With the amount of television shows on, with constant new ones premiering, it can be hard to keep track of the good ones. Some focus on romance, reality, or comedy, depending on their mood. However, most want to watch a combination of these to satisfy their fix. While there are several shows out right now that are enjoyable to watch and a great escape from reality, there are some that turn viewers into emotional wrecks.
From watching favorite characters die on screen, or just watching them get into horrible situations due to the unrelenting world that they live in, television can be just as stressful to watch as enjoyable. These are some top shows that send viewers spiraling through the many emotional stages.
Spoiler Alert
7 Game of Thrones
This science-fiction show is based on George R.R. Martin’s book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, which is set in the medieval period when kings and queens ruled over the land. However, it’s not just the politics that are deadly, but also the creatures in the night. Throughout the eight-season series, fans will be able to watch different character perspectives as they’re thrown across the world of the three continents, most of them being in Westeros.
As the series goes on, viewers will learn the politics of the world, the lies, and the games that are played in each episode, all while waiting to see which characters will get killed off. Starting in 2011, Game of Thrones shook the internet with its empowering characters, devastating plot, and the fact that no character was safe, not even the ones who are supposedly the ‘heroes’.
6 The Walking Dead
This eleven-season show is based off comics that was published in 2003. Once the show started in 2010, a video game was created in its honor in 2012. This show is said to end in 2022, however, there is talk of spin-offs, so the series won’t end entirely. The Walking Dead follows a group of survivors dealing with a zombie apocalypse. While there is plenty of action fending off the zombies that come to eat the characters, there is the struggle of power in the new political world.
And like many apocalyptic worlds, there are always the corrupt humans that want to kill others, and even cannibalism. The Walking Dead, like Game of Thrones, is not a stranger to killing characters no matter if they are heroes or villains. This show leaves viewers at the edge of their seat as they watch their favorites try and navigate through the treacherous world that seems to never relent. Fans will go the ride of wondering who will survive each obstacle while looking through the many perspectives of the cast.
5 You
Who knew killers could be so enrapturing to watch? You is not like any other love story, and it certainly gets crazier by the season. This show follows Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) who is entranced by a college girl. Through his endeavors at trying to show his love, an obsession starts to kick in, making this love game dangerous. Things start to get dark fast, turning his obsession into a murderous rage, making “if I can’t have her, no one can” a reality.
The show was created after a book written by Caroline Kepnes that shares the same name of the show. While the show is extremely unsettling, there is something about it that is making viewers rave over it. The internet cannot get enough of Joe and his psychotic mind. With three seasons, You is has been renewed for a fourth season already.
4 Stranger Things
Unlike some series in the list, Stranger Things is not the kind of show that kills off their characters, however, is it just an emotional ride like the rest. This show follows a group of kids who experience an insane phenomenon where someone is trapped in the ‘upside down’, or an alternative world where horrible monsters roam. Along with this, a child named Eleven, is seen to be kidnapped and being experimented on to be able to travel to this world, or anywhere really.
Shockingly, this show is based on a true story! No, there are no monsters, but there is a conspiracy theory about the Montauk Project, where the government kidnapped kids and did mind-control experiments on them in the ‘80s. Granted, Stranger Things take things to the next level by creating Demogorgons that originate in this dimension.
Watching these kids traverse through their daily school life, fight off creatures, feel the madness that ensues when the whole town turns against a mother who is desperately trying to find her son brings out a lot of emotion for the viewers. This series has three seasons so far, with number four in the works.
3 Handmaids Tale
Another series that began as a book, this series is based on an alternative reality where women are only useful to bear children. With four seasons and number five on its way, Handmaid’s Tale took fans by storm by creating a great conversation to how close this situation could be a reality.
The futuristic dystopian focuses on the fertility rates dropping, meaning women must be rounded up to become sexual slaves to the families that are unable to have children. Social classes become more prominent again, meaning that women are once again forced to be told what to do and told which roles they play in society while the men in the world dictate this.
Follow June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) who is captured when trying to escape to Canada with her husband and is sent to a new home to offer her services. June will work through her situation while contemplating escaping to meet her husband and child in Canada, however, there are ears and eyes everywhere.
2 WandaVision
This recent MCU series has gotten the fans' approval over the short amount of time it’s been airing. WandaVision follows Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), starting in a black and white sitcom-type show. Viewers will watch as Wanda works through her life and tries to ignore the trauma that she’s endured. While the entire show seems to have fans raving, episode eight specifically left fans drained from the emotional rollercoaster that it caused.
Episode eight explains the entire show in hopes to give fans the closure they need. But as viewers watch Wanda relive her past, inevitably reliving her trauma, fans are not satisfied. This episode explains what has been happening in the season, but by the ending credits, fans are asking for more. And while the show only lasted nine episodes, and season two has not been confirmed nor denied, there’s still the possibility of a spinoff.
1 Euphoria
Euphoria is the recent sensation that has the internet going crazy. It has impacted the internet with not only the characters but the honest look into drug addiction. Rue, the main character played by Zendaya, plays a girl working through recovering from her addiction, however, relapses quite often. With the stress and drama of high school, the characters collide in several ways, causing constant tension, leaving viewers on the edge of their seats to see what happens next.
What makes this show so unique, is that viewers get to see multiple different perspectives, all through Rue’s narration, however, these characters are so different that it is almost impossible not to find favorites, from common high school teens to the internet’s current love of a drug dealer, Fezco, and his little brother, Ashtray. Euphoria took the world by storm when they closed the gender gap of nudity in their show, showing both men and women fully naked as opposed to just women. Therefore, not only is Euphoria a great show to binge to get all the emotional fix needed, but it’s incredibly written and progressive.