Best Fourth of July TV Episodes of All Time

Tom Selleck’s wisecracking detective Thomas Magnum, we learn at the start of “Home From the Sea,” prefers to spend this holiday alone. So when his surf ski gets overturned by reckless speedboaters and he finds himself in a current too strong to swim through to get to land, his buddies take a long time to realize they should even be looking for him. So while Rick, T.C., and Higgins all enjoy their days off, Magnum treads water and flashes back on his relationship with his late Navy officer father. It’s then that we realize his solitary approach to the holiday is because his dad’s funeral was on the Fourth. A harrowing way to spend the holiday, but a memorable one.

The “Born Again” half of this episode’s title has had the more enduring legacy. It involves Bobby getting caught up in the spirit of Lucky’s revivalist church, and proselytizing all over Arlen — leading to the oft-memed scene where he puts a sign in the window of a summer school class warning the students to repent or go to hell, which prompts the principal to tell Bobby, “If those kids could read, they’d be very upset!” That said, the Independence Day subplot, where Hank and his buddies get into a fireworks arms race with their rivals on a neighboring street, is fun, and sets up Bobby’s catharsis once he realizes he’s taken his newfound religious fervor way too far.  

It’s easy to forget that The West Wing did an Independence Day episode at all, since it came early in the first season after Aaron Sorkin got fired — a.k.a. the roughest creative stretch of the White House drama. But “Jefferson Lives” holds up better than a lot of the installments from that dark period. When Josh and Leo’s choice to become the new vice president meets opposition from the new Republican Speaker of the House, President Bartlet is forced to consider giving the job to a seemingly empty suit known as “Bingo” Bob Russell, setting up one of the more interesting recurring players of the later seasons. Really, though, it makes this list for the final scene, where Bartlet leads a group of newly naturalized citizens — whose swearing-in ceremony had to change venues after bomb threats made by anti-immigrant terrorists — in the Pledge of Allegiance. Some parts of West Wing can feel hopelessly naive in our current political environment, but hearing Jed Bartlet stand up on behalf of the idea that America is a place that wants to welcome people hits very hard at the moment.  

The last Frasier episode before the series finale is essentially a fake clip show. When an old pot breaks right before Frasier’s latest dinner party, he flashes back on other times when it played a memorable role, allowing the cast — with the help of a series of wigs of varying degrees of believability — to channel earlier versions of their characters from across the entire run of the series. One of these happens on Independence Day, when Frasier (dressed as Uncle Sam), Daphne (wearing star-spangled polyester, for an “Ugly American” party), Niles, and Roz wind up locked on Frasier’s balcony on the hottest day of the year, while an oblivious Martin watches his baseball game with the noise-canceling headphones Frasier just gave him. It’s only one segment in a busy episode, but it’s a good reminder of how willing that entire cast was to let themselves look ridiculous. 

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s sketch show has a suitably idiosyncratic take on the holiday, from multiple angles. Type A couple Dave and Kath are determined to throw the most Portland-y Independence Day celebration possible, which somehow (with the help of guest star Jane Lynch) winds up being a punk rock-themed bash with inedible food and British flags hung everywhere. Meanwhile, Portland’s mayor (Kyle MacLachan) has to go on the dark web to obtain fireworks for the city’s big celebration, and the actual Fred and Carrie (or their fictionalized equivalents) try to hit as many barbecues as they can in one day, only to run into a problem: Fred insists on saying long, intense goodbyes to every single person at each event, no matter how hard Carrie tries to get him out of there quickly. 

The titular holiday doesn’t come until the last scene of the coming-of-age dramedy’s two-part series finale, which otherwise focuses on exes Kevin and Winnie growing increasingly uncomfortable and angry around one another while working summer jobs at the same hotel resort. After a big fight on the drive back to their town, they hide out from a storm in a barn and have their deepest and most meaningful exchange of the entire series. But the finale’s most famous, and powerful moment, comes after, when the two of them return home just in time for the local Fourth of July parade, and the adult Kevin’s voiceover tells us what happens to everyone after — including the death of Kevin’s father not long into the future.  

In the year of America’s Bicentennial, Little House took advantage of its 19th-century setting to check in on how its characters felt about the American experiment at the time of its 100th anniversary. While Laura and Mary are giddy about celebrating the Centennial, the adults of Walnut Grove are all feeling sour toward the government after they’re hit with harsh taxes, while Russian immigrant Yuli and his family lose their farm after falling too far behind on their own taxes. Charles expects Yuli to feel even more bitterness towards the government than he does, but instead Yuli talks about all the important services that Charles’ taxes will pay for, and all of the reasons he loves America despite its challenges. Like the West Wing episode, it’s a potent reminder of the idea of what America should be, even if there are times, like now, when it really doesn’t feel like that. 

The Independence Day material here is consigned to a B-plot where Homer, like the mayor of Portland, has to turn to illicit means to get his hands on illegal fireworks to celebrate the holiday. But the A-plot, where Lisa reinvents herself as a cool girl so she can finally make friends on a family vacation, is one of the better spotlights on the most idealistic and serious member of Our Favorite Family. 

If we’re ranking these episodes based solely on their Fourth of July-related content, this installment of the Vietnam War drama wins in a walk. On an incredibly rainy Fourth, the hospital treats a wounded soldier called America (whose birthday happens to be that day), KC tries to make a buck by running a voter registration drive, Dick teaches a Vietnamese woman the story of George Washington and the Revolution, Beckett admits he doesn’t feel thrilled about the birthday of a country that’s made life so difficult for people with his skin color, and McMurphy finds herself arguing with her French boyfriend about the value of the United States’ presence in Vietnam. A terrific example of so many of the things this great show, which has been mostly lost to history because its soundtrack is too expensive for streaming, did so well.  

Admit it: You probably forgot this one took place on Independence Day. (I did, too, when I started drafting this list.) But the holiday is the appropriate time for the tensions between the Sterling Cooper staff and their new English overlords to come to a head, particularly when the Puttnam, Powell, and Lowe execs try to install their own man, Guy MacKendrick, to run the New York office and push out Roger and Bert. Instead, poor Guy falls victim to one of the most painful, darkly hilarious accidents in television history, giving the Americans an improbable victory on this most patriotic of days. More importantly, though, the episode features the incredible scene where Don and Joan chat in the hospital at the end of what’s supposed to be Joan’s final day of work ever, and we see what happens when you put Jon Hamm and Christina Hendricks — two actors who would each have scorching chemistry with a tie rack — together in a scene with no one else. It’s a wonder America’s television sets didn’t all melt down from the (mostly) platonic heat between them. Holiday or not, this is one of the very best episodes of one of the very best TV shows ever made. Light the fireworks, stay off the riding mower, and enjoy.