A character death you can’t get out of your head. A wild reveal that leaves you reeling. A killer fight, a piece of longstanding lore explained, or just a really great musical number: these are the very best TV moments io9 saw this year, on all the sci-fi, horror, and fantasy shows we watched in 2024.
Oz strangles Vic – The Penguin
Through the entirety of The Penguin, we knew Oz was capable of some seriously terrible stuff. He was doing so much terrible stuff, in fact, he had to recruit and train a right-hand man, Vic, to help him. But when Oz’s enemies find his mother, he realizes anyone he cares about can be used against him—which is when Oz does the unthinkable and strangles Vic to death. It was a shocking moment filled with meaning. To become the crime kingpin of Gotham, you’ve got to give up everything, including the ones you love.
The apocalypse begins – Fallout
What if the apocalypse began at the exact moment you were at a children’s birthday party—entertaining while dressed in a cowboy costume, no less—having just explained to your young daughter that if she sees a mushroom cloud, holds up her thumb, and gauges that the cloud is bigger than her thumb, that’s the end of the world. Then it happens: a flash, and a massive cloud begins to take shape… bigger than 100 thumbs put together. It’s a horrible, hypnotic sight. Then another one drops, and another, and there’s no running away from what happens next—and that’s the opening scene of Fallout.
Battle at Rook’s Rest – House of the Dragon
Season two, episode four seems like high time to get the war your show is built around—the Dance of the Dragons—out onto an actual battlefield, or rather, high above the battlefield, thanks to an incredible dragon fight. It’s Targaryen versus Targaryen, but the sides become muddled when Prince Aemond turns on his own brother, King Aegon. They both survive to continue their sibling rivalry, but Princess Rhaenys (along with her dragon) is lost forever—and the audience is left breathless as the credits roll.
Genoshan genocide – X-Men ’97
X-Men ’97 started out strong, but it truly stepped into high gear with “Remember It,” which pivoted its nostalgic revisit to the X-Men‘s popularity boom in the ’90s to show us it had the bite to offer a contemporary lens on the Mutant metaphor. In a stunning, tragic moment, we see the work of the Mutant nation of Genosha undone in a brutal Sentinel attack that sees Rogue, Magneto, and Gambit rise to the occasion… and only one of them get back up from it. It’s the moment the series went from something good to something incredible, and as Remy commanded, we will be remembering it for a very long time.
Maddie’s death – Arcane
Arcane isn’t a comedy, but it loves to be funny during otherwise tense moments. Just as you’re wondering if it makes sense for Cait’s work fling Maddie to be a Noxian agent, she’s about to execute Cait herself. And then… well, thank Mel Medara for giving Mads an all-time, Looney Tunes-ass exit.
Gandalf’s name explained – The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
From the first episode of The Rings of Power, when the skinny dude with magic powers and a beard showed up from the sky, every single person watching thought “I wonder if that’s Gandalf.” And so, after two seasons of teasing, when that character finally gets a staff and a purpose, he also gets a name. You guessed it: Gandalf, an evolution of “grand elf.” We all saw it coming, but the moment of the reveal was cathartic.
Bruce Wayne vs. carnies – Batman: Caped Crusader
We’ve all accepted that Bruce Wayne can’t take five steps without collecting an orphan child of Gotham. Batman: Caped Crusader doesn’t give him a Robin, but it presents the future sidekicks to be in a completely Bruce-free context for a single episode. When those kids end up kidnapped at a carnival, Bruce tries to investigate under his regular identity, and the carnies kick the crap out of him. It doesn’t fully matter whether they think he’s a weirdo, or are just trying to cover for one of their own; it’s a nice character moment that shows how classic elements of his character would be met in an earlier time period.
“To me, my X-Men!” – X-Men ‘97
X-Men ‘97’s first episode showcases how much cooler Cyclops is than you remember from the live-action movies and then-comics. Even when he’s freefalling toward the ground, Scott Summers gets a chance to show off he’s cool as hell. And Scott nailing his landing before rallying the team to action in a great, crowd-pleasing moment in a great start to a great revival.
Stranger slaughter – Star Wars: The Acolyte
With the cool mask and double lightsabers, the Stranger was already pretty scary. But when he comes across a team of Jedi and systematically kills almost all of them, including two of The Acolyte’s main characters (RIP Jecki and Yord) it was simultaneously very exciting but also absolutely terrifying. Real stakes and consequences in Star Wars? What a concept. And now, with The Acolyte canceled, something we may never see again.
