What’s on TV
PRODIGAL SON 9 p.m. on Fox. There are few subjects as rich in storytelling potential as parent-child conflict and law enforcement. This series, which wraps its first season tonight, includes a lot of both. It follows Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne), an N.Y.P.D. investigator who is trying to evade the legacy of his serial killer father, Martin Whitly (Michael Sheen). His attempts to distance himself from his paternal inheritance were stymied when a copycat case required him to turn to Martin for help. Last week’s episode ended with Malcolm being arrested and charged with an offscreen murder. In the finale, perhaps we’ll see if he has followed in his father’s bloody footsteps.
BREEDERS 10 p.m. on FX. This dark comedy series about the challenges of child rearing couldn’t have come at a better time. With schools canceled and playgrounds shut down because of the coronavirus, many parents are reckoning with their offspring. Paul (Martin Freeman) and Ally (Daisy Haggard) don’t have a global health crisis to contend with but they’ve got their hands full anyway raising their kids, Luke and Ava. The arrival of Ally’s estranged father Michael (Michael McKean) earlier in the season added another ball for them to juggle. As the pressure has mounted, Paul and Ally have moved toward and away from each other. Ally caved to Paul’s desire to get married but remained distracted by work and eventually began spending her weeks in Berlin on assignment. In the finale, we’ll see how this arrangement, which has already shown signs of strain, ultimately pans out.
What’s Streaming
DEAD SOULS: PART 1 (2018) Stream on Mubi. In his review for The Times, Bilge Ebiri called Wang Bing’s documentary about survivors of Mao Zedong’s re-education camps “monumental.” He also explained that the film, whose three parts runs for more than eight hours together, “does not seek a complete accounting” of the camps and their legacy. “It’s partly about the inability to convey the full horror of these experiences,” Ebiri wrote. To avoid overstepping, the director focuses on the survivors themselves: “He lets the camera run as his subjects speak at length about the horrific things they saw and the comrades they buried — or, in many cases, didn’t get a chance to.” The second part of the documentary will be released on Mubi on Tuesday, with the final installment following on Wednesday.
NEVER HAVE I EVER Stream on Netflix. In this new teen comedy series created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan plays Devi, an Indian-American teenager keen to put her difficult freshman year behind her. She decides to take the new school year as an opportunity to retool her identity and enlists her friends Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) and Eleanor (Ramona Young) in a plan to elevate their lowly social status. Devi’s desire to become popular isn’t just motivated by normal adolescent insecurities. She’s also working through her father’s recent death and trying to reconcile the different dimensions of her identity.
Source: Television - nytimes.com
