The most noticeable trend in Super Bowl ads in 2014, like the past few years, was the meta-ad—the kind of spot in which someone reminds the audience that they are watching a very expensive Super Bowl ad, meant partly to draw attention to the oddness of the whole spectacle. To that end, before the game began, the director Seth MacFarlane announced that the trailer for his new movie was too racy to be aired, Bud Light ran a series of ads about the making of an ad, and Stephen Colbert did his thing for Wonderful pistachios.

Commercials that aired in the second half suffered the unfortunate fate of appearing during a rout. The ones that ran in the fourth quarter had especially bad luck: by the time Scarlett Johansson’s semi-controversial spot for SodaSteam came on, it was hard to muster the enthusiasm to offer an opinion, or to remember what the hubbub was all about. Nonetheless, there were several from the second half that stood out: T-Mobile continued its clever spots about the frustrations of mobile contracts, this time without Tebow; Audi’s Chihuahua-Doberman hybrid, the Doberhuahua, got some traction on Twitter; Microsoft had a touching ad about how technology improves lives (no mention, of course, of PowerPoint); and the Budweiser puppy-horse friendship saga that everyone has been sharing on Facebook came and went.

Overall, there were plenty of the usual suspects this year: dogs, women suspiciously better-looking than the men with whom they were paired, Muppets. But there was some good news, as well: the great Cheerios family was back, Tim Tebow (who needs a contract?) was actually pretty funny for T-Mobile, the E-Trade talking babies seem to be gone for good, and a grand total of zero grandmas twerked.

Here’s a look at the best and worst ads from the game:

Best

Coca-Cola: Coke kept this ad (from the agency Wieden+Kennedy) under wraps, and was wise to save its release for the game. After hours of jingoistic and military-heavy pre-game festivities on Fox, in which the network implored viewers at home and around the world to recognize the might and greatness of America, Coke managed to evoke patriotism in just a minute, with a multilingual version of “America, the Beautiful.” Other companies leaned heavily on nationalistic themes this year, but this was the best of the genre. Coke is Coke, and doesn’t need to convince us about its flagship product, other than that it still exists. My only complaint: it could have used a little Ray Charles in there somewhere.

Honda: The ad (from RPA, Santa Monica) would have worked just as well, or better, if Fred Armisen hadn’t been clinging, koala-like, onto Bruce Willis for comic relief. It didn’t need it: Willis, speaking plainly to the camera, provided a significant change in tone from the rest of the night’s ads. (The company must be banking on people not remembering what Willis did to his girlfriend’s Honda in “Pulp Fiction.”) The simple message—to consider how much we value the people in the room with us—was “social” in the old-fashioned sense of the word.

TurboTax: Leave it to a commercial for an essentially boring product—tax software—to capture one of the deeper emotions felt by many people watching the game: the sadness of being left out of a national holiday. This ad, with a voiceover by the great sad sack John C. Reilly, equated watching a Super Bowl between two teams you don’t root for—the harsh reality for a majority of fans—to having to watch the girl of your dreams dance with some pretty boy named Sean for four hours. There are stats on Sean, and tons of slow-motion replays, Reilly tells us. It is miserable—which is a lot like watching this game as a Patriots or 49ers fan. Will it help sell software? Not clear, but the ad (also from Wieden+Kennedy) did identify an interesting point: older people may loathe or fear taxes, but younger people often equate them with refunds, and, thus, a personal holiday!

Hyundai: A short, relatively simple ad (from the agency Innocean USA): a father (barely) saved his son from various physical injuries over the years, until he is old enough to start driving, when his Genesis sedan could start doing it for him. The sight gags—near-falls into brickwork, a flaming grill, a lake—were just absurd enough to be funny, but just real enough to send a shudder down the spine of any father or mother watching at home. For synergy purposes, the song playing was by one of the halftime performers, Bruno Mars. And who doesn’t love hearing Jeff Bridges as spokesman? The Dude never gets old.

Worst

Maserati: The world, quite rightly, loves Quvenzhané Wallis, the captivating child actress who sprung to fame for her performance in the 2012 movie “The Beasts of the Southern Wild.” This Maserati spot for the Ghibli sports car (from Wieden+Kennedy), directed by the often great filmmaker David Gordon Green, tapped into that movie’s ominous imagery of nature gone slightly berserk, and men and women displaying ingenuity and dedication in their struggles against it. But then came the reveal. This was’t an ad for a plain, hardworking American sedan but for an Italian sports car, which has a base price of about sixty-six thousand dollars. “Beasts” was about society’s outcasts making do at the margins of society—connected to the forgotten people of Hurricane Katrina. The Ghibli is supposed to be a Maserati for a more “average” consumer—but it’s still a Maserati, not a jerry-rigged swamp boat.

Heinz: The commercial (from Cramer-Krasselt), the brand’s first in the Super Bowl in sixteen years, was appealing for its concise, charming message, but it relied on a physical fallacy that surely left every regular ketchup-user shouting at the television: it is simply not that easy to get the red sauce out of a glass bottle. One pat? Please. More like, If you’re happy and you know it … pat pat pat pat … c’mon! Grandma may have committed a faux pas by squeezing the last of a plastic bottle—and, please, fart noises aren’t that funny—but her delivery method was far more efficient than any other.

Chevrolet: Animal breeding is best not considered too deeply. And, at any rate, it should never be presented accompanied by the song “You Sexy Thing,” by Hot Chocolate. This ad (from the agency Leo Burnett) taps into one of the worst lingering trends of Super Bowl ads is silly, winking sexual innuendo, which seems borrowed from another time. It wears especially poorly with cows.

Chrysler: Bob Dylan has appeared in a few commercials in the past decade—Victoria’s Secret, Cadillac—and his songs have appeared in many more. (Earlier in the night, a Chobani ad used his song “I Want You” to peddle yogurt.) Each time, people remark about how sad it is to see him shilling for big corporations. It is. The very act of selling things goes against so many of his sharpest, most acerbic lyrics. Hearing Dylan issue some pretty banal pronouncements about what it means to be American-made in this ad (from GlobalHue), and finally promising the audience, “We will build your car”—well, it may have been the most perfect, sad encapsulation of the commercial bloated-ness of the Super Bowl. Still, for this Dylan fan, there was something about seeing him in his late-career duds, shooting pool, and cackle-crooning the words “zoom” and “thrust” that made me want to forgive the whole thing. Almost.

[#image: /photos/59096dc92179605b11ad72de]

Read more of our coverage of the Super Bowl.

Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly attributed a Chrysler ad to the agency Wieden+Kennedy. It was created by GlobalHue.