The 15 Best TV Moments of 2019
As the era of too much TV lumbers on, the mystery of how to conceptualize television as a format remains. When people praise a show, are they talking about its entire run? A season? An episode? Thinking back on this year, The Atlantic’s staff gravitated toward calling out specific moments—scenes, subplots, and split seconds—that they enjoyed. So that’s what they wrote up.
Are You the One?: Kai goes to the Boom-Boom Room
The MTV dating reality series Are You the One? has a simple premise: In most seasons, 10 young men and 10 young women take personality tests to determine their “perfect match,” then move into a house where they’re tasked with figuring out all the correct pairings to win the group prize of $1 million. This past season, the series featured its first cast of “sexually fluid” contestants, who approached the challenge with glorious abandon. But no one took to the game more fervently than the heartthrob Kai Wes, who shocked his fellow cast members and viewers alike when he went into the house’s “Boom-Boom Room” (yes, it’s really called that) with two different people within the span of a few hours. Are You the One? has had plenty of raunchy moments throughout its run, but Kai’s brazenness stood out—in part because of the hormonal shifts he blamed it on. The whole episode was unprecedented, it was messy, and it was perfect. — Hannah Giorgis
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
