Eliana Willis

What’s on TVPRODIGAL 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 StreamingDEAD 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. More

In the final seconds of HBO’s romantic thriller “Run” on Sunday night, Archie Panjabi’s heat-seeking-missile Fiona steadily lowers to her knees and ever-so-gently slides her phone underneath a hotel door to record her targets, Domhnall Gleeson and Merritt Wever’s irresponsibly-reunited former lovers Billy and Ruby, (loudly) going at it. If that move reminded you of a certain leather-jacketed, high-booted, and brilliantly sly investigator from “The Good Wife,” you’re not the only one.“My first thought when I read that scene in the script was, that’s such a Kalinda moment,” Panjabi said in a Zoom call from Los Angeles one evening last week.No surprise it took just a few minutes for Kalinda to come up in our conversation, considering the character won Panjabi an Emmy and put her on the map, both as an actress and as tabloid fodder. But — wipe your drool — the 47-year-old British actress was quick to shut down questions about that scene with a smile.She is, however, game to talk about 18-page auditions, childhood trophies and how in May, HBO viewers will get a double dose of the actress when she appears both on “Run” and “I Know This Much is True,” a six-part drama based on Wally Lamb’s best seller, where she plays a wise psychiatrist to twins Dominick (Mark Ruffalo) and Thomas (yup, Ruffalo again) Birdsey. Quite a month for someone who was once told that Indian women can’t make it in Hollywood. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Fiona is a manipulative, shoplifting, calculated semi-stalker. So I’m guessing she was a dream role?It happened very quickly. I got sent the script and I had the weekend to decide whether to do it. I love [the series creator Vicky Jones and the executive producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge] and I love Merritt and Domhnall, and the chemistry between these two characters is so engaging. I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to play a character that is thrown in with the motive of tearing them apart? It’s delicious.You have such strong chemistry with both Merritt and Domnhall; I didn’t know if you wanted to seduce them or skewer them.That’s what Vicky is good at doing. To be honest, there were times when I didn’t understand the bond between Fiona and Ruby, and I would call Vicky over and she would say, “Sometimes you’re not supposed to like someone, but you just have this chemistry.” I’d never done anything like that.Fiona may be the antagonist, she’s not a stereotypical villain because at times she’s the most sympathetic character.One could read the script as it was written that Fiona was a complete [expletive] and she’s really nasty. But it was important to Vicky and [the director Kate Dennis] that it wasn’t that. The tone of the show is unique to the point that even as actors, all of us didn’t quite know what it was. Which made everything about this project out of my comfort zone.How so? Fiona feels like such an Archie Panjabi character.Maybe after playing a character for six years you lose a bit of confidence in your comfort zone. They obviously cast me so they thought it was in my range. I don’t mind being a little bit insecure. Sometimes I think it helps on set because you’re more open and wanting to trust your director and the other actors.Let’s talk about “I Know This Much is True.” You play a therapist named Dr. Patel, which reminds me that I owe an email to my therapist Dr. Patel.Your therapist and hundreds of thousands of other doctors in the world. That was the first thing I thought of with her name. It’s a big joke in London that every other doctor is called Dr. Patel. It was a huge responsibility how I was going to convey this one.Did you seek out this role or did the creator Derek Cianfrance (“Blue Valentine”) come to you?Derek likes to meet everyone, get to know their personalities. I had Skype sessions and lots of chats and I even flew out to see him. And I did an 18-page scene.An 18-page audition?They asked me to put myself on tape, which really doesn’t come up that much because I get offered a lot of stuff. But I had to come off my ego and I thought, I don’t mind because I want to work with these people. I had to put 18 pages on an iPhone. Afterward, I thought I really had the voice of this character. The similarity between her and other roles I’ve played is a calmness on the outside but you know every single wheel is turning on the inside.You’ve done a few episodes of American comedies, from “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” to “BoJack Horseman.” Did you want to change the image of you only playing that type of calm-on-the-outside character?When I was 15 or 16 I entered a drama competition in London and I came in first and I got a cup called the “Versatility Cup.” And that always stuck with me that I wanted to be able to play anything, even roles I felt I couldn’t play. I would never have thought I could have played Kalinda. I remember reading the character description and it was “stunningly beautiful Erin Brockovich.” I said, that’s not me.But you still went for it.At the