The Ringer - Everything You Need to Know About the Bottle Episode2020-09-02T08:51:42-04:00http://www.theringer.com/rss/stream/211822112020-09-02T08:51:42-04:002020-09-02T08:51:42-04:00The 20 Best Bottle Episodes, Ranked
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<p>From “The Suitcase” to “Fly,” some of TV’s most creative installments have come out of restrictive circumstances </p> <p id="QbyzvR"><em>As we approach the 10th anniversary of </em>Mad Men<em>’s “The Suitcase” on Saturday, join us in celebrating the highs and lows of one of television’s greatest exercises/flexes/budget-saving tricks: </em><a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21418170/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-bottle-episode"><em>the bottle episode</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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<p class="p--has-dropcap" id="GzYKnr">For all that’s said about TV’s unparalleled ability to tell stories that span time and space and large swaths of characters, sometimes the medium’s greatest trick is going small. Once a way for network shows to up their episode counts without spending a ton of money, the bottle episode is now a way for shows to distill their meaning, focus on their most important characters, and flex their creative muscles. Because while trimming down an ensemble and keeping them contained to a single location sounds like a challenge, those restrictions can often result in moments of genius. You now know these results by simple names: The Suitcase. The Fly. Teddy Perkins.</p>
<p id="sMxtga">But there can be only one <em>best </em>bottle episode. So we give to you this bottle ranking. <em>(Just one note before we begin: The following ranking was limited to one episode per show.)</em></p>
<h3 id="HkwPbc">20. “Ice,” <em>The X-Files</em>
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<p id="Zb41p8">“Ice” was a failure from a budget-saving standpoint—although it was intended to cut costs, it had the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(The_X-Files)#Filming">opposite effect</a>—but a precedent-setting success in terms of storytelling and tone. The suspenseful stand-alone episode sent Mulder, Scully, a trio of scientific specialists, and an unsuspecting pilot to an outpost in Alaska whose occupants had killed each other (or themselves) shortly after retrieving ancient ice core samples from a meteor crater. The culprit, of course, is an alien parasite, brought to disturbing life via CGI and wires embedded beneath fake skin to simulate the creature making its wormy, murderous way to the brain. The key is the collaboration between the two leads, who have to team up to take out the parasite but can’t entirely trust each other because either could be carrying an extraterrestrial stowaway. “Ice” took a tense, claustrophobic cue from <em>The Thing </em>and its antecedents, and the basic setup of an isolated setting and mysterious assailants <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(The_X-Files)#Conception_and_writing">inspired subsequent episodes</a> of the series. —<em>Ben Lindbergh</em></p>
<h3 id="3Kqtfc">19. “The Box,” <em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</em>
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<p id="gR9EXA">What happens when Andy Samberg, Sterling K. Brown, and Andre Braugher walk into a room and don’t come out for an entire night? Comedy gold, it turns out.</p>
<p id="XfoJFt">In Season 5 of <em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</em>, Samberg’s Jake Peralta and Braugher’s captain Raymond Holt are tasked with interrogating Philip Davidson (Brown), a successful dentist who police believe murdered his business partner and dumped the body in the woods. The only problem is they have no physical evidence tying Philip to the crime, so they need a confession. Enter 22 minutes of Smart Cop–Dumb Cop, insults to Peralta’s intelligence, and interrogation techniques that range from asking Philip to repeat the victim’s name over and over again to, well, whatever this is: </p>
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<p id="hQbdT1">This episode is hilarious (at one point, Jake’s angry voice is compared to “being yelled at by a children’s cereal mascot”) and illuminating (Holt and Peralta’s relationship deepens), and when the duo finally get their confession, it’s thrilling. It’s got everything you want in a bottle episode, with the added bonus of Sterling K. Brown. What could be better than that? —<em>Megan Schuster</em></p>
<h3 id="yWKhBs">18. “Mornings,” <em>Master of None</em>
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<p id="1bayZB">With so many TV creators these days touting their projects as elongated movies, the two seasons of <em>Master of None</em> are refreshing in their <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2017/5/15/16041872/master-of-none-season-2-alan-yang-aziz-ansari-7be1ecffa87e">commitment to stand-alone episodes</a>—some of which even push Aziz Ansari to the sideline. You never quite know what you’re going to get from <em>Master of None</em>, including its poignant spin on the bottle episode. </p>
<p id="Y8ldVn">The first season’s penultimate installment, “Mornings,” ought to come with a warning for anyone who’s just gotten out of a long relationship. Following Ansari’s Dev and Noel Wells’s Rachel after they move into his apartment, “Mornings” charts the couple’s highs and lows over many months and seasons—from spicing up their sex life to petty arguments about not leaving clothes on the floor. It’s a snapshot of love and dating and heartbreak with all its idiosyncrasies; how so much of a relationship is the little things you do together each morning, rather than the moments worthy of a Hallmark card. “Mornings” is <em>Master of None</em> at its most compelling—but, as I learned the hard way, <em>maybe</em> don’t watch this right after a breakup. (Seriously, don’t.) —<em>Miles Surrey</em></p>
<h3 id="tJtwUY">17. “Vision Quest,” <em>Archer</em>
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<p id="vfCMiJ">There’s nothing particularly dramatic or profound about <em>Archer</em>’s<em> </em>elevator-set bottle episode. (Thank God.) Cowritten by show creator Adam Reed and Ben Hoffman, it’s just 20 pure minutes of jokes. Every character is distilled down to his or her essence, and within six minutes, they’re brawling over food. </p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang"><aside id="J9IIoV"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"How the Bottle Episode Went From Frugal to Flex","url":"https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417604/bottle-episode-evolution-network-tv-breaking-bad"},{"title":"“The Suitcase” Was All the Greatness of ‘Mad Men,’ Bottled Up ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417597/mad-men-the-suitcase-bottle-episode-don-draper-peggy-olson"},{"title":"When the Bottle Episode Goes Bad","url":"https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417558/bad-bottle-episodes-stranger-things-game-of-thrones"}]}'></div></aside></div>
<p id="hSKaKo">Archer keeps calling Cheryl “Carol” and temporarily deafens his secret agent colleagues by shooting his gun into the ceiling; Lana denies being a chronic lecturer; Pam chugs a 40-ounce, burps up the linguine and clam sauce that she ate for breakfast, pees on the floor, then drops trou and dries the puddle with her skirt; Cyril denies that he’s thinking about masturbating and everyone makes fun of his sweater vests; Ray becomes obsessed with the toast-making office robot Milton; Cheryl is reminded that she’s claustrophobic and screams; and Krieger seems very concerned about everyone finding out what mysterious liquid is in his thermos. </p>
<p id="XXeT8l">The mayhem ends with Malory saving the gang from themselves. When she opens the elevator door, everyone is arranged in a hideous, orgiastic tableau. She then reveals that the morning staff meeting that she called was actually a team-building exercise—a viewing of the 1985 teen movie <em>Vision Quest </em>with Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino. —<em>Alan Siegel</em> </p>
