The Week in TV, 4/13/25

Well, one more week in the books, so here’s what was on the docket for the last Sunday to Saturday…

What’s new?

The big news this week is the return of Hacks. We start season 4 with two episodes in one week (“Big, Brave Girl” and “Cover Girls”), and if you’ve seen the show and know how season 3 ends, you won’t be surprised to find the new season kicking off with a cold war between Deborah and Ava that quickly turns hot. No slow-burn bullshit here; the situation is immediately and obviously untenable, and they (with some prodding from Jimmy, and further prodding from Winnie in the second episode after she makes clear just what exactly the stakes are) have to find a way to move past it or at least get to enough of a detente that the show doesn’t immediately implode.

Hacks wasn’t even the only show on Thursday to build on a bombshell dropped at the end of the previous episode, as Matlock‘s penultimate episode “I Was That, Too,” immediately picks up where we left off last week, with the Sword of Damocles that’s been hanging over this season finally coming down. While, of course, Team Olympia must also deal with an actual case– this time a race against the clock for a pregnant young woman trying to get away from her abusive, wealthy husband… whose family is also a major Jacobson Moore client. Lots of potential consequences lurk around in the corner in the finale, and this episode was great stuff.

Thursdays are rounded out with Elsbeth, as this week our plucky investigator sets her sights on David Alan Grier’s funeral home director in “The Four Body Problem” and gets involved with (I wouldn’t go so far as to say “mixed up in”) some conspiracy theorists. Quite a delight, really. I believe there are three episodes left, and based on the closing scene, the Judge Crawford case is coming back soon.

Also in weekly airing…

Last Sunday we continued on with The Righteous Gemstones and “You Shall Remember,” which not only continues the siblings’ crusade against Miss Lori (this time with Jesse’s team of flunkies conducting the investigation) but also re-ignites the Simkins-Gemstone feud, first with Jesse getting the best of Vance Simkins in the latest round of their petty little slap fight / pissing contest at the Cape and Pistol Society, and then with Simkins coming more directly for Kelvin at the Christ-Following Man of the Year roundtable. (Jesse and Judy’s insults to Kelvin about this also lead to some pretty vicious responses from Kelvin.) Plus, B.J. gets a monkey, and Teenjus, or as I’ve taken to calling it after the brief bit of filming we saw, Jordan Riverdale.

The Great North, “Ghouls Rush In Adventure,” wherein Wolf and Honeybee want their spooky boat tour to get a good review. Also, Moon drinks too much caffeine and goes nuts. The show is fine enough but sometimes it takes up a more background-viewing role for me, including this week. I didn’t pay close attention to this one because I had something going on, although what I had going on escapes me. Don’t let that dissuade you, though, as it’s still a largely at-least-solid spiritual child of Bob’s Burgers.

The Studio rolls on with “The Missing Reel,” featuring guest stars Zac Efron and Olivia Wilde. While I generally love a good homage, one thing I’ve struggled with so far is how obvious some of these twists and turns are, and how obviously they’re caused by Matt’s foibles. His insecurity, need to be liked, and delusion about those things and others keep leading him to boneheaded decisions and screwing things up. The real answer to the mystery of this episode was fairly easy to spot pretty early on, and as much as I love a good Chinatown homage, at some point, seeing this guy make a bunch of pretty obvious mistakes for the same reasons and in the same ways starts to feel stale.

However, Wednesday’s Good Cop / Bad Cop (“Skeletons”), which I believe is the penultimate episode of the season, was excellent. At this point, there’s no major case of the week, only Lou and Henry digging deeper into the unsolved murder of Tommy Boucher in 1987 (now that they’ve determined exactly who the mysterious remains belong to), and unraveling a web of conspiracy and coverup in sleepy little Eden Vale. This continues to be some terrific fun, with great performances and cast chemistry, funny writing, and enough intrigue to keep the plot-minded viewer interested.

Abbott Elementary‘s “Rally” wasn’t too bad, although it certainly is another example of a seemingly major plot development needing to be restored to the status quo ante. I hope Mr. Johnson didn’t really kill and eat the aquarium shark.

No new episodes this week for Grimsburg, Poppa’s House, or St. Denis Medical.

Catching up

Invincible – We’ve finally finished the series to date! Man, that was good. I’m not sure how strongly I feel about the show– not quite enough to put it with the all-time greats, and probably won’t be my favorite show of the year, but even while it’s occasionally inconsistent, I generally find a lot about it to enjoy. (And some of the things I might worry about in other shows I worry less here, with it both being a comic adaptation / creator Robert Kirkman’s chance to improve the original for television and for what didn’t age well. Such as, for example, whether or not they have too many balls in the air to catch them all successfully.)

Abbott Elementary – We did in fact watch the episodes in order, so we saw “Ava Fest: Tokyo Drift” before the most recent one. That was pretty fun all in all.

Falling behind

Nothing new here, except we still haven’t caught up on Everybody’s Live or Common Side Effects. And we still haven’t watched the four episodes of Side Quest, AppleTV+’s Mythic Quest spinoff.

Old favorites

I forgot to mention while I was recovering from surgery that I threw on a Kids in the Hall DVD commentary– the season 2 DVD in my box set only has two commentaries, on the two “best of” compilations. They’re pretty funny. Apparently a lot of the dialogue in “Daddy Drank” was taken from things Kevin McDonald’s father actually said. A lot of favorite sketches and recurring characters in these two compilations, if you ever want to know more about the Chicken Lady or Gavin or Francesca Fiore and Bruno Puntz Jones or Hecubus and Simon Milligan.

Just ended

Well, as mentioned above, Invincible ended for me, although it ended for the up-to-date world a month ago. Nothing other than that, although Matlock‘s season finale airs this week.

And this belongs more under “permanently ended” than “just ended,” but a couple of weeks after its finale, AppleTV+ canceled Mythic Quest. I can’t say I’m too heartbroken, as while I enjoyed the characters, I felt like this season was a bit of a mess and didn’t totally know what to do with them for the most part. Apparently they are going to get to release a revised finale episode, though, which is good because about the only worse thing than cancelation would be to leave the series ending on that particular cliffhanger.

Coming up

Next Sunday, April 20, is the premiere of season 2 of The Rehearsal.

The only other confirmed premiere date I have right now is May 25 for season 8 of Rick and Morty. I’m still awaiting dates on some of my more anticipated shows, in particular Alan Partridge: How Are You?, which according to Steve Coogan wrapped filming in late January.

And you?

What have you been watching and what are your thoughts?