re: Was "Ozymandias" the best episode of television you've seen?

I started thinking of my favorite episodes in TV history, and this one didn't quite fit in any of the broader categories. It's not a finale, but it's working towards an endpoint. But it's a pivotal episode that's downright gut wrenching from start to finish. While last week showed us the Best Possible Outcome (before the Nazis showed up), this was the Darkest Timeline, to borrow Community's phrase. I think the writers showed us the Hank Wins ending and the Everyone Gets Destroyed ending, freeing them to do whatever they want now for the actual ending. They've delivered the two extremes some fans have asked for.

But think about great episodes before, they are usually season finales (West Wing's Two Cathedrals, Battlestar Gallactica's Lay Down Your Burdens, or The Wire's Final Grades) or early "statement of purpose" episodes early in a show's run which stakes out the claim to greatness (Homicide's Three Men and Adena, The Soprano's College, or ER's Love's Labour Lost). On a personal level, as I relate to these episodes, I love the episodes that tackle the death of a parent (Buffy's The Body or Friday Night Light's The Son).

But this episodes doesn't really fit any of those groupings. It's just a singularly great episode in the midst of a run of a great episodes from an already established great show. I think it's closest equivalent is the fake out gut punch of Six Feet Under's That's My Dog, which I still think is the greatest episode in TV history, though that's an admittedly controversial choice. Many people hated that episode.

Ozymandias fits in this group as one of the singular great episodes in TV history. Just a brilliant hour.