I've covered TV at Esquire for the better part of a decade now—the joys and pains of recapping Westworld still linger in my psyche—and I genuinely can't remember a better start to a year on the small screen. Ever. Halfway through 2025, we have The Pitt, Severance, The Studio, Andor, and The Rehearsal, which should all land comfortably in my year-end top ten list. (Though The Bear and the Jason Bateman-fronted Black Rabbit will soon have something to say about that.) Esquire's entertainment team is enjoying 2025's slate so much, in fact, that we weren't content naming the standout shows of the year to this point—we shouted out the top episodes, too. (If the words "Chikhai Bardo" mean anything to you, we'll be fast friends.) Check out the finest TV episodes of 2025 so far—and let me know if we missed any of your favorites. – Brady Langmann, senior entertainment editor Plus: |
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From The Last of Us to Severance, this feels like the year Hollywood finally figured out the key to a good flashback episode. |
If 2025's best TV episodes had one thing in common, it's that Hollywood may have finally figured out the key to a good flashback episode. The Last of Us season 2 looked back in time to remind viewers why Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will forever remain one of the greatest onscreen father-daughter pairings of all time. Meanwhile, Paradise filled in the gaps of the past to reveal answers moving forward, and Severance left the bright hallways of the office to focus on the reason why Mark Scout and Gemma's strained relationship brought them both to Lumon in the first place. |
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I used to not think much about the pen I used. I like books and write for a living, so I already owned a nice custom refillable notebook. I had a Parker Jotter pen only because James Bond used one in GoldenEye. I got particular about my Parker refills, but that was as deep as I got into stationery. A fountain pen, to me, was something people used for actual calligraphy. I knew fountain pens were part of the whole Classic Man thing that Esquire is built on, but I tapped out at buying a nice suit. No need for an old-school pen. Turns out, I was missing one of life's great pleasures. |
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"I found a long time ago, the work-life balance stuff—it's just one thing," Bentley says. "It's just life, and you're either winning at that or you're not." Bentley, 49, takes more pride in prioritizing his wife and three kids than in his 20-plus years of country music stardom—to the point of piloting his own plane to take his band on the road, for greatest efficiency in getting everybody back home. "I don't think anyone has been able to do it the way I've done, as far as incorporating my family time into the touring thing," he says. "It's easy to chase the numbers when you're single or not a great dad, but it's a lot harder to do when you actually care a lot."
But Bentley's new album, Broken Branches (out now), mostly hearkens back to a different chapter in his journey. On his eleventh LP, he examines what drives young people to do something as crazy as move to Nashville and stake it all on the dream of being a musician. |
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 I happened to be in the D.C. area visiting friends this weekend but stopped by the Washington Monument on Sunday to check out the aftermath of Trump's big, weird military parade. Tourists were out there as normal, snapping photos in front of the giant stone obelisk while workers tore down the miles and miles worth of barriers that hugged the route. The gaudy stage from which Trump spoke was still intact, way too grand to justify the sparse crowd that attended. The day before, during the actual parade, Esquire political columnist Charles P. Pierce took it all in and wrote down his thoughts on the whole "joyless, lifeless, and sterile" affair. The piece will make you miss the days when parades actually meant something. Read it below. – Chris Hatler, deputy editor Plus: |
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I have never experienced such a joyless, lifeless, and sterile mass event in my entire life. |
Grim-faced soldiers, marching past half-empty grandstands, many of them obviously wanting to be somewhere else. No bands. Little bunting. Just piped-in rock music and MAGA hats. If this truly was meant to honor the 250 years of the United States Army, all we got was an endless procession of uniformed troops looking like they'd prefer to have been at Valley Forge. The president, sitting on the reviewing stand in that weird, forward-leaning attitude that he has, rarely smiling, a skunk at his own garden party. Scores of people being funneled through cattle runs of metal grates just for a chance to sit on the lawn of the Washington Monument and listen to bad music and speeches so dull and listless that they'd have made Demosthenes get out of the business and open an olive-oil stand. I think there probably was more good feeling and genuine emotion when they took Jack Kennedy out to Arlington for the last time. |
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Theo Croker, the famed trumpeter, composer, songwriter and Grammy nominee, holds a vast series of accomplishments. He's just released his eighth studio album, dream manifest, and tours almost constantly. And though some would call Croker a jazz musician, he's ready to move beyond the label. "Fuck jazz," he tells me at one point during our conversation. His new album is expansive, and spans many kinds of sounds I love—jazz, fusion, neo-soul, hip-hop, and rap (to name a few). I'd be remiss not to mention how cool this guy really is. |
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After thirteen years with a white-knuckle death grip on the steering wheel of their career, Bono finally learned how to take a breath. He embraced long lunches and late nights. Quality time with his wife and kids. And some partying too. "House parties, dance parties, our mates," as he recalls of the early days' scene. Bono flourished, finding lightness in himself for the first time in a long time. Maybe even ever. Looking back, he might've gone too big. "I was going through the pure joy of having adolescence the wrong way around—having it in my thirties instead of my teens," he recalls. "There was a moment where I had to ask myself, 'Where is this self-love and where's this self-indulgence?'" |
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