As Halloween quickly approaches, to get myself in the spooky spirit of the holiday, I love to rewatch my favorite Halloween episodes of my favorite shows. It’s become a ritual for me to go through my list of Halloween episodes throughout the month of October every year. With midterms quickly approaching in the school year, here is that list of my favorite Halloween-themed episodes to get me through this very haunting month:
- New Girl, “Halloween” (Season 2, Episode 6)
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New Girl has been one of my favorite comfort shows to watch whenever my life is slowly descending into chaos. With October being the start of my yearly seasonal depression, it’s only fitting that I start this list off with an episode from the show. One of the main characters, Jess, starts working at a haunted house, and throughout the episode, discovers that she has developed feelings for her current situationship and doesn’t know if she should tell him or not. There are other side plots of certain relationship dynamics that can be seen with the other three main characters of the show that accurately depict how complicated relationships and celebrating holidays can be.
- Freaks and Geeks, “Tricks and Treats” (Season 1, Episode 3)
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This highly underrated late ‘90s drama TV show, Freaks and Geeks, includes some of your favorite ‘90s celebrities such as Dave Franco, Linda Cardellini, Jason Siegel, and Seth Rogen, who are their town’s “freaks” who go around driving on Halloween to cause chaos. You also get the perspective on how the “geeks” spend their Halloween and overall, the episode brings you back to the nostalgia of learning when it’s time to grow up when you’re in high school.
- Bob’s Burgers, “The Hauntening” (Season 6, Episode 3)
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If you want a spooky yet funny episode to watch in a time crunch, let it be this episode of Bob’s Burgers. There’s nothing better than watching awkward animated characters get scared from a haunted house that their parents made for them.
- Supernatural, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester” (Season 4, Episode 7)
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Supernatural is the ultimate spooky show to watch during any time of the year, hence the name, but it is actually Halloween in this episode. Despite it being in the fourth season (out of 15 seasons in total!), the recap in the beginning gives you a good setup to the story if you’ve never watched it before. If you have watched it, I think we can all agree that watching young Dean and Sam Winchester definitely makes up for how disturbingly creepy this episode is. I’m definitely never eating a piece of candy from a stranger after watching this episode!
- The Vampire Diaries, “Haunted” (Season 1, Episode 7)
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You can’t have Halloween without consuming some content about vampires! The Vampire Diaries is an iconic show that already delves deeply into vampires, witches, and wolves make it perfect to watch all October long. This episode leads up to Halloween day in the show and sets up more of the lore around the vampires and witches. What makes this episode so intriguing is the Halloween dance that takes a turn for the worse. This episode is still pretty early on in the first season that you can easily binge the first couple of episodes and determine your answer to the age-old question, Team Damon or Team Stefan?
- New Girl, “Keaton” (Season 3, Episode 6)
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You shouldn’t be surprised that there are two New Girl episodes on this list. This episode revolves around the main character, Schmidt who is going through a hard time after a breakup and the only way that his roommates can think of to cheer him up is to email Schmidt as Michael Keaton from Batman(1989) who Schmidt believes to be a life-long friend of his. As the biggest fan of the Batman character that you will ever know, I definitely think the only thing that could get me through a breakup would be an email from the Michael Keaton.
- The Suite Life of Zack and Cody “The Ghost of Suite 613” (Season 1, Episode 19)
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Being born in the early 2000s means that I have seen my fair share of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. And I’ll say that this episode is probably one of the best in the entire show. Besides it being a Halloween episode, the biggest reason you should watch this is for Esteban Julio Ricardo Montoya de la Rosa Ramirez. You’ll thank me later.
- On My Block, “Chapter 4” (Season 1, Episode 4)
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This Halloween episode is full of references from your classic favorite scary movies and drama that comes with being a young teenager living in a town filled with gangs. Not only does it have one of my favorite found family groups, but it is filled with trying to solve a decades-old mystery that leads to treasure and the start of the show’s complicated love triangle. It also does a good job of teaching the real-life consequences of wearing costumes that are culturally appropriate to the lives of real people.
- Abbott Elementary, “Candy Zombies” (Season 2, Episode 6)
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The last episode on this list is one that is very funny and lighthearted. In this episode of Abbott Elementary, you see the consequences of giving children too much candy at school on Halloween and the awkward interaction of having someone guess what costume you’re wearing and then getting it wrong.