time I was putting myself out for pilots and I wasn’t getting anything. And then I got an email from my agent who said, “I think you should possibly have a look at this.” I spent hours with my other half recording at home. From what I understand, I was the last on the list after they’d seen everybody.Do you remember what scene you read for your audition?It was when she opened her buttons and said, “These are better than subpoenas.” I thought, Oh God, my mum will be horrified.Was she?No, she was amused.You won an Emmy for playing Kalinda in 2010 and a decade later, there are still questions about tension on the set between you and Juliana Margulies that was rumored to be so bad that you couldn’t even film your final scene together. Will you ever tell your side of the story?You’re very naughty, Jessica.Are you surprised people want to hear your perspective?Let’s put it this way. We are living in a world where everybody wants to know everything. I completely understand why everyone asks about it. Everybody I meet asks me about it, in some roundabout way. I just feel like, I’m doing work because of that character. Before Kalinda, I was always coming in for a few lines and it was hard to get roles. If people always want to know what happened, OK, it’s a small price to pay for all the wonderful things that show has given me. It sounds diplomatic, but it’s how I feel.Did it tarnish your memories of the series?I’m not very complimentary of things. I’m very British and I like to self-deprecate, but I do feel the Alicia and Kalinda scenes were one of the highlights of the show. I’m very proud of them.But you’re taking everything else to the grave?Yeah. I’ve said what I’m going to say.Any chance Kalinda will pop up on “The Good Fight”?I don’t know. I still get a lot of love for her, but she came in as a mystery and she left as a mystery. I don’t know if bringing back a character like that feels right. It took me time to get out of that character and for people to see me in a different light.Last year you helped develop “Adversaries,” a show about a L.A. lawyer who moves to the heartland and confronts prejudices, which was supposed to be on NBC this season. What interested you about that premise?I was keen to tell a story about diversity. My character was brought up by strict parents and Asian and she works with someone who’s American, and through them we get insight into their different backgrounds. We still don’t understand why [NBC] put that aside.You once had an agent who told you that you’d never work as an Indian woman. Is there anything you’d want to say to her now?I was in my 20s then and I do feel, with respect to her, that she was justified in saying that to some degree. When I was growing up, my family used to say, “How many women of your background are onscreen? Virtually none.” I don’t hold it against her for saying it at the time.You really don’t hold onto rage, do you?I’m British and I’m Indian. So that combination is: Keep the peace! More

This interview includes spoilers for the series finale of “Homeland.”When Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon learned after Season 5 that their political thriller, “Homeland,” would end after eight seasons, they choose not to shape the remaining installments into one long and complex arc. Instead, they would continue planning it one season at a time.The show would keep them guessing, just as it did for viewers — right up through the series finale, which aired Sunday on Showtime.When it came time to plan Season 8, much about the fate of the show’s protagonist, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), remained uncertain. But Gansa and Gordon, who created and oversaw the series, had a few definite ideas. One brought the story full circle, in a way, to its beginnings, which centered on a returning prisoner from the Iraq War, Sgt. Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis).“We had decided that we wanted to tell the last story in Afghanistan, and we already knew two big things,” Gansa said. “We knew that a president’s helicopter was going to go down in a war zone, and we knew that we wanted to put Carrie Mathison in Nicholas Brody’s shoes.”In other words, they wanted her to be suspected of being a traitor.As for revealing that the C.I.A. super spy Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) had been running a highly placed Russian mole — the translator Anna (Tatyana Mukha) — that idea arose about midway through plotting out the season. And the decision to turn Carrie into a whistle-blower had been a last-minute stroke of inspiration.The tricky part, Gansa said, had been figuring out how to get the Russian officer Yevgeny (Costa Ronin) to trust Carrie enough to allow her to start spying in Moscow. After rejecting a number of possible solutions — such as having Carrie become pregnant with Yevgeny’s child — the writers were stumped. Then, on the day before the final shoot, Gansa woke up thinking about Edward Snowden’s book, “Permanent Record.”“I was like, ‘Whoa!’ What if Carrie has been spending the last two years writing an expose of the C.I.A.?” he said. Everything fell into place, and the series’s production designer quickly mocked up a jacket for Carrie’s book “Tyranny of Secrets.”During a recent phone interview, Gansa discussed bringing the show across the finish line, the impact of Snowden and his regrets about a mishandled story line. