\n<\/p>\n
Note: This is an updated version of a list that originally ran in 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n Preparing for the big binge? Whether you call the upcoming holiday Friendsgiving, Slapsgiving, the Feast of Feasts \u2014 or just, you know, Thanksgiving \u2014 this year, you can be thankful that there is plenty of TV to keep you company. Join these fictional families and friend groups while they break bread or break each other\u2019s spirits, depending on which feels more comforting as you cook, eat and fade away on the couch. Yes, you may have seconds.<\/p>\n Matthew Perry<\/a>, who died last month, at 54, was the king of many a \u201cFriends\u201d Thanksgiving episode. Or as his character Chandler put it, the king of bad Thanksgivings. Or<\/em>, as Monica\u2019s mother put it, the Boy Who Hates Thanksgiving. (His disdain for the holiday stemmed from learning about his parents\u2019 divorce one Thanksgiving as a child and vomiting in response.) Gradually, though, Chandler conquered his aversion, bailing out the gang with cheese sandwiches at the first Friendsgiving and later helping to prepare a batch of cranberry sauce (made, in his parlance, of tasty Chanberries). Fans with only enough room for one episode should seek out \u201cThe One With the Thanksgiving Flashbacks,\u201d from Season 5. (Streaming on <\/em>Max<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n For the mad scientist Rick Sanchez (Justin Roiland), Thanksgiving is an ideal time to break into the National Archives and try to steal the Constitution. So what if some other national treasures are destroyed in the process? \u201cRick and Morty\u2019s Thanksploitation Spectacular,\u201d from Season 5, finds Rick on the outs with federal authorities and fomenting an elaborate scheme to score a presidential pardon. Pretty soon people start turning into turkeys while turkeys turn into humans. Your job, if you choose to accept this episode, is to make sense of all the gobbledygook. (Streaming on <\/em>Max<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This series\u2019s Thanksgiving episode is one of its very best. Shifting the focus from our indecisive hero, Dev (Aziz Ansari), to his lifelong friend Denise (Lena Waithe), it presents a sequence of vignettes following her through two decades of Thanksgiving dinners as she struggles to come out to her mother as a lesbian. Every element of this touching half-hour feels carefully crafted, from Angela Bassett\u2019s emotional guest performance as Denise\u2019s mother to the nostalgic 1990s R&B soundtrack. Waithe won an Emmy for the script \u2014 which was inspired by her own family history \u2014 becoming the first Black woman to win the award for writing in a comedy. (Streaming on <\/em>Netflix<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For mere mortals, Thanksgiving is a harvest festival. For witches, however, the equivalent Feast of Feasts is a very different celebration, with a very different main course \u2014 human rather than avian. In \u201cFeast of Feasts,\u201d from Season 1, the young witch Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) is shocked to learn about this barbaric holiday ritual. (\u201cAre we seriously taking about cannibalism?<\/em>\u201d she asks in horror.) Her rejection of this ancient tradition puts a damper on any festive feelings. (Streaming on <\/em>Netflix<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n A Season 3 episode is titled \u201cAn Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal,\u201d but don\u2019t worry \u2014 Bob and Linda Belcher\u2019s marriage is safe. The proposal in question comes from the rich landlord, Mr. Fischoeder, who offers the Belchers five months\u2019 free rent for a chaste evening with Linda and the family\u2019s three children, with Bob on hand to cook. Like most other schemes on the show, this one is a disaster. But Studio Ghibli fans should look out for a lovely dream sequence that pays tribute to \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro.\u201d (Streaming on <\/em>Hulu<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n Most of the episodes on this list are somewhat uplifting and work well as a stand-alones. This one, titled \u201cHe Is Risen,\u201d won\u2019t make sense if you\u2019ve never seen \u201cThe Sopranos,\u201d and it is no more uplifting than any other hour of the show. But if you\u2019re already a Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) fan, you probably don\u2019t mind a dark holiday tale. This Season 3 episode features a car wreck, a funeral and the beginning of an extramarital relationship, along with a Soprano family Thanksgiving dinner that is surprisingly pleasant, thanks to the conspicuous absence of Tony\u2019s most reprehensible associate, Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano). (Streaming on <\/em>Max<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Roys serve up the usual feast of familial animosity at their Thanksgiving bash. The patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is especially disruptive, culminating with his lashing out at an innocent child. In \u201cI Went to Market,\u201d from Season 1, party chat includes touchy but relatable topics such as political ideologies and movie selections, but business concerns naturally trump everything. Cousin Greg<\/a> (Nicholas Braun) has to skip most of the festivities \u2014 it seems there are some sensitive documents at the office in need of shredding. (Streaming on <\/em>Max<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s always fun to watch Laurence Fishburne and Jenifer Lewis on \u201cblack-ish,\u201d picking at each other as the divorced grandparents Pops and Ruby. The Season 3 Thanksgiving episode, \u201cAuntsgiving,\u201d threw a third veteran actor into the fray, casting Lorraine Toussaint (\u201cOrange Is the New Black\u201d) as Pops\u2019s older sister, Aunt A.V. \u2014 whom Ruby hates. (Streaming on <\/em>Hulu<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her teenage daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel), can barely boil water, but they do love to eat. In \u201cA Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving,\u201d from Season 3, they make cameos at no fewer than four different dinners. Rory\u2019s friend Lane (Keiko Agena) offers a meal featuring Tofurky and a budding relationship. The perfectionist chef Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) watches in horror as her husband deep-fries a turkey. Romantic tensions for both mother and daughter are on the menu at the local diner. Lorelai\u2019s parents serve up the usual stew of guilt and resentment. Just like Thanksgiving dinner itself, the episode is a plate piled high with sweet, salty and deliciously tart moments. (Streaming on <\/em>Netflix<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n Midway