NFL Honors, ‘Matlock’ Goes Undercover, Double Trouble on ‘Elsbeth,’ Fakery in ‘Apple Cider Vinegar,’ Norman Lear’s Legacy Lives On

NFL Honors

Snoop Dogg was a ubiquitous presence at the Summer Olympics, and continuing his remarkable streak, he hosts this year’s ceremony honoring the standout players and performances from the 2024 NFL season from the Saenger Theater in New Orleans, in advance of Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX. MVP finalists include running back Saquon Barkley of Super Bowl contender Philadelphia Eagles and quarterbacks Josh Allen (Buffalo), Joe Burrow (Cincinnati), Jared Goff (Detroit) and Lamar Jackson (Baltimore). Awards will also go to Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Comeback Player of the Year, Coach and Assistant Coach of the Year, and Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year among many other accolades.

Matlock

Kathy Bates has one of her juiciest roles in years as Matty “Matlock,” but her latest case has Matty considering her own mortality when she poses as a grandma to infiltrate a retirement home that the firm is defending in a wrongful death suit. “I don’t want to get older,” she laments to husband Edwin (Sam Anderson), but as usual, Matty proves age is just a number as she goes undercover with ambitious associate Sarah (Leah Lewis) posing as her adopted granddaughter to get answers. Joanna Cassidy guest-stars as a resident who was close to the victim in a facility where, as one of the garden-club gossips puts it, “There’s six gals to every old buck around here.”

Elsbeth

“Looks can be deceiving,” quips Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston), who has a gift for seeing through many a murderous subterfuge, and that’s especially helpful when the victim and the suspected killer are identical twins. Succession‘s Alan Ruck is terrific in a dual role as successful Wall Street bros Bill and Peter Hepson, the former renouncing his fortune after a near-death experience and quitting the business, a decision that leads to his actual death. As Elsbeth snoops around the case, she’s distracted when Chicago lawyer Carter Schmidt (Christian Borle) returns to tip her off that she’s about to become the fall guy in the messy aftermath of the Van Ness divorce case.

Apple Cider Vinegar

Not since Inventing Anna‘s anti-heroine Anna Delvey have we met an operator as narcissistic and manipulative as Belle Gibson (the brilliant chameleon Kaitlyn Dever), the central figure of a stylized docudrama that bills itself as a “true story based on a lie.” Belle becomes an early Instagram star and wellness icon as she nurtures her brand with false claims of being a cancer survivor. Seeing through her toxic façade is Milla Blake (Fear the Walking Dead‘s formidable Alycia Debnam-Carey), an actual cancer survivor and online rival whose anti-science advocacy of holistic cancer treatments has its own drawbacks. Unlike Anna, which often felt like it was celebrating its fraudster’s schemes, Vinegar tartly deconstructs Belle’s warped psyche and the terrible effect she has on suffering patients. “She’s probably killing people with her lies,” warns a whistleblower.

Clean Slate

Notable as one of the last series to bear the imprimatur of the late, great Norman Lear as executive producer, this mildly amusing comedy takes a hot-button topic tailor-made for the Lear brand and softens it with toothless punch lines that beg for a (non-existent) studio audience’s laughter. The casting is strong, with Laverne Cox as the self-assured Desiree (born Desmond), who returns after 23 years to her Alabama home to reconcile with her cantankerous dad, car-wash owner Harry (comedian George Wallace), who’s expecting to welcome back his son. Mild complications ensue, but Harry seems more concerned that he has to buy “fake-ass wings at the Piggly Wiggly” after learning of Desiree’s alarming vegetarian proclivities. This Slate is perhaps a bit too clean, considering the volatile political climate into which this series is being launched. But let’s give Lear the last word, quoted in the show’s frontispiece as believing, “The laughter I’ve enjoyed most is laughter that has brought numbers of us together.” Who can argue with that?

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• Hell’s Kitchen (8/7c, Fox): The last two chefs prepare a custom menu in the season finale, with the winner earning a position at Gordon Ramsay‘s Hell’s Kitchen in Connecticut.
• Ghosts (8:30/7:30c, CBS): Thor (Devan Chandler Long) seeks therapy to confront his abandonment issues over being left behind by his Viking shipments all those centuries ago.
• Crime Nation (9/8c, The CW): The true-crime series revisits the investigation into the 2010 murder of NBA star Lorenzen Wright.

ON THE STREAM:

• Invincible (streaming on Prime Video): Family ties continue to trip up teen superhero Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) as Season 3 of the adult animated series from The Walking Dead‘s Robert Kirkman lifts off. Having inherited his powers from his evil alien father, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), Mark now has to deal with his little brother joining the superhero ranks.
• The Kardashians (streaming on Hulu): The camera-shy clan (just kidding!) returns for a sixth streaming season, with Kim heading to the White House to talk prison reform while Kourtney marks her 45th. But who’s counting?
• Sweet Magnolias (streaming on Netflix): Best buds Maddie (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott) and Helen (Heather Headley) are back for a fourth season of romantic drama, reminding us that Serenity isn’t just a town in South Carolina but a state of mind.
• The Takedown: American Aryans (streaming on Max): Using wiretaps and other secret recordings, federal agent Richard Boehning leads a four-part true-crime docuseries detailing the criminal activities of the cult-like Aryan Brotherhood of Texas and its Nazi ideology.
• The Z Suite (streaming on Tubi): Gilmore Girls‘ Lauren Graham and Superstore‘s Nico Santos star in a generation-gap workplace comedy as seasoned ad execs seeking a competitive comeback after they’re displaced at their firm by a Gen Z social media upstart (Madison Shamoun).
• Death Without Mercy (streaming on Paramount+ With Showtime): Two Syrian families desperately seek missing loved ones in the aftermath of the catastrophic 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria that claimed more than 55,000 victims in a documentary from MTV Documentary Films.