<h3 id="BVO0Ef">16. “Out of Gas,” <em>Firefly</em>
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<p id="DCxoDC">It’s a universally acknowledged truth that <em>Firefly</em> got screwed. Despite containing some of the best single-season storytelling in sci-fi television history, the short-lived series fell victim to Fox, where good shows go to die—and in the case of <em>Firefly</em>, get aired out of order. Thus, the show’s best episode, “Out of Gas,” ran as its fifth episode instead of its eighth—a mistake that can thankfully be fixed via streaming for viewers discovering the series years later. “Out of Gas” uses flashbacks to lay out the backstory behind the crew members of <em>Serenity</em>, Captain Malcolm Reynolds’s ragtag crew. Flipping back and forth between three timelines with an ease that would make Christopher Nolan proud, the episode culminates in the story of how Mal and his ship came together to begin their journey through the stars. Every character gets their moment, but it’s the love story between Mal and his trusty steed—<em>Firefly</em> is, after all, a Western set in space—that really shines. —<em>Kate Halliwell</em></p>
<h3 id="NVXovl">15. “Reynolds v. Reynolds: The Cereal Defense,” <em>It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia</em>
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<p id="sdXHLI">So many of <em>Always Sunny</em>’s episodes are contained stories, but only a handful keep the gang within the confines of Paddy’s Pub. The best of those is “The Cereal Defense,” a deftly constructed episode that starts with a dispute between Dennis and Frank over a minor car accident before delving into everything from superhumans to evolution to Galileo (who was a <em>bitch </em>… sometimes). Each of <em>Sunny</em>’s main characters shines in this 2012 installment: Charlie dons his alter ego as a trial lawyer (“Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished collies …”); Dee hilariously steps up to defend Dennis, desperate to set a precedent after having several of her cars destroyed by the gang; Dennis’s simmering anger boils over (“I will scratch everybody’s eyes out of their sockets!”); we learn that Frank has been exonerated of any and all donkey-brainedness; and Mac, in defending his right to refute evolution, presents <a href="https://twitter.com/andrewgrutt/status/1300515457804513280">the most prescient political argument to be aired on TV in the 2010s</a>:</p>
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<p id="aRBdgk">It’s that incredible mix of lowbrow humor and pointed satire that makes this <em>Sunny</em>’s greatest bottle episode—if not its greatest episode, period. —<em>Andrew Gruttadaro</em></p>
<h3 id="1tj2U0">14. “International Assassin,” <em>The Leftovers</em>
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<p id="aSWt7l">Most dream sequences are bad; it’s hard for the conscious mind to mimic the sheer oddity of the unconscious set free. That’s what <em>The Leftovers</em>—and <em>Watchmen</em>,<em> </em>and all Damon Lindelof shows—truly excelled at: the feeling that you’re in a dream, something wildly fantastical but, at some deep and primal level, essentially true.</p>
<p id="2XL289">“International Assassin” is not technically a dream sequence. What it <em>is</em>,<em> </em>like much in the stubbornly ambiguous <em>Leftovers</em>,<em> </em>is the subject of much debate. Maybe it’s a vision quest, a man sending himself to actual purgatory so he can defeat his demons and restore inner peace. Maybe it’s a delusion, a DMT-induced hallucination of a brain on the brink itself. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Actually, it <em>definitely </em>doesn’t matter, because that’s the whole point of <em>The Leftovers</em>: You can’t explain the unexplainable, you can only settle on the explanation that works for you.</p>
<p id="a3eT87">A move to Texas hasn’t freed Kevin Garvey from the general angst that comes with 2 percent of the world disappearing into thin air, nor the specific angst of having witnessed the death by suicide of a cult leader whose maybe-ghost continues to haunt him. So as a last resort, Kevin maybe-kills himself, wakes up in a generic hotel, and has to take Patti’s life by force—this time with a gun, then by pushing a child version of her down a well. The device is so bizarrely effective <em>The Leftovers </em>would return to the same well (pun intended) twice more. Whatever Kevin does in the maybe-afterlife, it works, and he wakes up vision-free. But that’s not until the next episode. In “International Assassin,” all we know is that Kevin’s journey has taken him to a place at once very strange and utterly banal. —<em>Alison Herman</em></p>
<h3 id="Yoh94C">13. “Part 8,” <em>Twin Peaks: The Return</em>
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<p id="RssPIG">A nuclear bomb explosion. A physical manifestation of evil hurtling toward earth. A frog-like, winged creature climbing into a sleeping girl’s mouth. This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGorhkgBiKs">nightmare fuel</a>. Mark Frost and David Lynch’s 2017 return to their best-known work produced many stunning images in its 18-episode run, but none were as riveting as the ones contained in “Part 8.” Set mostly seven decades before the events of the original third season, the episode answers long-standing questions related to <em>Twin Peaks</em>—ones about Laura Palmer, Bob, and Lynch’s thoughts on the limitations of directing for television—while raising several dozen more. It’s a sensory overload, marked by exploding neon colors and the <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=4IKUeIEdRMY">tense score of Krzysztof Penderecki’s <em>Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima</em></a>. And like most things about <em>The Return</em> (or Lynch, for that matter), it’s not easy to parse. But even removed from the context of the show, “Part 8” is a technical marvel and among the most daring experiments to ever appear on the small screen. With the episode, Frost and Lynch led viewers to the well and showed them the water. After that, it was up to them to decide whether they wanted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir8s6IGq2Hs">to drink full and descend</a>. —<em>Justin Sayles</em></p>
<h3 id="ekH9nG">12. “Unfinished Business,” <em>Battlestar Galactica</em>
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<p id="ILP6ID">Bottle episode purists might scoff at us throwing in <em>Battlestar Galactica</em>’s “Unfinished Business,” but it’s a messy inclusion befitting a wonderfully messy episode. The crew of the ship are in the midst of a time-honored tradition: squaring off in a boxing ring to let off steam and pent-up anger at one another, regardless of rank. (This “we have our own Fight Club and punch each other for catharsis” thing was <em>never</em> mentioned in the show’s first two seasons and truly comes out of left field, but we’ll let that slide because it’s such a fun concept.) </p>
<p id="RvJJyf">Interspersed with flashbacks from the crew’s peaceful, pre-Cylon times on <em>New Caprica</em>, “Unfinished Business” is as much about emotional wounds as what the characters dish out in the ring. The main event, if you will, is the showdown between Kara and Lee: a moment all the more wrenching with the knowledge that the on-again, off-again couple hooked up on <em>New Caprica</em> and declared their love for each other before Kara spontaneously married Anders. (Those two never made it easy for themselves.) That one of <em>Battlestar Galactica</em>’s finest episodes had little in the way of epic Cyclon battles or other cool space moments is a testament to the series’ true strength: its deep bench of compelling, emotionally complex characters. —<em>Surrey</em></p>
<h3 id="dA6ues">11. “One Man’s Trash,” <em>Girls</em>
