The 12 Best Nailed It Episodes to Watch First

Nailed It is perfect background comfort viewing, but some episodes are genuinely elite comedy, and if you are new to the show you might as well start at the top. The picks below lean on fan ratings (IMDb scores and fan-ranked lists) plus our own rewatching, and they cover the show's whole run. Every episode is self-contained, so you can watch these in any order. For how the competition actually works underneath the chaos, see how Nailed It winners are picked, and for the show's background, our overview and show hub.

The twelve to watch

1. Howdy, Failure! (Season 4, Episode 6). The consensus best episode of the series and the highest fan-rated by a distance. A Western theme produces deep-fried cowboy duck doughnuts and a root-beer-infused rodeo cake, with Adam Scott as guest judge.

2. I've Failed and I Can't Get Up! (Season 5, Episode 5). A grandma-themed episode: candy-jeweled brooch cookies and cookie-jar cakes, with the contestants aging about forty years in dignity over two hours.

3. Im-Paw-sible Cakes (Season 6, Episode 1). A pet theme featuring giant exotic-animal cookies and a cake version of Nicole's actual dog, Clyde. The gap between real Clyde and cake Clyde is the whole joke, and it lands.

4. Can't Believe It's Cake! (Season 5, Episode 6). The hyperrealism trend gets the Nailed It treatment: cereal-bowl cakes and a towering hamburger-and-fries cake. The failures are spectacular even by house standards.

5. C'est Jacques! (Season 6, Episode 3). The show turns on its own head judge with treats inspired by Mr. Chocolate himself, including lollipop portraits of Jacques Torres. Essential for fans of the Nicole-and-Jacques dynamic.

6. An Ungodly Mess (Season 5, Episode 1). Greek mythology: stacked god-statue cupcakes and Medusa makeover cakes. The snake hair alone justifies the episode.

7. Fictitious and Delicious (Season 2, Episode 2). An early classic. Fairy tale cupcake pops and a majestic unicorn cake that nobody in the room can make majestic.

8. Cake-O-Phobia (Season 3, Episode 2). Fear-themed: creepy-crawly bug cookies and a terrifying clown cake that tastes like cotton candy. Somehow both the scariest and funniest brief of the early seasons.

9. The Burbank State Fair (Season 5, Episode 2). Caramel-corn knockdown-doll clowns and roller-coaster cakes. The engineering failures here are among the show's best physical comedy.

10. The Big Bake Theory (Season 4, Episode 7). Science-themed, with self-frosting bubbling beakers and rocket cakes. The briefs ask the genuinely impossible, which is when the show is at its best.

11. The Marvel Episode! (Season 3, Episode 1). Superhero cupcakes with cookie toppers and a daunting Black Panther cake. A good example of the show's licensed-theme episodes done right.

12. Let's Get Lit (Season 4, Episode 1). Literary bakes: Shakespearean stained-glass window cookies and a pop-up Moby Dick cake. The most ambitious brief-to-ability gap in the whole series.

Honorable mentions

The first season's Fantasyland and Head Under Water rank highly with fans too, and they are worth a look if you want to see the show's original, slightly scrappier form, complete with a Jaws-inspired cake.

Where to start if you only watch one

Make it Howdy, Failure!. It has everything the show does well in one episode: an absurd brief, a game guest judge, contestants who are trying so hard, and a finale reveal that gets funnier the longer the camera holds. If that one does not convert you, Nailed It simply is not your show. If it does, you have seven seasons of holiday specials, spinoffs, and international versions waiting.