The Best TV Bottle Episodes, Ranked

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https://www.looper.com/854260/the-be...isodes-ranked/

BY DUNCAN CARSON/MAY 5, 2022 2:53 PM EDT

Television shows are so time-consuming and expensive to make, they occasionally take refuge in a bottle episode. Typically, a bottle episode takes place almost entirely in one set, and features only a few of the regular cast members. But while this unique approach might be most famous as a cost-cutting maneuver (and occasional last-minute save when plans for a different episode fall through), the bottle episode has also become a form unto itself.

Normally expansive shows use the bottle episode to explore their characters in greater depth, dream up surreal scenarios, and experiment with their own themes. In the age of binge-watching, a good bottle episode does something unique: It slows down to focus on the apparently mundane, often in real time, and consider the subtleties of the story being told. It's easy to imply big, important things when you cut together a montage that covers huge stretches of a time, but by focusing on characters in a single room, a good television show can tell us everything with only the potent details. In celebration of this stupendously spare approach, we're ranking the best bottle episodes on television, from the merely great to the absolutely sublime.

13. Master of None: Mornings



12. Girls: One Man's Trash



11. Community: Cooperative Calligraphy



10. Firefly: Out of Gas



9. Atlanta: Teddy Perkins



8. Game of Thrones: Blackwater



7. Doctor Who: Midnight



6. BoJack Horseman: Free Churro



5. The X-Files: Ice



4. Fleabag: Season 2, Episode 1



3. Breaking Bad: Fly



2. The Sopranos: Pine Barrens



1. Mad Men: The Suitcase

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Mad Men: The Suitcase is not a bottle episode. It's the best episode of the show and for a while it was in my top five best episodes of any show ever, but I wouldn't call it a "bottle" episode.