25 Most Memorable Moments of 2014

Maybe it was when everyone you know collectively gasped about the discovery that Best Buy didn’t have a pay phone. Or when your Twitter feed flooded with WTFs over the fact that someone named Adnan had told someone named Sarah, ”You don’t really know me.” Whenever it was, it definitely happened, because there was no escaping the NPR podcast Serial in the fall of 2014. Host Sarah Koenig set out to re-investigate the 1999 murder of a teenage girl in Baltimore, and, in the process, she and her show brought the podcast medium further into the mainstream consciousness than it had ever been before. —Ashley Fetters

When the Emmys took place just two weeks after Robin Williams’ death, the world was still mourning, still in disbelief. It was reassuring, then, that the man given the daunting task of memorializing the comedy legend was Billy Crystal, a close friend of Williams. Despite the fact that Crystal himself was still grappling with the loss—he noted on stage that ”it’s hard to talk about him in the past”—he shared stories that made us smile before ending his tribute with a pitch-perfect closing line: ”Robin Williams, what a concept.” —Emily Blake

The Hachette vs. Amazon battle—which began when the online giant requested lower ebook prices—may have been between two industry behemoths, but plenty of individuals got involved as well. More than 900 authors—including Stephen King, Malcolm Gladwell, and John Grisham—joined the fight in the most author-y way possible: publishing a forceful letter to Amazon in a full-page ad in The New York Times. Though they weren’t officially acting on behalf of Hachette, the writers didn’t help Amazon’s reputation as an industry bully. In November, the companies reached an agreement that allows Hachette to set its own prices for ebooks. —Emily Blake

In a series known for its devastating moments, the allusion to Of Mice and Men in the season 4 episode ”The Grove” ranks among the most devastating in The Walking Dead‘s history. Faced with undeniable proof that Lizzie, one of the two little girls in her care, is deeply disturbed and dangerous, Carol is forced to eliminate the threat. As she directs Lizzie to look at some nearby flowers, Carol shoots the girl in the head, adding another tragedy to the seemingly endless well of them on The Walking Dead. —Kyle Ryan

There wasn’t anything particularly surprising about the 2014 Emmys, at least not in terms of the actual awards. As usual, though, leave it to one of the ladies vying for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series to provide the buzziest moment of the night. After the Veep star claimed to have forgotten about a kiss she shared with Cranston when he guested on Seinfeld, Cranston conspicuously took her into his arms and ”reminded” her as she walked toward the stage to accept the fifth Emmy of her career. —Emily Blake

In the weeks leading up to the release of his blockbuster film X-Men: Days of Future Past, director Bryan Singer was served with a lawsuit claiming he had sexually abused Michael Egan, a onetime aspiring actor and model, when Egan was 15 years old. Despite a wave of initial outrage, the aftermath of the accusations was relatively negligible when Egan—unable to find representation after his credibility came under fire—dropped the case. Singer’s X-Men film did well. And the world moved on. —Joshua Rivera

Two decades after Woody Allen’s infamous split from Mia Farrow and his subsequent marriage to her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, Allen and Farrow’s daughter Dylan Farrow contributed an op-ed column to the New York Times that contained accusations of sexual abuse by Allen and shamed celebrities who continued to make movies with the director. The charges reignited a bitter feud between Allen and Farrow as the media revisited all the tawdry details. —Jeff Labrecque

Over the course of a long, ugly season of police violence against unarmed young black men, Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike emerged as one of the protest movement’s most persuasive voices. His group Run the Jewels happened to be playing St. Louis on the night Darren Wilson was acquitted of murdering Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the impassioned speech he offered the crowd before RTJ’s set sends chills down the spine. It offers a moving rebuke to pundits on both ends of the political spectrum who’ve smugly wondered where hip-hop’s reaction to the situation has been. —Miles Raymer

It was the end of a Colbera—and what an end it was! The faux-pundit gathered perhaps the most gloriously random assortment of boldfaced names ever assembled in one room for a group performance of the old standard ”We’ll Meet Again,” before climbing up to the roof of his studio and riding off into the moonset with Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln, and Alex Trebek. Hilarious, heartstring-tugging, delightfully absurd—yep, sounds exactly like what members of the Colbert Nation were hoping for. —Hillary Busis