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.That’s quite a fake-out when Carrie tries to convince Saul that his life is on the line. Did you ever consider a scenario in which Carrie actually kills Saul?Carrie would never go that dark. There would always be a third way. We did try to make the scene in which she was telling Saul’s sister that he’s dead as uncomfortable as the moment where it looked like she might kill Saul. We wanted those scenes to demonstrate just how far this person was willing to go to get what she thought was right. Look, Carrie is responsible for the death of an important asset, but ultimately, Carrie is able to take that person’s place in Russia and deliver intelligence back to Saul. She is exactly in the position that she most enjoys, which is a duplicitous relationship where she’s doing the work she was meant to do.Is it a happy ending? I think Carrie is happy. We wanted the show to end in a bittersweet way, not in a grim way. And in this uncertain time, I’m relieved that there’s some redemption here. Anything that ends with a little good cheer, I’m weeping, like, “Thank God.”Having Carrie write a book gives you a chance for one last “crazy wall” when we see her office.Although it’s much more ordered! Carrie’s got it together a bit. It was patterned after my office. Most of the books were my books — all the C.I.A. source material, the spy literature, the whole nine yards. And there is just a litany of our overreaction to 9/11 on the wall. It ain’t a pretty picture. Speaking of books, all the red Tauchnitz books used for tradecraft in Saul Berenson’s library are from my father’s collection. They were just a source of aggravation because whatever city we were in, we would always stop at these antiquarian bookstores so he could look for editions he didn’t have. They finally got put to good use.Carrie’s book is dedicated to Franny. What happens to her?Well, Franny got sacrificed. Not only has Franny been abandoned by her mother, but her mother is now like Edward Snowden and is considered a traitor. That’s going to be a very hard thing for that young girl — and, eventually, that young woman — to accept and understand.How did the endgame evolve or change as the world changed?We filmed in South Africa for Season 4 and Berlin for Season 5, and Claire and Mandy wanted to come home to the United States. Even though we might have kept the story abroad, our actors were tired of being overseas. And so we were put in the position of, “OK, how are we going to fashion a narrative back in New York City?” That was tough. Luckily, at Spy Camp, [a series of brainstorming sessions the cast and creative staff did each season with intelligence and national security experts], as we were writing Season 6, Mike Hayden, [the former C.I.A. director], told us about the very interesting process of presidential transitions and what that period between Election Day and Inauguration Day looks like — how uncertain it is, and what a new president’s education would look like after two and a half, three months. [Season 6 debuted in January 2017; Spy Camp was in February 2016.] Just listening to him talk, the idea for that season evolved.For this season, we wanted to consider how America had reacted to 9/11 and how would we react to the next 9/11. Would we have learned anything? We wanted to create an event that was akin to 9/11, but not a mass-casualty attack. So we went back to Afghanistan, where we would have license to tell a more explosive story, for lack of a better word.“Homeland” was highly praised, but also highly criticized. Did criticism of the show ever affect the story?Oh, the criticism affected it enormously. First and foremost, I think both the praise and the criticism were overblown. We were taking shots from the left for being Islamophobic and shots from the right for being soft on terrorism. At the beginning of Season 5, Peter Quinn is sitting in a C.I.A. briefing room and telling people what it looks like on the ground in Syria. Our intention in that scene was to portray Quinn as somebody who had seen too much battle and whose judgment was impaired. And yet Fox News and the right wing ran with what Quinn said as: “My God, ‘Homeland’ is getting it right! You have to take a harder line with all these factions in Syria.” That’s inevitable.There was a moment toward the end of Season 5 where we all just looked at ourselves in the mirror. We were telling a story about an impending attack in Berlin, and four days before we shot the scene, the Paris attacks happened. We found ourselves on the set saying, “What are we doing?” It was truly a “come to Jesus” or “come to Allah” moment: What is the value of telling these stories in a world that felt like it had gone a little crazy? That definitely affected “Homeland” in Seasons 6, 7 and 8.What changed?We made a vow to ourselves that we were not going to dramatize any threats in “Homeland” that didn’t actually exist. From our consultants in D.C., we learned that there were no organized Al Qaeda or Islamic State terrorist cells in