Acro-Silky’s Origins – Dan Da Dan
Dan Da Dan has largely excelled so far with its exaggerated absurdity, the zany action of its mish-mash of sci-fi and supernatural genres giving us over-the-top action and gags week in, week out. But readers of the manga knew that soon enough the anime would dive into a moment that would show people what the series was capable of—and it got there in its seventh episode, telling the tragic backstory of the yokai Acro-Silky. Sumptuously animated, it’s the moment Dan Da Dan proved it could really do more than the sum of its genre mixups and give a really compelling heart to what it was exploring about these characters, and did so with its own mix of shock and tragedy that left us reeling (whether we’d read the manga already or not).
All of Sofia’s backstory – The Penguin
This is cheating a bit but we’re going to count episode four of The Penguin, “Cent’anni,” as one moment because—holy crap. What an episode. Not only do we see the tragic backstory that’s been propelling Sofia, but its shocking revelations completely turn The Penguin on its head. You thought Sofia was one thing, but it turns out she’s another, and instantly your loyalties as a viewer change. So much wild stuff happens that, yes, the whole episode deserves its own spot in this list.
Blood and Cheese – House of the Dragon
The Game of Thrones prequel kicked off its second season by giving fans a source-material moment they’d been longing to see—the brutal murder of a child in line for the Iron Throne. The scene was suitably ghastly, but what made the “Blood and Cheese” incident reverberate even more came weeks later, when author George R.R. Martin aired out his frustrations with the changes made to his story in the adaptation process.
Mansion attack – X-Men ‘97
We’ve seen the Xavier Institute attacked before, but not quite like this. With Rogue out of commission, it falls to Wolverine and Nightcrawler to defend her from a horde of Prime Sentinels as their home burns down. It’s equally tense and harrowing, while also a great reminder of how deadly those two specific X-Men can be when forced to go back to back.
Sekai Taikai finale – Cobra Kai
Multiple seasons of Cobra Kai had all been leading to the biggest, baddest karate tournament on the planet: the Sekai Taikai. And the event lived up to the hype with all manner of great fights and competitions, both on and off the mat. Truly, you had no idea how it could all come together in a nice, clean way and it didn’t. The final matches turned into knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred royal rumbles of karate with every dojo fighting for their lives. Literally. In the end, one of Cobra Kai‘s captains, Kwan, is killed. Mistakenly, sure, but it made for an unforgettable turn of events.
Durin fights the Balrog – The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Much of Rings of Power‘s sophomore season focused on the story of the Elven rings, and the power and danger they represented as Sauron played his hand in Eregion. But its secret best story about the corruption of the rings of power, and the hope that such temptation could be thwarted, was found not among the Elves, but in the caverns of Khazad-Dum. Durin and his selfnamed son had one of the best emotional arcs of the season, with their damaged relationship providing a prime crack for Sauron’s gift to exploit, but its climax with a father sacrificing himself for his son—realizing too late the cost of the greed the rings had stoked within him—was what made it all hit so well, even beyond the splashy spectacle of a brief entanglement with shadow and flame.
The William Hell Overture – Dan Da Dan
Dan Da Dan has managed to throw something remarkable and over the top at us almost every week since it started airing, but Okarun and Momo’s tag-game-to-the-death with Turbo Granny is one of the series’ early animation highlights. The absurdity of it all, the communication of the chase’s momentum, it’s the spectacle of the series at its best—elevated by Kensuke Ushio’s inspired decision to score it all to a weird, electro-poppy remix of Rossini’s operatic classic. Bizarre and hilarious in all the right ways.
“The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” rock band jam – Agatha All Along
Once Agatha All Along established that “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” was a smash-hit single in the show’s in-world pop culture, it was only a matter of time before we got a full performance. Episode four delivered, with a 1970s-flavored version featuring members of the coven on instruments and Agatha on the mic (plus fire and a demonic curse), and cast a spell on audiences in the form of an earworm we still can’t get rid of. “Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Rooooaaaad!”
Antichrist baptism – Evil
In Evil’s final season, the forces of darkness are just starting to see their sinister plan begin to pay off when they piss off the wrong follower. What’s the worst thing that could happen to the Antichrist? How about baptizing the little guy? Despite plenty of demonic interference, baby Timothy does indeed get his blessing, in a creepy yet clever scene as unexpected as it was satisfying.
Sugar is an alien? – Sugar
While everyone was marveling at Colin Farrell’s performance on HBO’s The Penguin, deservedly so, we were still trying to wrap our heads around the big mid-season reveal in his other streaming series this year: Apple TV+’s Sugar. Ostensibly a neo-noir about an LA private eye wrapped up in a missing-person case, things took quite the genre turn when audiences realized Farrell’s character was actually… a blue-skinned alien in disguise.