Louie has a way of proceeding with a comedic amble before—boom!—blindsiding viewers with a substantive moment that reminds us just how much is going on beneath the show’s jokey veneer. In ”So Did the Fat Lady,” guest star Baker plays the confident, hilarious and overweight waitress Vanessa, who flirts with Louie to no avail—and then, after he insists she isn’t fat, launches into a strong, heartbreaking sermon about double standards and what it’s like to be an overweight woman. —Emily Blake

Taylor Swift didn’t release her latest album, 1989, until late October, but it didn’t take long for its success to be apparent: By the end of November she made (yet another bit of) history by becoming the first woman to replace herself at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 when ”Blank Space” took over from ”Shake It Off.” That achievement speaks to both the popularity of 1989 and to Swift’s own business savvy, which was on full display as she promoted the album. Swift not only dominated social media (her Tumblr game was on point), she also succeeded in the music industry’s most traditional venues. —Esther Zuckerman

Strutting a bit after the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel held a mini Marvel-Con to announce its slate for the next six years. Phase III is full of subtitles that have fanboys salivating (Ragnarok, Civil War, Infinity War), as does the promise of standalones for lesser-known characters like Black Panther and Captain Marvel. But the most tweetable moment was when Iron Man and Captain America themselves—Downey and Evans—squared off on the stage to confirm the rumors that the third Cap film would (drooler alert) pit the heroes against each other. —Jeff Labrecque

At the end of August, hackers stole nude photos from several TV and film actresses and posted them online. Five weeks after the theft, Jennifer Lawrence—who was one of the most high-profile women to have her pictures leaked—addressed the incident for the first time. The star was equal parts wounded, angry, and indignant, and her words served as a final judgment on the whole affair. ”Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this,” she told Vanity Fair. ”I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for.” —Ashley Fetters

While Game of Thrones has delivered a lot of gruesome deaths over the years, none have been more satisfying than the poisoning of that dreadful blonde twerp Joffrey. The scene, like the evil king, was executed perfectly, right down to the setting: at his own wedding, where he had been predictably acting like a brat. But as great (and gross) as it was to see the loathsome little product of incest get what he deserved, it’s hard not to be sad that he’s gone: The Purple Wedding meant the end of the reign of a character who was so much fun to hate-watch. —Esther Zuckerman

The President’s appearance on ”Ferns” may not have been the funniest episode of the show’s six-year run, but it was the ”Holy Shit”-tiest. Still reeling from the troubled launch of the Affordable Care Act and its buggy healthcare.gov—as Galifianakis put it, ”the thing that doesn’t work”—Obama displayed a lot of savvy by bringing his message to one of the web’s most popular shows. That the video was kept hush-hush despite nine months of development was impressive; even more so was the willingness of Obama (again: President of the United States) to stay true to the show’s form by curtly trading barbs with Galifianakis. And to think: It almost didn’t happen. —Neil Janowitz

In an age of spoilers, that Good Wife creators Robert and Michelle King managed to keep Josh Charles’ impending departure a secret for a year is truly impressive. Even fans savvy enough to remember a report that Charles had extended his original four-year contract for one additional season wouldn’t have expected the show to risk losing its leading man until the season 5 finale. So everyone was blindsided when Will was shot in the courtroom in the season’s 15th hour. Fans mourned, so much that Charles himself had to console them: ”I just got off the phone with @unforettable. She’s calm and stable, but everyone please keep an eye out on her as she’s one of my favorites!” he tweeted. —Mandi Bierly

In October, TV writer Alessandra Stanley suggested in an otherwise complimentary Times column that veteran showrunner and How to Get Away with Murder executive producer Shonda Rhimes should title her future autobiography How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman. Mere seconds, it seemed, ticked by between the publishing of the piece and the start of the backlash. The Times public editor expressed alarm in an op-ed; many called for the column to be retracted. Rhimes, however, preferred that it stay online, telling The Hollywood Reporter the piece was a ”good reminder to see the casual racial bias and odd misogyny from a woman written in a paper that we all think of as being so liberal.” —Ashley Fetters

