20 Best TV Episodes Of 2018

10. The Queen - Castle Rock

The first season of Castle Rock was often messy and disjointed, but for one hour it all came together in a way as harrowing as it was unexpected; as disquieting as it is discombobulating.

Centring on Ruth Deaver (Sissy Spacek), The Queen builds on season-long arcs that have been threatening to come to the fore, but here play out in devastating fashion in an episode that could be watched as a standalone. It doesn't just show us the effects of dementia upon Ruth's mind, but makes us participants in them.

An episode reminiscent of Lost's The Constant, The Queen fractures time to allow us to live Ruth's memories - the happy and the sad - with only a few visual clues as to which period is which. Boasting a genius, poignant script from Sam Shaw, and direction and editing that manages to be suspenseful, emotional, and disorienting all at once, it's a powerful study of one of life's cruellest diseases.

There are horrors of the supernatural kind here, but they cannot hope to match the terror we're seeing from Ruth's point-of-view. At the heart of all this is the Queen of Stephen King stories, Spacek, who some 40+ years after her performance as Carrie gives another transformative portrayal in an adaptation of his works.