I’m a sucker for a singer. On TV, there’s nothing I love more than when a character bursts into song. I don’t necessarily want a big, produced musical number with dancers and mood lighting, but I find myself routinely floored by moments of intimate, unexpected, tender, maybe even awkward vocal performance. There’s real vulnerability in a nonprofessional singer putting themselves out there, a vulnerability that melts down even to the actor themselves, and then strength in having done it—the drama of such moments transfixes me. Many of these scenes, as you might imagine, unfold in karaoke bars. There’s Kevin Garvey crooning “Homeward Bound” in the afterlife hotel on The Leftovers; Connor Roy intoning Leonard Cohen in the cheap glitz of a Manhattan bar on Succession; Tina overcoming her anxiety and triumphantly belting “Before the Last Teardrop Falls” on The Bear. But it’s not just karaoke. People sing in cars alone or together, they serenade each other, they sing in their empty houses, lonely or finally free. I’ll never forget “Zou Bisou Bisou” (Mad Men). I’ll never unhear “You can be my white Kate Moss tonight” (Girls).
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