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<p id="vEmtRN">“Please don’t tell anyone this, but I want to be happy.”</p>
<p id="I53g5I">I thought about this line and the ensuing monologue, without exaggeration, at least once a day for a full year after “One Man’s Trash” first aired in February 2013. So much of the discourse around <em>Girls</em> is an extended disclaimer that this show didn’t really chase the zeitgeist, that Lena Dunham herself made fun of such ambitions in the pilot’s opening scene, that it isn’t attempting to capture anything broader than its characters’ tiny, self-obsessed world. Disclosure: As a 20-something former New Yorker in media, I was squarely in that world, and Dunham had our number.</p>
<p id="trYLn5">Yes, “One Man’s Trash” is partially wish fulfillment; by having her character enjoy an intense weekend tryst with a doctor played by Patrick Wilson, Dunham gets to make out a whole bunch with Patrick Wilson. It’s also a profound expression of what happens when people’s self-image runs up against their repressed desires. Raised in material comfort, people like Hannah — like me — think they’re above it. They’re made for bigger things, like Great Art. Except being an artist is, in its own way, just as indulgent as buying a tricked-out Brooklyn townhouse. More, if the money that bought the townhouse comes from helping sick people. It’s just a lot less comfortable.</p>
<p id="odQgI7">“One Man’s Trash” climaxes with Hannah admitting that, yes, she does want the more conventional trappings of happiness, the ones she’s just spent 48 hours steeping herself in: money, and a hot guy, and a high-tech shower. Pursuing your dream while the better part of your college classmates go into sensible things like law school and med school and finance involves telling yourself a story, usually about how you, too, are doing something important and not just dicking around, and how you’re sure of your path and don’t have a nagging feeling about what you could be doing instead. “One Man’s Trash” is Hannah admitting her story is bullshit. —<em>Herman</em></p>
<h3 id="CPO825">10. “Leslie and Ron,” <em>Parks and Recreation</em>
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<p id="GDVScn"><em>Parks and Rec </em>revolved around the unlikely connection between temperamental and philosophical opposites Leslie and Ron. After the series’ seventh season leaped forward in time, a four-episode arc explored the dissolution of their relationship. This eponymous two-hander, written by series creator Mike Schur, wrapped up that saga by focusing on the fallout in a semi-serious, emotionally memorable way that was atypical for the normally lighthearted, laugh-filled show. Confined to the office alone overnight in order to work out their differences, Leslie and Ron retrace their relationship, identify where it went wrong, patch up their problems, and emerge with their rapport renewed. It’s not a normal half-hour, but it may be the best demonstration of why <em>Parks</em> transcended the standard sitcom fare. “Leslie and Ron” showcased the dramatic acting talents of the series’ night-and-day comedic duo, meditated on how and why friendships sometimes disintegrate, and still managed to make us smile, all while accurately <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nsx_Ojd7dg">predicting the derailing</a> of <em>Game of Thrones</em>. —<em>Lindbergh</em></p>
<h3 id="zqAxBx">9. “Blackwater,” <em>Game of Thrones</em>
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<p id="vQiJBn">More than many other TV shows, <em>Game of Thrones</em> was a series about <a href="https://www.theringer.com/game-of-thrones/2019/4/8/18300897/game-of-thrones-top-25-moments">moments</a>. “Blackwater,” the ninth episode of Season 2, was full of them. The Hound finally tells Joffrey to fuck off. Tyrion rallies the troops. Joff asks about “urgent business.” Pod kills Ser Mandon with a spear. Cersei nearly poisons Tommen on the Iron Throne. Tywin rides in to save the day. And of course, the big one: Tyrion’s wildfire gambit erupts in a stunning blaze of green glory, cementing the youngest Lannister sibling as a strategic force and a series hero.</p>
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<p id="q7zmw0">This hour of TV feels like cinema. Whereas Season 1’s Battle of the Green Fork was written around by knocking Tyrion unconscious, “Blackwater” throws our favorite halfman—and the audience—right into the thick of the action. It was the first true big battle episode of the series, and set the stage for some of the bigger set pieces that would come later. So sure, it’s a bottle episode—but “Blackwater” was fit for the big screen. —<em>Riley McAtee</em></p>
<h3 id="Lwuhfe">8. “The One Where No One’s Ready,” <em>Friends</em>
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<p id="XZVJXL">“A group of people, for many random reasons, never make it to their destination” can be one of TV’s most frustrating tropes. It’s the definition of promise unfulfilled. But this episode of <em>Friends</em>—which, like so many network TV bottle episodes, was conceived to save money—excels because of the show’s larger premise. What made <em>Friends </em>work—when it did work, because we all know it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qibUUYCtVX8">often did <em>not</em></a>—was the, well, friends. The core group. And this episode takes that group, traps them in a far-too-gigantic apartment, and strips away everything else. No Gunther, no monkeys—just Ross’s neuroses, Chandler’s sarcasm, and Joey putting on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRL7ufdVzn4">as many articles of clothing as possible</a>. —<em>Gruttadaro</em></p>
<h3 id="w8RBKt">7. “17 People,” <em>The West Wing</em>
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<p id="JdqWZH">“17 People” takes place entirely at the White House on one <a href="http://seventeenpeople.com/">eventful night</a>: President Bartlet weighs whether to increase airport security in response to a terrorist threat, Toby becomes the 17th person to learn about Barlet’s secret relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and, on the lighter side, Sam, Josh, Donna, Ainsley, and others attempt to “bring the funny” to a lackluster list of jokes for Bartlet’s Correspondents’ Dinner appearance. The episode runs the gamut in terms of tone and stakes, ranging from life-or-death decisions to the prospect of scandal and impeachment to casual flirting. Aaron Sorkin’s script includes a number of classic lines and deliveries, among them Bartlet’s rant to Toby (highlighted by the blistering “Your indignation would be a lot more interesting to me if it weren’t quite so covered in crap!” and “Are you pissed because I didn’t say anything or are you pissed because there were 15 people who knew before you did?”) and Sam’s “I could’ve countered that, but I’d already moved on to other things in my head.” But best of all, it captures the complexities of the bonds between exhausted, impassioned, and stressed-out characters who more or less live at the office. —<em>Lindbergh</em></p>
<h3 id="I6V8ir">6. “Cooperative Calligraphy,” <em>Community</em>
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<p id="8uSykh">“I hate bottle episodes. They’re wall-to-wall facial expressions and emotional nuance. I might as well sit in the corner with a bucket on my head.” Leave it to <em>Community</em> to put a meta spin on the bottle episode, with Abed openly acknowledging the existing format in Season 2’s “Cooperative Calligraphy” as the group tries to find out who stole Annie’s missing pen. (While missing out on an obviously adorable puppy parade taking place on campus.) </p>
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<p id="9U29DZ">What starts out as a quest to find the pen culprit soon balloons into a stern and increasingly ridiculous test of the group’s faith in each other. Secrets are revealed—like how Abed inadvertently <em>tracked the female members’ menstrual cycles</em> in his notebook—and the study hall is literally torn apart in their futile search. Centering a bottle episode on such a trivial source of tension is impressive enough; that “Cooperative Calligraphy” stands as one of <em>Community</em>’s funniest episodes ever is the ultimate flex. —<em>Surrey</em></p>
