Television

A review of “Truth,” this week’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, coming up just as soon as I’m right-handed… “Truth” opens with a fight scene that has felt inevitable since the end of the first episode, as our title characters go after the off-brand Captain America to reclaim the shield he just used to very publicly commit murder. Choreography-wise, it’s much less fancy than Sam’s aerial battle with Batroc in the premiere, much less the similar three-way brawl in the climax of Captain America: Civil War. But it hits...

Hours before the dawn even considers cracking, Issa Rae is awake. The weekday routine is as follows: At 4:20 a.m., she sets out on an hourlong walk, alternating between two routes. With AirPods in and podcasts playing, Rae whips down quiet Los Angeles roads lit only by streetlamps, sometimes passing by a house she grew up in, before beginning her day. This is how Rae keeps her sanity, though when we meet on a Tuesday in early March, she confesses the regimen has been upended.“I hadn’t done my walking since...

Marvyn Korn is no Ted Lasso. But he might have to be in order to thrive, both as a coach and as the main character of a new streaming TV show. In Disney+’s new sports dramedy Big Shot, John Stamos plays Marvyn, a legendary — and legendarily hot-tempered — men’s basketball coach whose antics make him unemployable at the college level. The sport is all he cares about, so he reluctantly takes a job coaching a girls team at a California prep school. He is intense and unyielding from the...

The new HBO mystery miniseries Mare of Easttown begins with establishing shots of its titular location in southeastern Pennsylvania. The sky is gray. The little houses, most of them built out of worn red brick, all sit on top of one another. Any paint in sight is faded and peeling. It is a depressing place, full of depressing people. When a newcomer tells Mare Sheehan herself (Kate Winslet) that the area seems OK to him, she replies, “Give it time.” You cannot accuse Mare of Easttown of false advertising, that’s...

Actor Joseph Siravo — who played Tony Soprano’s father on The Sopranos and also appeared in films like Carlito’s Way and numerous Broadway shows — died Sunday, NJ.com reports. He was 64. Siravo died after a battle with cancer, having been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in 2017. He was later diagnosed with colon cancer and had part of his colon removed. Although not necessarily a series regular, Siravo played a key role on The Sopranos, popping up as Tony’s father, Giovanni Frances “Johnny Boy” Soprano, in memorable flashback...

Apple TV+ has released the trailer for Season 2 of its workplace comedy series Mythic Quest. The first two episodes of the nine-episode season premiere May 7th on the streaming platform, with subsequent episodes premiering every Friday. Season 2 sees the team behind the biggest multiplayer video game of all time back at the office, attempting to capitalize on the success of Raven’s Banquet with even more wacky schemes. Ian (Rob McElhenney) and co-creative director Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) struggle with the game’s direction as they attempt to create a massive new...

Saturday Night Live tackled the Derek Chauvin trial, Black Lives Matter protests and the death of DMX through the eyes of a Minnesota news broadcast in the show’s latest cold open. In the sketch, news anchors played by Kenan Thompson, Kate McKinnon, Alex Moffat and Ego Nwodim discuss the George Floyd murder trial, and while all four newscasters agree that Chauvin should be found guilty — “the video footage alone should tell you everything you need to know about what happened,” Moffat said — the black anchors have less faith...

Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update continued their coverage of the Matt Gaetz sex scandal this week as well as featured an interview with podcasters “Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama.” “Our Florida congressman Matt Gaetz is back in the news, but this time it’s good… just kidding, it’s still the sex stuff,” co-anchor Colin Jost said at the opening. “Matt Gaetz — who looks like all the dudes from American Pie combined — reportedly sent $900 on Venmo to an alleged sex trafficker who then forwarded that same exact amount to...

Netflix has released a new trailer for its upcoming superhero series, Jupiter’s Legacy, which is set to arrive May 7th. Adding a dash of family drama to the classic superhero formula, the show is centered around a major changing of the guard, as the world’s first superheroes prepare to pass the proverbial torch to the next generation. But that shift, of course, comes with all sorts of angst as the younger heroes must learn to not only harness their powers but live up to the expectations of both their parents...

Apple TV+ has released a trailer for its upcoming thriller The Mosquito Coast, set to premiere April 30th. The show is based on Paul Theroux’s 1981 novel of the same name, and it actually stars the author’s nephew, Justin Theroux. Theroux plays Allie Fox, an idealist and inventor who suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of the U.S. government. Fox uproots his family and takes them to Mexico, and the new trailer teases a cat-and-mouse chase that grows increasingly complicated and dangerous, especially as Fox’s daughter, Dina (played by Logan...

A review of this week’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, “The Whole World Is Watching,” coming up just as soon as I pull an El Chapo… Two-thirds of the way through its run, Falcon and the Winter Soldier remains competent and little more. It’s a show in which lots of things happen in each episode, yet the individual episodes feel sluggish, because those various incidents don’t do much beyond inching the plot forward. And it’s a show that has never really solved the problem of the first half of...

Anne Beatts, one of the original writers on Saturday Night Live, has died at the age of 74. Former SNL cast member Laraine Newman first tweeted news of Beatts’ death Wednesday, “Our Anne- an OG SNL writer passed away yesterday.” Film producer and Beatts’ friend Rona Edwards confirmed the writer’s death to the Hollywood Reporter. Beatts died Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles, but no cause of death was provided. “Anne was a pioneer – she truly paved the way for women in comedy and female comedy writers in...