Lock­down lessons from five of the best TV bot­tle episodes

As we pre­pare to go – or have already gone – into lock­down mode, it’s impor­tant to keep our minds occu­pied and off the new, dread­ed C‑word. One of the main things to remem­ber dur­ing this time is that there are a lot of pos­i­tives to be tak­en from this sit­u­a­tion. It’s an oppor­tu­ni­ty to check in with our­selves, our clos­est rela­tion­ships and the way we inter­act with each oth­er. To prac­tice com­pas­sion and build each oth­er up – through shared tears, laugh­ter and every­thing in between.

One way to do that is by watch­ing good shows togeth­er or dis­cussing them with our friends and fam­i­ly from afar. Remem­ber: many of our favourite TV char­ac­ters have found them­selves in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions, by ways of bot­tle episodes. Grant­ed, these char­ac­ters were usu­al­ly locked up for less than a cou­ple of hours, but these episodes still serve to remind us that not all is bad. After all, we’re bound to get our Chi­nese take­away deliv­ered faster than Sein­feld was seat­ed at his local restau­rant. Sil­ver lin­ings, peo­ple. Here are the best bot­tle episodes to stream online dur­ing lockdown.

See­ing George Costan­za (Jason Alexan­der) get worked up about any­thing is a treat. Stick him into a bot­tle episode like ​‘The Chi­nese Restau­rant’ and you’ve got your­self an instant clas­sic – one that puts things into per­spec­tive. While we can even still get food deliv­ered to our door, George, Elaine (Julia Louis-Drey­fus) and Jer­ry (Jer­ry Sein­feld) can’t even get a table at a restaurant.

Writ­ten by Sein­feld and Lar­ry David, this clas­sic episode almost didn’t make it to air; it was only when David threat­ened to quit that NBC agreed to do so. We con­tin­ue to thank him kind­ly for his stubbornness.

So, there you have it, lock­down les­son num­ber one: wait­ing around can result in great things. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly for the char­ac­ters on the show, but for the writ­ers who dared cre­ate ​“a show about noth­ing”. What’s your move?

Lena Dunham’s Girls is a show we love with char­ac­ters we love to hate, most like­ly because they rep­re­sent all the things we don’t like about our­selves. This made it all the more com­pelling to watch them mature over the course of six sea­sons, and ​‘Amer­i­can Bitch’ is a tes­ta­ment to this growth, par­tic­u­lar­ly Hannah’s (Dun­ham).

The entire episode is focused on her con­ver­sa­tion with renowned writer Chuck Palmer (bril­liant­ly por­trayed by Matthew Rhys) about his abuse of pow­er in rela­tion­ship to young women with­in the con­fines of his apart­ment. End­ing on an extreme­ly pow­er­ful note, ​‘Amer­i­can Bitch’ is exem­plary of the #MeToo era, and also hap­pens to work per­fect­ly as a stand-alone episode.

Lock­down les­son num­ber two: not every­one is lucky enough to feel safe in their own home. Reach out to peo­ple who might find them­selves in dif­fi­cult home sit­u­a­tions in what­ev­er way you can. Sol­i­dar­i­ty, people.

Com­mu­ni­ty was one of the most cre­ative sit­coms of the decade, with a cast that tru­ly made their char­ac­ters mem­o­rable. Annie (Ali­son Brie), Troy (Don­ald Glover), Abed (Dan­ny Pudi) and co. reclaimed the terms freaks and geeks proud­ly, cel­e­brat­ing and accept­ing (or humour­ing) one another’s quirks and differences.

In ​‘Coop­er­a­tive Cal­lig­ra­phy’, Annie’s obses­sion over a miss­ing pen gets every­one turn­ing against each oth­er and into bit­ing mode. When the bick­er­ing reach­es an all time high, Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) issues a lock­down until the cul­prit is revealed. The pen is nev­er found – at least not by any of them – but the moral of the sto­ry is: choose to trust (your friends).

Lock­down les­son num­ber three: go with the emo­tion­al out­bursts; your own; your toddler’s; your partner’s. Trust there’s a rea­son for it, let it hap­pen, and let it pass in true Winger style. Well, a speech might not be nec­es­sary, but com­mu­ni­ca­tion nev­er fails.

Break­ing Bad’s White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) always had a com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship, and moments of gen­uine friend­ship were few and far between. In ​‘The Fly’, pos­si­bly one of the best episodes of the series, we get to feel some form of respite, one that almost fools you into believ­ing this could be the pro­found moment that changes their tox­ic rela­tion­ship forever.

Set in the meth lab over one night and two days, this episode veers so far from the show’s usu­al action-packed for­mat and pace, some view­ers had a hard time set­tling into the rhythm. Once you let go of your typ­i­cal Break­ing Bad expec­ta­tions, how­ev­er, you’ll appre­ci­ate it for what it is: a mes­sage for Jesse and Walt to slow down.

Lock­down les­son num­ber four: hear the episode’s mes­sage. Slow down. Lis­ten. You might hear some­thing new.

Some­times spon­ta­neous hang-out oppor­tu­ni­ties turn out to be the best sce­nar­ios for the begin­ning of prospec­tive love sto­ries. Just not nec­es­sar­i­ly if you’re awk­ward, like our beloved Abbi (Jacob­son) from Broad City. When ​‘Hur­ri­cane Wan­da’ forces an impromp­tu apart­ment-par­ty with all the usu­al sus­pects and Jere­my (Stephen Schnei­der) on Abbi, her cool quick­ly melts into a messy pud­dle of mum­bling inse­cu­ri­ty. Her nerves end up brew­ing up an entire­ly dif­fer­ent kind of storm in her stom­ach, only there’s no way to drain it…until Ilana steps in to save the day. Or so she thinks.

‘Hur­ri­cane Wan­da’ is a weird tes­ta­ment to female friend­ship and the – lit­er­al – shit we will take from/​for our BBFs.

Lock­down les­son num­ber five: believe in your­self. You’re awe­some, you can do any­thing (except go out). Be grate­ful for every minute with your friends but trust your­self to han­dle your own busi­ness. You’re gonna have to.