<h3 id="HQnax9">5. “Pine Barrens,” <em>The Sopranos</em>
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<p id="VLmG8p">Strictly speaking, “Pine Barrens” isn’t a bottle episode—plenty of its running time is dedicated to advancing seasonlong stories, like the Tony-Gloria dynamic (she throws a <a href="https://gfycat.com/grayquarrelsomegalapagossealion">roast beef at his head</a>) and Jackie Jr.’s doomed relationship with Meadow (they play Scrabble, he gets a <a href="https://twitter.com/backaftathis/status/1253394647633797121">double-word score for “ass”</a>). But the A plot has taken on mythic status for dropping two city-boy mobsters in the remote, snow-covered world of South Jersey. After an assignment to collect money from a Russian associate goes unnecessarily awry—over a universal remote, nonetheless—Paulie and Christopher find themselves lost, hungry, and half-frozen in the 1,700-square-mile titular wooded area. The Steve Buscemi–directed episode produced several of the show’s funniest lines (everyone remembers the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziap4hpYfU8">“interior decorator” joke</a>, but I’m partial to Tony telling Paulie <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUbm1tfOyTs&feature=youtu.be&t=307">he’s got mayonnaise on his chin</a>) and rivals any Coen brothers comedy in the absurdist black humor department. It also loomed over the series as a whole: The question of “<em>Will the Russian come back?</em>” became a standard refrain during the show’s stretch run. But series creator David Chase has never been one for tidy resolutions. And while that approach frustrated viewers at times, it ultimately helped the reputation of “Pine Barrens”: It’s the perfect stand-alone <em>Sopranos</em> episode, the one to show the uninitiated to rope them in. That’s in part because Chase and Co. never revisited the episode’s events, leaving the “Pine Barrens” plot behind in the snow, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XyW3n94C-M">much like Paulie’s shoe</a>. —<em>Sayles</em></p>
<h3 id="H2GQBO">4. “The Chinese Restaurant,” <em>Seinfeld</em>
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<p id="dFiF9A">“Remember when we were waiting for that table at that Chinese restaurant that time?” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQnaRtNMGMI">George asks Jerry</a> in <em>Seinfeld</em>’s fourth season, which revolves around a particularly meta plot about the pair pitching NBC on a show about nothing. “That could be a show!”</p>
<p id="u7pXns">Jerry rolls his eyes.</p>
<p id="t1XhsY">A sitcom in which nothing happens was a truly radical concept in the early ’90s. And nothing exemplifies the genius of <em>Seinfeld </em>like its second-season bottle episode, “The Chinese Restaurant.” It’s 20 minutes of Jerry, George, and Elaine waiting for a table. Minus a handful of minor events—George fighting over a pay phone, Jerry recognizing someone but forgetting their name, Elaine nearly starving to death—that’s all that happens here: the torturous, all-too-relatable experience of being thwarted by a waiting list. </p>
<p id="WSwiRd">By Season 2, <em>Seinfeld</em>’s ingenuity was already on display, but “The Chinese Restaurant” takes it to another stratosphere. The episode was so unbelievable at the time that the NBC execs who read the script thought it was missing pages. In the face of that resistance, Larry David—in classic Larry David fashion—<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO7wDuyHd2g">threatened to quit the show</a> if the network refused to air the episode. It’s a good thing he did. —<em>Gruttadaro</em></p>
<h3 id="TGzt94">3. “Fly,” <em>Breaking Bad</em>
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<p id="NfmLby">Like many bottle episodes, “Fly” was born out of a budget shortfall. <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2013/07/vince-gilligan-breaking-bad-exhibit-tour-guide.html">According to <em>Breaking Bad </em>showrunner Vince Gilligan</a>, the series didn’t have enough money to move production trucks from one location to another, so director Rian Johnson was stuck with Walt and Jesse in one location: Gus Fring’s superlab. The result is an unnerving <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-hander">two-hander</a> that critics loved and that some fans allegedly hated, although I’ve never met one who actually did. </p>
<p id="npjPS6">For 47 entertainingly exhausting minutes, mentor and protégé make meth while annoying the hell out of each other. Cowriters Sam Catlin and Moira Walley-Beckett perfectly capture both characters’ respective states of mind: The sleep-deprived Walt, who at this point realizes that he’s on borrowed time, ruminates on when he should’ve died and also comes close to admitting his role in the death of Jane, Jesse’s girlfriend; and the more carefree (and careless) Jesse, well, he wonders when the word “possum” became “opossum.” </p>
<p id="vOP9MT">Throughout the episode, Walt obsessively hunts the title insect, which he fails to kill. To his chagrin, there will always be things in his life that he can’t bend to his will. Including this damn bug. The absence of natural light in the underground setting helps create a sense of timelessness; the first time I watched “Fly” I felt as loopy as Walt did. In the end, the increasingly delirious future drug kingpin passes out—only after Jesse slips sleeping pills into his coffee. —<em>Siegel</em></p>
<h3 id="EJIxeD">2. “Teddy Perkins,” <em>Atlanta</em>
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<p id="6xvVW6">Technically, most episodes of <em>Atlanta </em>are bottle episodes. And many of them are excellent. But none of them are quite like this. A jaunt mainly featuring Lakeith Stanfield’s Darius—the only time you see Earn and Alfred are via a quick, panicked phone call—as he travels to outer ATL to buy a rare piano becomes immediately and deeply weird thanks to the namesake of the episode, an alien-like man known as Teddy Perkins. Teddy, played by Donald Glover in astoundingly good makeup, is an eccentric loner who eats ostrich eggs, leaves messages for himself, and seems generally liable to kill Darius. As a viewer, you’re left in a discomfiting state of amusement and fear. </p>
<p id="gO2Wkn">But what makes “Teddy Perkins” truly great is that it is far more than a spectacle. Simmering underneath the episode’s weirdness are profound thoughts on parents—particularly fathers—and the way we’re shaped by the personalities and deficiencies of those who raise us. There’s a question of greatness, and whether the means to achieving it can be justified no matter the cost. You’ll never forget “Teddy Perkins” after seeing it, but for more reasons than just Glover’s haunting visage. —<em>Gruttadaro</em> </p>
<h3 id="gyDPo3">1. “The Suitcase,” <em>Mad Men</em>
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<p id="5dSTEx">Don Draper and Peggy Olson are two very different people on two very different paths. He embodies the Marlboro Man masculinity that ruled the roost at the onset of the ’60s and found itself shaken, if not unseated, by the decade’s end. She’s a scrappy upstart who finds herself lifted up by a tsunami of social change, though it’s not a shift she fully supports or understands. But these two are, at their core, the same: workaholics whose genius is powered by their trauma. “The Suitcase” has Don and Peggy hit their heads against a creative wall until their superficial differences fall away, revealing the twin souls beneath.</p>