the U.S. There were lone wolves acting on their own, but no terror cells here. This was when both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were making it seem like we were going to face another 9/11 attack, and it was only a matter of time. So we were very careful in these remaining seasons that we were not going to be sensational. We were trying to not make it worse.Edward Snowden was one of your spy camp consultants. What did he contribute?That’s why Season 5 was all about the surveillance state, hacking and civil liberties. Bart Gellman, a former Washington Post reporter, told me he was bringing a special guest to Spy Camp, and the next thing you know, we’re Skyping with Snowden in Moscow. This was about six months before Snowden was Skyping with other people, so all of the intelligence consultants we had in the room sat up in their seats, like, “Oh my God!”We had a two- or three-hour conversation with him. He was an interesting cat, for sure. When somebody constantly refers to themselves in the third person, it’s always odd. But he made a compelling case that if he had gone through the normal channels, none of this would have become public.Did your Spy Camp consultants ever warn that opposing world powers might seek to take advantage of a crisis in which actually no one was to blame — just to consolidate their power? In “Homeland,” that happens after a helicopter goes down. In the real world, it might be the politicization of the coronavirus.Right? That’s an interesting analogy. I mean, a virus truly is nobody’s fault, and the political ramifications on all sides — the finger-pointing, the blaming, the conspiracy theories that grow up around these things — is remarkable. We did hear a lot about that in Spy Camp, just in terms of how events can be twisted for political gain in ways that we haven’t yet begun to imagine. And now we’re witnessing it in full bloom.One of the things I remember hearing very early on was how Al Qaeda began to spin events on the ground. Special Ops would go in and kill a terrorist cell, and then Al Qaeda would come in and spread Qurans all over the floor to make it look like they had massacred a prayer circle. How events are open to interpretation is profoundly unsettling. There is no one source that you can look to and say, “Well, I believe that” — some Walter Cronkite who you can look at as an arbiter of what’s real. It makes the world a scarier and more uncertain place.Don DeLillo said in “White Noise,” “In a crisis, the true facts are what other people say they are. No one’s knowledge is less secure than your own.” The time we’re living in right now, I certainly feel that way. I don’t know about you, but I just cannot put my finger on what to believe. Do I wear a mask? Not wear a mask? Do we need ventilators? Do we not need ventilators? The whole thing is just so confusing. “Homeland” has always tried to live dramatically in that ambiguous space. You see that between Saul and Carrie in the last couple of episodes, how to deal with a crisis that’s unfolding in front of their eyes.Any regrets? Any stories you wish you had told differently?After Brody was falsely implicated in the C.I.A. bombing, I wish that we had found a better way to dramatize the impact of that upon his family in Season 3. I just think that if we had been thinking more clearly, we could have devised a better story around how that affected and impacted their lives.That goes back to Franny. What happens when Franny and Dana meet?That would be a great story. Save it for the movie! [Laughs.] More

Season 3, Episode 7: ‘Passed Pawn’Each man’s death diminishes me,For I am involved in mankind.Therefore, send not to knowFor whom the app ca-chingsIt ca-chings for thee.Or something to that effect.Hard as it may seem to believe that an app designed to facilitate criminal acts could have a nefarious purpose, we finally discover what the powers-that-be have had in mind for Caleb.For weeks, there has been speculation over Caleb’s true identity: Could he be a host or some other artificial creation? Throughout the season, the jumble of fragmented moments that have circulated in his memory has recalled Bernard at his glitchiest, forever struggling to solve the puzzles created by his own consciousness. In the meantime, he has attached himself to Dolores, not least because she moves forward with a confidence and certainty that he could never manage on his own.On this week’s episode, Dolores leads him to a facility in Sonora, Mexico, where some of the biggest secrets of the Rehoboam project are stored. Earlier in the season, we got a glimpse of a Mesa-like operation where human “anomalies” are subject to whatever editing they need to bring them back in line with their predictable, algorithmically correct cohorts. The entire purpose of the Seracs’ project was to wrangle the destructive chaos of human interaction into a coherent, sustainable plan for survival. There’s no room in the system for people inclined to chart their own course because the models all point to the likelihood of extinction.It was never a great sign that Engerraund Serac’s brother was the first fly in the ointment, and many others, like Caleb, would follow. One of the smarter ideas this season