through the third and final season of this zany hangout comedy, in an episode called \u201cMore Like Stanksgiving,\u201d we finally learn how the crew\u2019s resident married couple got together. It turns out that Jane (Eliza Coupe) and Brad (Damon Wayans Jr.) met when he and her friend Max (Adam Pally) were castmates on an unaired season of MTV\u2019s \u201cThe Real World\u201d in 2002. A decade later, Max still has the scrapped footage. In just over 20 minutes, the reliably lightning-paced \u201cHappy Endings\u201d pulls off a perfect reality-TV parody and sheds new light on a few longstanding relationships. (Streaming on <\/em>Hulu<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Nothing says love more warmly than a perfectly roasted turkey (or even tofurkey). Such is the lesson learned by Andrew (John Mulaney) in this Season 5 episode. Andrew\u2019s father (Richard Kind) has anger-management issues related to prepping poultry \u2014 he believes insulting the bird is the key to keeping its juices inside. Andrew decries this \u201cturkey tyranny\u201d and refuses to eat. In the end, though, he and his father have a heart-to-heart about their troubled family history. Despite the usual gross-out humor, there is a genuine attempt to address issues of generational trauma \u2014 and of course the power of sharing food. (Streaming on <\/em>Netflix<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Many Thanksgiving episodes sprinkle in references to the holiday\u2019s complicated history. \u201cBuffy\u201d takes the reckoning to an extreme in \u201cPangs,\u201d from Season 4, in which the bumbling Xander (Nicholas Brendon) inadvertently unleashes the spirit of an Indigenous warrior. As the ghost starts murdering people who disrupted his sacred burial ground, the Slayer (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends debate whether it\u2019s right to kill a \u201cvengeance demon\u201d whose grievances are legitimate. The result is a reasonably nuanced debate about whether Americans are responsible for the sins of their ancestors. (Streaming on <\/em>Hulu<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n Forget, for a moment, the way \u201cGossip Girl\u201d fell apart at the end. Its first season was a sublime confection sweetened with glamorous costumes and forbidden love, and tempered by genuine conflict. All of those elements come together in the Thanksgiving episode, \u201cBlair Waldorf Must Pie!,\u201d which jumps back in time to compare the previous year\u2019s festivities with those of the present. In the past, the beautiful and troubled Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) got wasted before a dinner with the family of her best friend, Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester). A year later, Serena has cleaned up and Blair is struggling with bulimia. Although the girls are often framed as frenemies, this unusually sentimental episode is a tribute to the way they take care of each other. (Streaming on <\/em>Max<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n If a long weekend of family togetherness makes you desperate for a triple dose of irreverence, Season 17 of \u201cSouth Park\u201d has you covered. In a trilogy of episodes that begins with \u201cBlack Friday,\u201d a local mall braces for the yearly blood bath that begins as soon as the plates are in the dishwasher. For Cartman, that means assembling an army of pint-size gamers to procure the new Xbox at a deep discount. When a pro-Playstation faction splinters off, South Park\u2019s own \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d breaks out, complete with Kenny as Daenerys and a Red Robin Wedding. (Streaming on <\/em>Max<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It is a holiday of firsts in \u201cSlapsgiving,\u201d the Thanksgiving episode from the third season of this beloved CBS sitcom. Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segel) are hosting their first Thanksgiving as a married couple. Ted (Josh Radnor) and Robin (Cobie Smulders) have just broken up and are figuring out how to be friends for the first time. This is the first of three Slapsgivings (the others are in Seasons 5 and 9), named for a bet in which Marshall wins the right to slap his obnoxious pal Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) that culminates in the glorious original song \u201cYou Just Got Slapped.\u201d Be sure to read Entertainment Weekly\u2019s oral history<\/a> of the episode after watching. (Streaming on <\/em>Hulu<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n This quintessential 1980s family sitcom outdid itself with \u201cNo Nukes Is Good Nukes\u201d from Season 1. As the Keaton kids endure their grandmother\u2019s awful cooking, Elyse (Meredith Baxter-Birney) and Steven (Michael Gross) relive their hippie youth at a festive Thanksgiving Day nuclear disarmament protest. Of course, the boomer parents end up in jail and their Gen-X children couldn\u2019t be more mortified. It\u2019s a dated story line, but the episode\u2019s message about standing up for your beliefs never gets old. (Streaming on <\/em>Paramount+<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n Need some ammunition for semi-friendly argument around the Thanksgiving table? This animated episode, called \u201cThe First Factsgiving,\u201d helps dispel many of the beloved myths that have grown around the holiday, including the role of the Native warrior Tisquantum \u2014 commonly known as Squanto \u2014 in the original Thanksgiving feast in 1621. And about that date: The celebration of Thanksgiving as a fixed, nationwide holiday didn\u2019t come about until the Civil War \u2014 a day of mourning for turkeys everywhere. (Streaming on <\/em>Max<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u2018Friends\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Rick and Morty\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Master of None\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Bob\u2019s Burgers\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018The Sopranos\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Succession\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018black-ish\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Gilmore Girls\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Happy Endings\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Big Mouth\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Buffy the Vampire Slayer\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Gossip Girl\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018South Park\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018How I Met Your Mother\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Family Ties\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\u2018Adam Ruins Everything\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n