<p id="j8K7sD">In “The Suitcase,” neither master nor student produces their best work. All those hours spent on Samsonite lead to a riff on Muhammad Ali looming over Sonny Liston—a good idea, but not great. The breakthroughs in “The Suitcase” are not creative but personal, two concepts always connected in <em>Mad Men </em>but not always synonymous. Don can form a real connection with at least one more person in his life; Peggy can admit to herself that an unconventional life may be what she wants, and is certainly what she needs.</p>
<p id="UH02hB">“The Suitcase” draws on the awesome power of simply saying out loud what’s been stubbornly left unsaid: Peggy talking about her baby! Don casually dropping details about his childhood on the farm! Still, its greatest moments are silent: Don watching Anna’s ghost fade into the afterlife; Peggy giving Don a reassuring smile as he clasps her hand. It’s both refreshingly blunt and gorgeously subtle, a shared dark night of the soul that fades in the harsh morning light. —<em>Herman</em></p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="AGw2DE"><em>To read all of Herman’s thoughts on our no. 1 bottle episode, </em><a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417597/mad-men-the-suitcase-bottle-episode-don-draper-peggy-olson"><em>click here</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p id="2ujvWa"><em>A previous version of this article stated that Kevin Garvey killed Patti in </em>The Leftovers<em>’ “International Assassin.” She took her own life.</em></p>
https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417513/bottle-episodes-ranking-tv-mad-men-breaking-bad-seinfeldThe Ringer Staff2020-09-02T06:30:00-04:002020-09-02T06:30:00-04:00“The Suitcase” Was All the Greatness of ‘Mad Men,’ Bottled Up
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<figcaption><a class="ql-link" href="http://www.efichaliko.com/" target="_blank">Efi Chalikopoulou</a></figcaption>
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<p>Ten years ago on Saturday, the prestige drama reached its peak by shutting off its best two characters from the rest of the ensemble, and forcing them to come up with an ad for Samsonite </p> <p id="82oJ5n"><em>As we approach the 10th anniversary of </em>Mad Men<em>’s “The Suitcase” on Saturday, join us in celebrating the highs and lows of one of television’s greatest exercises/flexes/budget-saving tricks: </em><a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21418170/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-bottle-episode"><em>the bottle episode</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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<p id="kevcv9">Those who <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/5/7/21249781/mad-men-rewatch-coronavirus-quaratine">find themselves revisiting <em>Mad Men</em></a><em> </em>may be surprised by how sparing the show is with its most iconic pairing. Advertising genius Don Draper and his secretary-turned-protégé Peggy Olson share screen time, of course—but not nearly as much as Don and his neglected, unhappy wife Betty; or Don and his de facto work wife Roger Sterling; or even Don and some of his many mistresses, one of whom goes on to be his second wife.</p>
<p id="y0fg1i">Why, then, does Don and Peggy endure as the show’s most important relationship? One factor is novelty; almost every show has a central romance while far fewer have a mentor-mentee bond, let alone a platonic one between an older man and a younger woman. Another is efficiency. With Don and Peggy, <em>Mad Men </em>makes a symphony from a handful of grace notes: Don visiting Peggy in the psych ward after she’s delivered a baby she never realized she had; Don kissing Peggy’s hand when she leaves for a competing agency; Don and Peggy dancing to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” while they work on a pitch.</p>
<p id="pt1Ttd">The main reason Don and Peggy are synonymous with <em>Mad Men</em>,<em> </em>however, is simple enough. It’s “The Suitcase,” the series’ exact halfway point—and also its height.</p>
<p id="G2yj51">“The Suitcase” is not a bottle episode in the strictest sense of the term. There are several other locations besides the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce office where the duo spend an all-nighter working on Samsonite, the account that gives the hour its name: a restaurant where Peggy’s boyfriend and family wait to surprise her on her birthday, only to get stood up for her boss; a Greek diner where the two exhausted creatives stop to eat; a bar where they have a heart-to-heart while listening to Sonny Liston’s <a href="http://100photos.time.com/photos/neil-leifer-muhammad-ali-sonny-liston">quick, historic defeat</a> at the hands of Muhammad Ali. Nor is “The Suitcase” quite the radical break in structure the bottle episode typically represents—with its sprawling ensemble cast, <em>Mad Men </em>often focused on just a handful of characters per episode. Nor does a single, claustrophobic setting like SCDP stand out as much on a show shot almost exclusively indoors, the better to pass off late-aughts Los Angeles for midcentury New York.</p>
<div class="c-float-left"><aside id="N8FK50"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The 20 Best Bottle Episodes, Ranked","url":"https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417513/bottle-episodes-ranking-tv-mad-men-breaking-bad-seinfeld"},{"title":"How the Bottle Episode Went From Frugal to Flex","url":"https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417604/bottle-episode-evolution-network-tv-breaking-bad"},{"title":"When the Bottle Episode Goes Bad","url":"https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417558/bad-bottle-episodes-stranger-things-game-of-thrones"}]}'></div></aside></div>
<p id="WQzy0f">Yet “The Suitcase” is the textbook definition of the bottle episode in <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417604/bottle-episode-evolution-network-tv-breaking-bad">its more contemporary sense</a>: stripping a show down to its most essential parts, less to save on a budget than to emphasize a theme. “The Suitcase” is the ultimate <em>Mad Men </em>episode because it’s the story of the show in miniature: flawed, difficult, and damaged people finding salvation in their work, though perhaps not enough to save them from themselves.</p>
<p id="zvtPaQ">The plot of “The Suitcase” isn’t set into motion by any external forces or deadlines. There’s no imminent presentation for Don or Peggy to practice; Samsonite isn’t even a major client, paling in comparison to Lucky Strike, Jaguar, or Vick Chemical. The crux of “The Suitcase” is that its torment is entirely self-imposed. Don is avoiding the inevitable acknowledgement that Anna Draper—widow of the <em>real </em>Don, who embraced and supported the former Dick Whitman assuming her husband’s identity after his death in the Korean War—has died of cancer. Peggy, meanwhile, initially uses Don as a convenient excuse, before admitting she’s avoiding hard facts of her own: that conventional relationships and family life may not be in the cards for her, and worse yet, that she may not want them in the first place.</p>
<p id="WgZNLe">But one of the many traits Don and Peggy share is how closed-off and intensely private they are. “We have personal conversations,” a drunken Don says. (Much of Season 4 sees Don in a depressive, post-divorce spiral, typically aided by booze.) “No we don’t—and I think you like it that way,” Peggy replies, ever perceptive. “I know I do.” </p>
<p id="Tztwcf">A truth <em>Mad Men </em>captures by virtue of its length, the defining mark of television, is how moments of real honesty are balanced out by, and buried beneath, the veneer of civility that builds up over years of small talk and menial tasks. When those moments finally occur, we feel the full weight of their rarity because we’ve seen so much of the status quo. “The Suitcase” is about the perfect storm it takes for Don and Peggy to be really, truly honest, both with each other and with themselves.</p>