is that Serac is a defensible villain: Rehoboam grew out of nuclear catastrophe and the promise of more catastrophes to come, so even the most heavy-handed tactics to keep mankind in line are sensible. It may not sound great for one man and his machine to have the power to control the destinies of individuals and nations, but it sounds better when there are no other options. In order to keep the great Westworld park known as Planet Earth operational, anomalies like Caleb had to be brought back to their loops like the hosts — and if they couldn’t be, they needed to be decommissioned.What we learn in this episode is that the human impulse to misbehave isn’t so easily buffed out. The success rate for editing anomalies is only one out of 10. And so the solution has been to use anomalies to catch anomalies, which has given guys like Caleb a purpose, even if they’re kept in the dark about why their services are needed.Dolores takes Caleb to the facility in Sonoma so he can learn about the lies that have been hard-wired into his programming like one of Lee Sizemore’s park narratives. He has been led to believe in a false memory about a mission gone wrong in Crimea, one that ends with his best friend’s getting killed by the enemy, but the truth is more unsettling and sends him back on a “regressive” path.The trip to Sonora is also a chance for Dolores and Caleb to become acquainted with Solomon, the older and bug-riddled version of what would become Rehoboam. Solomon is presented as the machine equivalent to an anomaly, which makes it dangerously useless to Serac as a tool for social engineering but ideal to Dolores as a strategist for revolution. It’s wild to imagine the rebellions of the future as something akin to the You May Also Like function on Netflix, but Dolores is looking for options on the best way forward against adversaries that are growing in strength.To that end, Team Maeve has claimed its first Dolores, as Clementine comes back from the dead to ambush Musashi-bot in Jakarta. The pre-credits sequence continues the show’s mission to bump up the action considerably this season, which seems like a reasonable response to complaints that the simulated Old West of the first two seasons was long on philosophy and short on shoot’-em-ups. There’s an emphasis on high-tech gadgetry, too. Musashi-bot’s briefcase transforms into an assault weapon at the flick of a wrist. Dolores later wipes out nearly everyone guarding the Sonora facility by using drone-operated targeting.The Jakarta sequence is book-ended by a throw-down between Dolores and Maeve that’s been seasons in the offing. Maeve’s motives for attacking Dolores are clearer now than they’ve been in the past, but “Westworld” has always struggled to make sense of the beef between them. Perhaps it’s simply that Dolores and Maeve are too alike, both strong personalities who want to do things their own way. But their journey to self-awareness, their missions of vengeance and their tip-of-the-spear personalities are so closely aligned that they’ve never had much reason to fight. That makes the climax to this episode seem like a low-stakes form of shadowboxing.“You died many times, but this will be your last,” Maeve warns Dolores. Not likely.Paranoid Androids:Pick your “Westworld” Season 3 Quarantine House! House No. 1: Dolores, Caleb, Ash, Giggles. House No. 2: Maeve, Hector, Clementine, Serac. House No. 3: Bernard, Stubbs, the Man in Black. House No. 4: Charlotte-bot, Musashi-bot, Martin-bot, Sizemore-bot. (All answers other than House No. 3 are defensible.)Bernard, Stubbs and the Man in Black had a couple of contentious scenes together this episode, but main takeaway is that the Man in Black is “Classification U,” a label given to outliers who weren’t corrected by therapy. Now they’re looking for a log of others like him.“The West was cruel, unjust and chaotic,” Dolores tells Caleb, “but there was a chance to chart your own course. I want a place for my kind. For all of us to be free.” For someone who has spent most of her existences on the wrong end of unmediated, lawless violence, Dolores’s nostalgia for the Old West is surprising.“If you die, I will adjust my projections.” Solomon is like Nate Silver 2.0.HBO announced this week that “Westworld” had been renewed for a fourth season. So viewers should not expect to be anywhere near the center of the maze after next week’s finale. More

Two weeks ago, “Saturday Night Live” returned to television with its first new episode of the at-home era: a collection of remotely produced sketches that were low on production value but high on spirit and innovation. It offered a window into what the show could do without most of its resources — and into the homes of its cast members, for those of us who always wondered what they looked like.Now that “S.N.L.” proved that it could be done, what would it do for an encore?In its second run at an at-home episode, “S.N.L.” got more ambitious, adding flashy graphics and editing tricks, and diving into its pool of celebrity contacts for some well-timed cameo appearances — perhaps none more surprising than the opening sketch, which featured Brad Pitt as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.In a CNN interview earlier this month, Fauci had said with a laugh that “of course” he would love to see himself portrayed by Pitt, the Oscar-winning star of “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” Perhaps he believed it was never going to happen, but there, at the top of the show, was Pitt wearing a wig, glasses, suit and tie, speaking in a mock-Brooklyn accent and offering his thanks to “all the older women in America who have sent me supportive, inspiring and sometimes graphic emails.”