Best TV Shows of April, 2022

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 14 was the season that wouldn’t end. Weeks went by without an elimination, robbing the season of a sense of urgency and leaving us at the season finale with zero preparation. Weird pacing aside, the last stretch of episodes were as good as any in recent memory. Bosco’s killer roast, Lady Camden’s star turn in the “Catwalk” video, all of the Daya/Jasmine duh-rama of the reunion — what’s not to love? The finale was worth the wait, too, if only for the introduction of Willow Pill’s new hit “I Hate People.” Season 14 was the season that wouldn’t end, but we definitely miss it and those queens now that it’s over. — Brett White

Where to watch RuPaul's Drag Race

The Great Pottery Throw Down Season 5 is one of the most incandescently beautiful seasons of reality TV ever made. Yes! It’s that good. Between the show’s supportive (and sobbing) judges, sweetly encouraging hosts, and cast of quirky oddballs, The Great Pottery Throw Down might be the kindest show on TV. This season features such joys as naughty gnomes with their bums out, a urinal challenge, and a contestant who built a legit TARDIS in his day job as a BBC prop master. The thing that elevates The Great Pottery Throw Down, though, is its commitment to vulnerability. Potters sculpt their tragedies into their most beautiful works and find their failures chucked into a bin with a laugh. The Great Pottery Throw Down is more than a cozy show; it’s a cathartic one. — Meghan O’Keefe

Where to watch The Great Pottery Throw Down

It feels weird to call Atlanta a TV show. In so many ways, it feels like an art project that transcends the term. That’s especially true of Season 3, an installment that slightly pulls away from its Black protagonists to explore racism through a predominantly white lens. You can only watch European people swear they’re not racist so many times before you start to question how deep this particular poison runs. Atlanta is a lot of hypocritical things at once: subtle, overt, horrifying, funny, sad, uplifting. But above all else, Atlanta stands as an endlessly smart and fascinating dissection of our modern world. — Kayla Cobb

Where to watch Atlanta

The third season of Barry was certainly worth the wait. The first episode of the new season was a perfect reminder of the show’s unworldly ability to combine sophisticated dark comedy with gut-wrenching pathos, resulting in a tour de force of entertainment. Season 3 is a darker, funnier jaunt inside the warped mind of Barry Berkman, delivering a constant array of jaw-dropping moments while exploring the corrosive effects of grief, guilt, and delusion. A stellar combination of exceptional performances and deft storytelling combine to make the new season of Barry the textbook definition of appointment television. — Josh Sorokach

Where to watch Barry

Abbott Elementary has been charming viewers since its mid-season debut, and this month, it stuck its first season landing. The show ended on a high note, with a series of episodes that not only deepened the characters’ relationships with each other, but delivered bigger, bolder laughs. Star and creator Quinta Brunson has resurrected the network sitcom by delivering a crowd pleaser full of sharp one-liners, but more importantly, an ensemble cast of characters the audience can’t help but fall in love with. We can’t wait for Season 2. — Meghan O’Keefe

Where to watch Abbott Elementary

HBO Max’s Minx is a breezy good time. Created by Ellen Rapoport, the charming comedy follows a feminist journalist (Ophelia Lovibond) who teams with a low-rent publisher (Jake Johnson) to create the first erotic magazine for women in 1970s Los Angeles. As always, Johnson is an engaging presence, but the show succeeds thanks to its mesmerizing, perfectly cast ensemble. Jessica Lowe, Oscar Montoya, and Lennon Parham deserve their own spinoff, and Idara Victor’s Tina has simmering chemistry with Johnson’s Doug Renetti. Don’t sleep on this superb, wildly entertaining series. — Josh Sorokach

Where to watch Minx

After initially portraying Adam and Rebekah Neumann as infallible, high-status con artists clueless enough to buy into their own con, the back half of WeCrashed delivered the schadenfreude. The Apple TV+ limited series dove into Rebekah’s ludicrously out-of-touch school, with Anne Hathaway devouring every teary-eyed, self-absorbed monologue about heightening the world’s consciousness or whatever. Thanks to fascinating lead performances and a stellar supporting cast (America Ferrera, Anthony Edwards, and O-T Fagbenle gave the best “what the actual F” reactions of the year), WeCrashed went out on top as the Neumanns hit rock bottom. — Brett White

Where to watch WeCrashed

Those beautiful comic geniuses Dan Goor and Luke Del Tredici (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) have done it again with Peacock’s wild and wacky Killing It. Craig Robinson stars as Craig, a struggling entrepreneur, who teams up with the kooky and sweet Jillian (Australian comedy import Claudia O’Doherty) to compete in the Florida Python Challenge for the chance to win $20,000. Featuring strong supporting turns from Rell Battle, Scott MacArthur, Tim Heidecker and John Early, Killing It is an eccentric, edgy comedy with a surprising amount of heart. — Karen Kemmerle

Where to watch Killing It

You’ll fall in love with Netflix’s Heartstopper pretty much from the first scene. Set in an English boys school, the show follows young Charlie Spring (Joe Locke), an out, gay student who thinks real love will never find him. That is until he’s sat at the same table as Nick Nelson (Kit Connor), a rugby player a year older who is also, seemingly, straight. From there, Heartstopper explodes into a visual feast of young adult love that feels true, lived in and expressively emotional. The show doesn’t shy away from serious topics, but thanks to creator Alice Oseman’s gentle approach, watching these eight perfect episodes will feel like a warm blanket instead of a cold shower. Do yourself a favor, go watch Heartstopper right now. And then again. And again. And again… — Alex Zalben

Where to watch Heartstopper

Of course Better Call Saul is on this list. It’s one of the greatest shows ever brought to TV, let alone one of the best shows of 2022. But it’s the calculated pacing of Season 6 that makes this final season feel so remarkable. In so many little ways, Season 6 feels like just another installment of Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s masterful show. It’s a tonal choice that infuses every scene with dread for what’s to come. Though we may now know the fate of Michael Mando’s Nacho, the same can’t be said about Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler or Tony Dalton’s Lalo. It’s this pervasive uncertainty in this endlessly brutal world that’s haunting. — Kayla Cobb

Where to watch Better Call Saul

The Severance Season 1 finale is one of the best TV finales of the year. All season, Dan Erickson’s dystopian sci-fi thriller about a group of corporate employees that keep their work and home-life memories separate, has been oh-so-subtly building, and the final episode delivered the pay-off audiences were craving. The brilliance of this addicting series lies in how grounded it keeps itself—the horrors of neverending corporate B.S. are already scary enough. But the finale finally let things get a little crazy. It’s a game-changer, not a cliffhanger, and it will leave you begging for more. Thankfully, Season 2 is on the way. — Anna Menta

Where to watch Severance