<p id="htMLQC">The most famous exchange in “The Suitcase” is Don and Peggy’s argument over credit for an award-winning commercial, a shouting match that crescendos with Don barking out <em>Mad Men</em>’s most oft-quoted (<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/52/8e/e5/528ee57c47e038d3812df3d1c05f2071.gif">and GIFed</a>) line: “That’s what the money is for!” But that exchange takes place just halfway through the episode’s 47-minute running time. Anger is just one of the stages of grief Don passes on his way to acceptance. After a recording of Roger’s unfinished memoirs breaks the tension, the two move on to a disarming kind of candor: Don’s military service and traumatic childhood; Peggy witnessing her father’s death from a heart attack, new information to both Don and the viewer; the baby Peggy gave up and Don told her “never happened,” who she admits she still thinks about sometimes. What follows is Elisabeth Moss’s <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/3/30/21199108/best-tv-character-bracket-peggy-olson-elisabeth-moss">personal favorite line reading</a> of the entire show: “playgrounds.” </p>
<p id="8EjvJr">One by one, “The Suitcase” peels back the many layers of Don and Peggy’s relationship until its core is fully exposed. Technically, the relationship is that of a boss and his employee, but Peggy is also Don’s punching bag in a way that marks her as more than his subordinate, or even his protégé. The rest of the creative department gets to sneak away and watch the Liston-Ali fight; she’s the only one who has to, and then chooses to, stay. But “The Suitcase” highlights the closeness that underlines Don’s casual cruelty—the way it always does in families, both given and chosen. Don and Peggy aren’t simply coworkers, nor are they just codependent. They’re kindred spirits.</p>
<p id="6B0J50">Both Don and Peggy have survived things their more genteel coworkers will never understand—things that give them special insight into the human condition that in turn makes them great at their jobs. Peggy’s had to overcome widespread sexism, Catholic guilt, and the betrayal of her own body to get to where she is. Don’s past is better hidden by the suave good looks he wears like armor, but when the dam does finally break, his emotional floods are more violent. After falling asleep on Peggy’s lap, Don sees a vision of a ghostly Anna carrying a suitcase. A few hours later, he calls Anna’s niece, confirms her passing, and breaks into full-body, shuddering sobs, all in front of Peggy. “She was the only person in the world who really knew me,” he admits. “That’s not true,” Peggy responds. The implication is clear, but it’s only confirming what’s already gone down. Don Draper never, ever cries. To see him break down is to see Dick Whitman, the scared kid whose first and deepest instinct will always be to run.</p>
<p id="HOYixX">For all its masterly writing, <em>Mad Men</em>’s dirty secret is that it’s often a wildly obvious show. The final scene of “The Suitcase” has a disheveled Peggy ask a Brylcreemed, freshly changed Don if he wants his door open or closed. (He’s ditched a vomit-stained shirt and put his Draper suit back on.) “Open,” Don says, after having <em>opened </em>himself up to a woman who can take Anna’s place as his one true confidante, unsullied by sex. Get it? Still, the line lands because it’s preceded by a wordless moment of total understanding: Don and Peggy clasping hands over Don’s sketch of a Samsonite ad, modeled after the already-famous photo of Ali taunting Liston. They won’t speak of this moment again; even at their most vulnerable, these two don’t like talking much, and respect that about each other. (Don never asks Peggy outright who the father of her baby was; he only asks if she knows.) Things are already getting back to normal. That doesn’t diminish how special the events of “The Suitcase” are. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="ltJUtl">As the 46th chapter of a 92-part show, “The Suitcase” marks a baton-passing, but also a reflective pause at a crucial turning point. There’s so much history contained within the episode, and so many hints of what’s to come. Peggy’s old flame Duck getting in a drunken fistfight with Don recalls the infamous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI2A8bQv2xA">lawnmower incident</a> while foreshadowing the anarchy of an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb2pVuXHjlg">entire office on speed</a>. Don and Peggy’s bar talk builds on Don’s hospital visit and is expanded on in the series finale, when a distraught Don calls Peggy from California to talk him off the ledge. In “The Suitcase,” Don demands that Peggy stay, because her entire career started as one of his whims; he also craves her approval of the final product, a hint at how she’ll soon surpass him (and at one point, be his actual boss). Like a great ad, “The Suitcase” contains the nostalgia of the past <em>and </em>the excitement of the future. It’s the best episode of <em>Mad Men </em>because it is<em> </em>the entirety of <em>Mad Men</em>,<em> </em>all squeezed into a bottle. </p>
<aside id="tDqFbe"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"ringer_newsletter"}'></div></aside>
https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417597/mad-men-the-suitcase-bottle-episode-don-draper-peggy-olsonAlison Herman2020-09-02T06:10:00-04:002020-09-02T06:10:00-04:00When the Bottle Episode Goes Bad
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<figcaption><a class="ql-link" href="http://pabloi.com" target="_blank">Pablo Iglesias</a></figcaption>
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<p>The self-contained story is one of TV’s most highly regarded tricks—but as punked-out Eleven proves, it’s not always a winning exercise</p> <p id="C839G8"><em>As we approach the 10th anniversary of </em>Mad Men<em>’s “The Suitcase” on Saturday, join us in celebrating the highs and lows of one of television’s greatest exercises/flexes/budget-saving tricks: </em><a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21418170/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-bottle-episode"><em>the bottle episode</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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<p id="nBXqDj">On the surface, a bottle episode feels like a shaky gambit: a series committing to confining its characters to a setting or two, often stripping a story down to its bare bones. Yet in practice, bottle episodes tend to have high success rates. The bottle episodes from <em>Mad Men</em>, <em>Breaking Bad</em>, and <em>Seinfeld</em> don’t just work—they are regarded as all-timers. Bottle episodes reward a TV creator’s faith in the strength of their characters and core relationships, and in their ability to stand on their own. I mean, there’s a reason we can dedicate an entire day on this site to the greatness of bottle episodes—there’s <em>so</em> many to choose from. </p>
<p id="QL8Gql">But bottle episodes aren’t invincible—if a series does one and misses the mark, it can disrupt its entire season and forever exist in ignominy. To wit: If we polled a bunch of <em>Stranger Things</em> superfans about what their least favorite episode of the series was, chances are that Season 2’s “The Lost Sister” would be the overwhelming favorite. (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?series=tt4574334&view=simple&sort=user_rating,asc"><em>Stranger Things</em>’ episodic ratings</a> on IMDb suggest as much.) </p>
<p id="Q3lykT">At that point in the season, more gnarly creatures from the Upside Down are wreaking havoc, setting up yet another showdown for the fate of Hawkins, Indiana, and, possibly, the entire world. And then “The Lost Sister” grinds everything to a very awkward halt. Instead of continuing where we left off in Hawkins, the antepenultimate episode is a detour to Chicago, where Eleven meets another girl, Kali, who was <em>also </em>experimented on at Hawkins Lab and imbued with powers. (Kali was briefly introduced at the start of the season in a chase scene, setting up the whole “there are other kids like Eleven” thread.) Eleven is indoctrinated into Kali’s <em>Warriors</em>-esque group of Chicago outcasts, and she’s given an undeniably cool punk makeover. </p>