Outside of Cary Fukunaga’s stellar direction, the most-discussed aspect of HBO’s True Detective was Matthew McConaughey’s portrayal of nihilistic philosopher-cop Rust Cohle. In his frequent soliloquies, Cohle offered diatribes on everything from theoretical physics to bleak pessimistic analyses on the human condition. It was both fascinating to watch McConaughey sell the stuff, and hilarious to watch the Internet parody such self-involved dialogue. Whether you found it compelling or moronic, the worldview of Rust Cohle—and analysis of it—took up a lot of our time in early 2014. —Joshua Rivera

Fans stayed with How I Met Your Mother for nine seasons knowing that in the end, they’d be rewarded for their hard work by learning the identity of the titular mother—and presumably seeing a happy ending. But a reward is not what they got. Yes, Ted married the mother…but then she died in the final minutes of the heartbreaking and weirdly shocking finale. The show then wrapped up with Ted appearing outside Robin’s window to live happily ever after with her— not the woman viewers waited nine years for him to find. —Ariana Bacle

A seed that grew into a mighty pop-culture tree, this unexpected moment at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy was the closest 2014 came to pure joy. After Groot sacrificed himself to save his friends, the tree of few words was reborn as an adorable sapling with great taste in music. —Lanford Beard

The most powerful name-fumble of all time? Travolta clearly didn’t stress his prep before stepping onto Oscar’s stage to introduce the ”Wicked-ly talented, one and only Adele Dazeem” (a.k.a. Idina Menzel). Thanks to Frozen‘s megahit theme song ”Let It Go,” which she performed that night, Menzel was already well on her way to a super-successful year, but Travolta’s gaffe bestowed household status upon both of her names. Parody Twitter accounts, name generators, and endless memes instantly surfaced. To quote one: ”Thank you, Jorn Tromolto!” —Lanford Beard

”Of course sometimes shit goes down when it’s a billion dollars on the elevator?” On May 5, a post-Met Gala bust-up between Solange Knowles and her brother-in-law Jay Z shocked the music industry. Though the involved parties said little about the altercation, Beyoncé, who could do no wrong this year, referenced the incident in her ”Flawless” remix (EW’s pick for No. 2 Single of 2014). And who can disagree with her? Of course sometimes shit goes down when it’s a billion dollars on the elevator. —Lanford Beard

‘Twas the day after Thanksgiving and all through the house, not a creature was stirring?because everyone was too busy watching the first teaser for Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens, a.k.a. Star Wars: The X-Wings Are Back! After a year of secrets and rumors, the first look at next year’s space opera sevenquel gave the world a tantalizing peek at new characters and immediately launched a year’s worth of memes. (The black stormtrooper! The ball droid! The triple-bladed lightsaber!) Pop culture gets more nostalgic every year, and no moment hit those nostalgia receptors more than the final shot of the trailer: the John Williams score, the careening Millenium Falcon, and the primal scream of attacking TIE Fighters. —Darren Franich

Bill Cosby had faced allegations of sexual misconduct before, but not in the viral-video age. That explains why a low-quality clip of Hannibal Buress performing stand-up in late October catalyzed a dramatic change in Cosby’s fortunes: In it, Buress calls Cosby a hypocrite for shaming black culture when he has skeletons in his closet. ”I’ve done this bit on stage,” Buress says. ”People don’t believe me. They think I’m making it up?Google ‘Bill Cosby rape.’ You think I’m funny, but that shit has more results than ‘Hannibal Buress.”’ Within weeks, Cosby’s ”public Teflon image,” as described by Buress, was irreparably undone. —Kyle Ryan

Who knew that a dopey Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy would cause an international incident? But that’s just what happened with The Interview: When hackers purportedly working on behalf of North Korea breached Sony’s servers, it was embarrassing, but the situation escalated on a semi-daily basis until the threat of attacks on theaters showing The Interview caused the studio to pull the plug. Sony currently has no plans to release The Interview at all, and the effects of that decision—not to mention the myriad lascivious behind-the-scenes details that emerged from the hacking—have shaken Hollywood to its core. —Kyle Ryan

Want more milestones from the past 12 months? See our list expanded to the 100 Most Memorable Moments of 2014.