Judgment Day destruction – 3 Body Problem
We learn one of 3 Body Problem’s characters has created a high-tech nanofiber in episode one. But we don’t realize how terrifying the invention has the capability of being until episode five, when it’s used as part of a desperate plan to obtain some much-needed but well-guarded information. The wire is so fine and sharp slices though an entire ship, including its very surprised passengers, in a special-effects marvel that was 3 Body Problem’s most audaciously visceral accomplishment.
“Secret Agent Man” – The Umbrella Academy
If The Umbrella Academy’s fourth and final season had trouble living up to the heights of the seasons that came before, one moment did capture the goofy fun that first made fans fall in love with the series: Diego and Luther battling their way out of a CIA office while “Secret Agent Man” blared on the soundtrack. It starts in an elevator, Luther immediately loses his pants, Diego loses his shirt, staplers and forks are weaponized, and along the way the siblings joyfully rediscover what’s fun about being superheroes again.
The return of Jackie Daytona – What We Do in the Shadows
In the finale, we got a flashback to the 1950s that showed Laszlo’s been perfecting his “regular human” disguise for decades. It’s the toothpick, of course! Works every time.
Whenever Laios is on one – Delicious in Dungeon
Delicious in Dungeon is an utterly ridiculous show, and its cast is a big reason why. Main character Laios is a closet freak that’s managed to rope in adventurers to help save his kidnapped sister Falin—and has also convinced them to indulge in his long-desired dream to chop up the dungeon’s monsters and eat them. Whether he’s rattling off monster facts or geeking out over seeing something completely new, he is the Most character, and his respective Japanese and English actors Kentaro Kumagi and Damien Haas do a great job capturing his unbridled, often exasperating joy.
The Voice origins – Dune: Prophecy
Before there was the Bene Gesserit, there was the Sisterhood—and as the Dune prequel series has shown us, that’s where a lot of the group’s signature talents were refined. That includes “the Voice,” which we learn in a flashback first emerged when Valya Harkonnen used it to save her brother from drowning. But in the show, we first see her use her startling gift in a more alarming way: to compel a rival Sister to take her own life.
Garak and Bashir, together at last – Star Trek: Lower Decks
It’s not our universe’s Garak and Bashir, but it doesn’t matter. Lower Decks‘ multiversal setup to its impending series finale provided plenty of opportunities for self-referential gags and riffs on the tiring tropes of interconnected parallel realities, but its greatest justice was one decades in the making: bringing back Deep Space Nine‘s Andrew Robinson and Alexander Siddig to voice versions of Garak and Dr. Bashir that got to be in a relationship together, as they and legions of Trek fans had advocated for since the show thrust the unlikely duo together. And it wasn’t just some quiet, background thing, but a crucial arc of the whole episode!
Agatha and Rio/Death’s love story – Agatha All Along
The MCU finally has a couple that are believably horny for each other! Death aka Rio (Aubrey Plaza) and Agatha’s (Kathryn Hahn) dance around each other in Agatha All Along provided Marvel with an off and on romance that oozed off the screen. They had a past, they definitely laid with one another and broke each other’s hearts. And that build to the final battle with huge reveals broke the tension and our hearts too—sealed with a kiss.
Qimir in the lake – Star Wars: The Acolyte
The Dark Side has never been so seductive as the moment that Qimir (Manny Jacinto), formerly known as the Stranger, lays it all bare to show Osha (Amandla Stenberg) there’s nothing to be afraid of with him in regards to her power… by skinny dipping in a lake and leaving her to take his lightsaber. We could have truly had it all.
Who is the father? – Bluey
In Bluey‘s season finale, we get a glimpse at the future of the show and the reveal that Bandit is being targeted by his grandchild, Bluey’s kid. The frame has the fandom divided with arguments over the identity of the baby daddy: French Labrador Jean-Luc (if they reunite from their meet cute summer vacation episode after becoming friends)—or childhood friend Mackenzie the Border Collie.
Fates and Zeus confrontation – Kaos
When Zeus (Jeff Goldblum) realizes that his prophecy is self-fulfilling, the specifics of it are presented by the Fates the most petty way—they let themselves be burned to transform the realms of the Gods. Led by Suzy Eddie Izzard, they were some of the most iconic and delightful characters of Kaos—but too bad we won’t see what was planned next, as the ambitious series was not renewed.
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