<p id="UH0W6a">But aside from killing the season’s momentum, “The Lost Sister” comes across like a cynical exercise in <em>Stranger Things</em> flirting with the possibility of a backdoor pilot—a way for the show’s universe to expand beyond just one telekinetic kid. (Her name is Eleven, after all; Kali is “008.”) While the <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2017/11/the-duffer-brothers-recap-stranger-things-2-the-lost-sister.html">Duffer brothers admitted to <em>Vulture</em> that “The Lost Sister” was “sort of like a pilot,”</a> they stress that wasn’t the true intention for the bottle episode, which was meant to be about Eleven’s journey of self-discovery before she goes back to Hawkins to save the day. </p>
<p id="StvydM">But it’s hard to shake the feeling that “The Lost Sister” just seems out of place; per the <em>Vulture</em> interview, the Duffers even considered scrapping the episode entirely. That’s, uh, hardly a vote of confidence. The episode also disrupts <em>Stranger Things</em>’ usual rhythm: seasons 1 and 3 are both eight episodes, and the exclusion of “The Lost Sister” would’ve kept Season 2 at the same length. <em>Stranger Things</em> is by no means obligated to run at eight episodes, but the way each season is structured—highly bingeable, and one of the few series that could credibly be viewed as an “eight-hour movie”—the bottle-episode nature of “The Lost Sister” just doesn’t vibe with the rest of the show. It’s Upside Down in the worst possible way. </p>
<p id="n250mS">The best bottle episodes are rich character studies, using the creative limitations of a single setting to mine more depth and emotional nuance—whether it’s Walter White and Jesse Pinkman airing out grievances while hunting a fly or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Gas_(Firefly)">the crew of the Serenity trying to restore the ship’s power before they run out of air</a>. Perhaps what makes “The Lost Sister” the poster child for a bad bottle episode is the fact that it tries to be several things at once: a flimsy attempt at deepening Eleven’s character before she inevitably returns to Hawkins, and a way to open up the show’s universe beyond its initial setting. There’s nothing wrong with <em>Stranger Things </em>leaving Hawkins’s orbit—that’s exactly where things appear to be headed in Season 4, with the Byers family leaving town and Chief Hopper being [<em>deep breath</em>] a <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2020/2/14/21137829/stranger-things-season-4-trailer-hopper">bald Russian prisoner of (interdimensional) war</a>—but bottle episodes are, by and large, the opposite of expansion. They’re supposed to be self-contained and restricted in scope. </p>
<p id="EfwyFW">Given the largely negative response to “The Lost Sister,” we probably won’t see Kali and her crew again, rendering them a strange footnote to one of Netflix’s buzziest original series. In fact, it’s because we can now pull back the curtain—seeing how this bottle episode fits, or doesn’t, with the rest of the show’s 24 other episodes—that “The Lost Sister” seems even more like an unnecessary outlier. (If the episode wasn’t there to provide some context as to why Eleven returns to Hawkins with a ton of eyeliner and slicked back hair, the series <em>could</em> exist without it.) </p>
<p id="gtoyUs">Other times, a bottle episode’s impact is hindered by a show not paying off the character development that the self-contained setting established. The last time <em>Game of Thrones</em> approached something akin to a bottle episode—the final season’s <a href="https://www.theringer.com/game-of-thrones/2019/4/21/18510439/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-2-recap">“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”</a>—was, with the benefit of hindsight, the last time the show truly excelled. On the eve of humanity’s epic battle with the White Walkers at Winterfell, our characters spend their time reflecting on their past mistakes, insecurities, and desires. (Arya, congrats on the sex.) While more of a bottle episode in mood than in format, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” was <em>Thrones</em> at its sneaky best: not flexing a mind-boggling production budget, but simply putting characters in a room and letting them talk. </p>
<p id="3DQKgQ">“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” was, at the time, <a href="https://www.theringer.com/game-of-thrones/2019/4/22/18510814/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-2-sendoffs-character-deaths">viewed as a sendoff</a> to many characters who’d soon (presumably) face their doom against the army of the undead. Heartwarming as it was, Brienne of Tarth’s long-overdue knighthood read like a mark of death. <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2019/2/22/18235245/game-of-thrones-loose-ends-podrick-payne-sex-god">Wholesome sex god</a> Podrick Payne’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCnEJYds1iA">beautiful singing voice</a> was just asking for trouble. I even begrudgingly accepted that my favorite dude, Ser Davos Seaworth, was probably fucked: He always talked about how he wasn’t much of a fighter! </p>
<p id="JwOKyD">Then, well, we know how <em>Thrones</em> ended: with plot contrivances and anticlimax, and not a whole lot of main character death. What could’ve been a love letter to characters that would perish was instead the last time the series made any sense. But because it gets dragged into the show’s messy and truncated end, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” doesn’t sit as well on repeat viewings. Through no fault of the episode’s writer, Bryan Cogman—his final time penning a script for <em>Thrones</em>—David Benioff and D.B. Weiss ensured the reputation of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” would, to some extent, go down with the sinking ship. (A ship that sank because <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dany-kind-of-forgot-about-the-iron-fleet">Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet</a>.) </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="VOqJd1">The struggles of <em>Stranger Things</em>’ detour to Chicago—or <em>Game of Thrones</em>’<em> </em>bottle-like episode whose disappointment rests in everything that transpired after it—shows how the format levels the playing field, and puts an even sharper emphasis on the elements of good storytelling. You don’t need big production values or Emmys fanfare to make a good bottle episode work. And you certainly don’t need to use that self-contained space to flirt with punky spinoff possibilities. All you need is a creatively liberating idea, where everyone is on the same page.</p>
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https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417558/bad-bottle-episodes-stranger-things-game-of-thronesMiles Surrey2020-09-02T06:00:00-04:002020-09-02T06:00:00-04:00How the Bottle Episode Went From Frugal to Flex
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<p>Paring down a cast and limiting a TV installment to one location used to be a challenge initiated by budgets—now it’s one thrown down by the creators themselves</p> <p id="vLG2s5"><em>As we approach the 10th anniversary of </em>Mad Men<em>’s “The Suitcase” on Saturday, join us in celebrating the highs and lows of one of television’s greatest exercises/flexes/budget-saving tricks: </em><a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21418170/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-bottle-episode"><em>the bottle episode</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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<p id="aIDZbn"><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bottle%20episode">According to Merriam-Webster</a>—you’re damn right I’m doing this—the term “bottle episode” has been in use only since around 2003. The form it describes, however, began as a fix to problems as old as television itself: finite budgets, lengthy episode orders, the need to generate new and inventive stories to fill said orders. But over the years, television itself has changed. Budgets, in extreme cases, can be comparable to those of feature films; seasons, borrowing from the British model, can be as short as eight or even six episodes long; stories are still hard, but showrunners are often given more resources and less pressure to execute their visions.</p>
