Worth Watching: ‘Good Place’ Finale, Beginning of End for ‘Broad City,’ ‘Siren’ Returns, Comedy Central’s ‘Other Two’
A selective critical checklist of notable Thursday TV:
The Good Place (9:30/8:30c, NBC): TV’s most fantastical and goofily philosophical comedy ends its third season with an episode titled “Pandemonium,” which sounds about right. We have no idea what’s exactly in store for reformed demon Michael (Ted Danson), the ever-surprising Janet (D’Arcy Carden) and the Fab Four in afterlife limbo, because Good Place season finales tend to game-changers. Last we saw, Michael was having a panic attack as the gang prepared to redo the grand experiment to see just what it took to get into the good place. Will Eleanor (Kristen Bell) be able to pick up the slack?
Broad City (10/9c, Comedy Central): The hipster feminist comedy is moving on after its fifth and sadly final season, and New York may never be the same. That’s certainly the gist of the season opener, which finds Ilana (Ilane Glazer) helping Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) celebrate her, gulp, 30th birthday by incessantly filming their antics on a typically funky top-to-bottom tour of Manhattan.
The Other Two (10:30/9:30c, Comedy Central): Broad City’s new companion piece is a promisingly raunchy comedy of soul-degrading envy and desperation — albeit with a surprisingly sweet core. The painfully funny series, from former Saturday Night Live head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, focuses on two classic New York losers: Cary (Drew Tarver), a going-nowhere archetype of a struggling gay actor; and sister Brooke (Heléne Yorke), a hapless wannabe who’ll go to any depths to make ends meet. When their adorable 13-year-old kid brother from Ohio, calling himself Chase Dreams (Case Walker), hits it big with a vapid viral music video, titled “I Wanna Marry U at Recess,” the “other two” seethe and twist in the spotlight’s wings, while fretting that their naïve and adoring sib will be devoured by the fame monster. (Their mom, played to the giddy hilt by SNL vet Molly Shannon, and Ken Marino as Chase’s smarmy manager, are no help.) Dreams die hard in this unsparing send-up of show biz.
Siren (8/7c, Freeform): Things are getting even fishier in Bristol Cove in the second season of the supernatural thriller, as more mermaids wash up in the Washington hamlet. This makes it harder for Ryn (Eline Powell) to stay under the radar, and her triangle relationship with marine researchers Ben (Alex Roe) and Maddie (Fola Evans-Akingbola) gets even more complicated when the latter’s mom (Garcelle Beauvais) comes to town.
Inside Thursday TV: You thought Andy Samberg’s character of Jake Peralta on NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine (9/8c) was already immature? Wait till he reverts to high-school mode for his 20th-year reunion, alongside former classmate Gina (Chelsea Peretti), reliving their glory days as the “Dope Denim Crew.” But can Jake live down his reputation — unearned, he insists — as “the Tattler?”… ABC’s A Million Little Things (9/8c) goes into flashback mode to relive the day before Jon (Ron Livingston) took his life, shaking up everyone’s world… Jessica Szohr (Gossip Girl) comes aboard Fox’s The Orville (9/8c) as new cast regular, Lt. Talla Keyali… Darren Criss takes a break from the awards circuit, where he’s still reaping rewards from The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, to face off against Jermaine Dupri in a Mariah Carey-themed episode of Paramount Network’s Lip Sync Battle (9/8c). And yes, the diva shows up to perform as well… Get inside the head (if you dare) of one of society’s most notorious, and charismatic, serial murderers in Netflix’s four-part documentary series Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.
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