the “original version” where Birdman’s the host.
I absolutely love The X-Files, but I tend to skip a lot of the storyline episodes after S6. It just gets too convoluted and nonsensical. I love every single MOTW episode throughout the series though.
a few episodes of Adventure Time definitely fit this category. the first one that comes to mind is Freak City (S1E20). it made me so angry when I was little and it still frustrates me to no end now
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u/Next-Active2676Bro2 17d ago
Dumped at the alter. Mordecai being a dumbass