<p id="BPNVuF">Consequently, the nature of the bottle episode has changed. What was once an unglamorous cost-saving measure is now an opportunity for series to flex their financial and creative muscles. In half a century, the bottle episode has gone from a byproduct of TV’s shoestring production practices to a distilled example of its cultural resurgence. The history of the bottle episode, aptly enough, works as a history of television writ large.</p>
<p id="X2bKk1">Zooming out: What <em>is </em>a bottle episode? The term is both a piece of jargon and a disputed one, making it doubly opaque to casual viewers. In its most classical sense, a bottle episode is a chapter of TV that uses only regular cast members and preexisting locations, though typically just one. The reasons for the bottle episode’s existence are almost entirely practical; with no guest-star fees or need to construct new sets, a bottle keeps costs to a minimum while still producing more content. But like many developments in TV, the structural constraints of the bottle gave rise to artistic innovation. There’s not much to do with the same people and places as usual except have characters talk to each other in a room—and “people talking in rooms” is at once immensely difficult to get right and a description of some of the most riveting scenes ever filmed.</p>
<p id="eGvW0C">Bottle episodes were initially known as “bottle shows,” a term attributed to ’60s-era producer Leslie Stevens, then of the <em>Twilight Zone</em>–esque science-fiction anthology <em>The Outer Limits. </em>Stevens penned the episode “Controlled Experiment,” in which two Martians investigate a murder on Earth using a device that allows them to observe and replay past events. “Controlled Experiment” took just four and a half shooting days and cost $100,000, a result Stevens likened to “pulling the episode right out of the bottle like a genie.” (In reality, Stevens banged out the script on a single cross-country flight, a similarly supernatural feat.)</p>
<p id="qEXQar">“Controlled Experiment” isn’t remembered as an all-time episode of television, but the technique it pioneered was soon applied to more enduring effect. In “Two’s a Crowd,” Normal Lear’s seminal <em>All in the Family </em>boiled itself down to just cantankerous patriarch Archie Bunker and his liberal son-in-law Mike, locked in the storeroom of a bar and forced to talk out their differences. (Having appeared in both of these episodes of TV, 14 years apart, Carroll O’Connor is basically the godfather of the bottle episode.) In “The Chinese Restaurant,” <em>Seinfeld</em>’s gang of misanthropes wait in almost real time for a dinner table, wasting the half-hour in predictably petty ways. (For all the bottle episode’s network-friendly penny pinching, it took Larry David threatening to quit over the episode for NBC to agree to air it.) In “The One Where No One’s Ready,” the <em>Friends </em>never leave their dubiously spacious West Village abode, a setup so successful the producers recycled it several times over the show’s 10-season run.</p>
<p id="MdRfV4">In the prestige era, however, the bottle episode has expanded to accommodate stories that contain themselves only in a narrative sense, without sparing any expense—or episodes that fit the definition in letter, though arguably not in spirit. <em>Game of Thrones</em>’ “Blackwater,” for example, is far more compact than most chapters of the map-skipping fantasy epic, concentrating on a single night in the capital city of King’s Landing. But it’s also a battle episode with spectacular explosions and crowded, noisy fight scenes. Far from paring down <em>Game of Thrones</em>, “Blackwater” threw down the gauntlet, setting a precedent for future showdowns like “Hardhome” and “Battle of the Bastards.” <em>Breaking Bad</em>’s “Fly,” meanwhile, locks Walter and Jesse in a lab, an Archie Bunker and Mike for the meth wars of the American Southwest. But Rian Johnson’s camerawork makes the episode as visually arresting as any of its desert vistas. <em>Breaking Bad</em>’s bottle wasn’t a necessity; the challenge was self-imposed.</p>
<p id="Z7aepc">And in the context of animated shows, the concept of the bottle episode gets stretched to the point of absurdity. With no physical actors to film or locations to shoot, there isn’t a material benefit to squeezing the entire cast into a broken elevator, as <em>Archer </em>did with “Vision Quest.” It’s a purely comic enterprise with highly entertaining results. In “Free Churro,” a widely celebrated episode of <em>BoJack Horseman</em>, the effect of having the title character monologue uninterrupted is more emotional than playful. (BoJack thinks he’s giving his mother’s eulogy; in the episode’s final gag, he realizes he’s at the wrong funeral.) Will Arnett is the sole speaking voice in “Free Churro”—not because the rest of the cast wasn’t available, but because it serves the story of BoJack reckoning with his trauma. And in “Rixty Minutes,” the namesakes of <em>Rick and Morty </em>technically never leave the house. They’re just treated to psychedelic imagery through the interdimensional cable box in their living room.</p>
<p id="E7eqqP"><em>The Shield </em>producer Scott Brazil <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051031125831/http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/the_shield_s4/weblog_ep9.html">once described</a> the bottle episode as the “sad little stepchild” of conventional TV production. That may once have been true, but as TV itself has become more accepted as a site of artistic ambition, the bottle episode has become a place for that ambition to be realized, not a corner to cut. Bottle episodes were once a way to make up for going over budget elsewhere in the season; these days, they’re one of the places where expense is not to be spared. Think of the makeup and prosthetics that transform Donald Glover into Teddy Perkins, or <em>The Leftovers </em>turning into a full-blown espionage thriller for an hour in “International Assassin.”</p>
<p id="G9Wu1T">The most traditional strain of bottle episode survives, in modified form. You’ll find it most often on network sitcoms—not where the medium technically began, but certainly where it hit its stride. <em>Black-ish</em>’s “Hope” is a many-sided political debate staged in a Sherman Oaks living room, as befits a show inspired by <em>All in the Family </em>creator Norman Lear. <em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</em>’s “The Box” is an extended riff on the police interrogation, itself an old-school template given new life by a silly experiment. The difference is that the bottle episode is now expansive enough a category to encompass both “The Box” and something like “Pine Barrens,” the famous <em>Sopranos </em>hour that takes place entirely <em>outside </em>the show’s typical North Jersey environs. In some ways, “Pine Barrens” is the exact opposite of what a bottle episode is supposed to be. In others, it’s the epitome of what the bottle episode has become, a moonshot that countless showrunners have tried to mimic in the nearly two decades since that episode aired. Even as the bottle episode is more central to TV than ever, its definition has also never been hazier. Like a different kind of omnipresent entertainment, you just know it when you see it.</p>
https://www.theringer.com/tv/2020/9/2/21417604/bottle-episode-evolution-network-tv-breaking-badAlison Herman