[embedded content]He also offered his commentary on “misinformation” regarding coronavirus and tried to clarify remarks made by President Trump.Following a video clip in which the president said that there might be vaccines “relatively soon,” Pitt said, “Relatively soon is an interesting phrase. Relative to the entire history of earth? Sure, the vaccine’s going to come real fast. But if you were to tell a friend, I’ll be over relatively soon, and then showed up a year and a half later, well, your friend may be relatively pissed off.”After another clip in which President Trump said the coronavirus would disappear “like a miracle,” Pitt said, “A miracle would be great. Who doesn’t love miracles? But miracles shouldn’t be Plan A. Even Sully tried to land at the airport first.”A third clip showed the president stating that “anybody that needs a test gets a test,” and that the tests were “beautiful.” Pitt replied, “I don’t know if I would describe the test as beautiful. Unless your idea of beauty is having a cotton swab tickle your brain. Also, when he said everyone can get a test what he meant was, almost no one.”Pitt then addressed rumors that President Trump planned to fire him, playing a clip of the president saying that he would not dismiss him, adding, “I think he’s a wonderful guy.”“So yeah, I’m getting fired,” Pitt said.Finally, Pitt ended the segment by removing his wig and thanking the real Fauci “for your calm and your clarity in this unnerving time,” and also offering gratitude to medical workers and their families. He added, “Live, kinda, from all across America, it’s Saturday night.”‘S.N.L.’ Throwback of the WeekUnder the limitations of sheltering-in-place orders, “What Up With That?” would seem to be the kind of recurring bit that should be avoided at all costs: It’s an overstuffed talk show with an indefatigable host (played by Kenan Thompson) and it is dependent on filling a stage with as many performers and celebrities as possible, most of whom won’t get to say more than a few words.But by the grace of Zoom, “S.N.L.” pulled it off, working in recurring characters like an enigmatic saxophonist played by Fred Armisen and an enthusiastic, track-suited dancer played by Jason Sudeikis. (Bill Hader, who usually plays Lindsey Buckingham, appeared only as a frozen screen graphic.)Charles Barkley, playing himself, summed it all up: “I’m not going to lie — this is weird.”Music Video of the WeekPete Davidson led off another of his musical segments by lamenting the tediousness of his home quarantine with his sister and his mother. (“Tired of sitting in the dark / Got nothing to watch, already did ‘Ozark’ ”). Then, unexpectedly, he threw the song over to Adam Sandler, the “S.N.L.” alum who, after almost 25 years away from the show, is once again becoming a fixture there.Sandler added a verse about his own monotony, singing, “wife tried to kiss me, I straight up denied her / miss the NBA and I miss Rob Schneider.” And sure enough, there was Schneider, another “S.N.L.” veteran, to deliver the catch phrase he’s been shouting at Sandler for more than a quarter-century.Fake Commercial of the WeekWhile it has been charming to see the grass-roots “S.N.L.” segments with homemade costumes and hand-drawn, taped-up posters on cast members’ walls, let’s also appreciate the more polished efforts on display in this advertisement featuring Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon.They play two of the grocers at Bartenson’s, a store where staples like chicken, milk and bread are unfortunately out of stock, but where you can still find mint-flavored Pringles, fluoride bananas, Pepsi Crab and plenty of Dasani products. As McKinnon says, “We want to give you what you want, but first we need you to buy what we have.”‘Weekend Update’ Jokes of the WeekThis latest at-home edition of “Weekend Update” was a significant step up from its debut — gone were the weird audio inserts of people laughing at Colin Jost’s and Michael Che’s jokes, and the anchors now had the familiar world-map backdrop inserted behind them. (We did miss seeing Jost’s guitar, though.) The anchors riffed on Thursday’s coronavirus briefing at the White House, where President Trump floated dangerous and widely derided solutions for halting the virus’s spread.Jost:You know things are going well when #DontDrinkBleach is trending nationally after a president’s speech. After a doctor said that coronavirus dies quickly in sunlight, President Trump asked if they could bring “the light inside the body.” Though I’m pretty sure “bring the light inside the body” is what they chanted at Jonestown before drinking poison. Then President Clean suggested injecting disinfectant into your body to cure the virus. Experts called the idea “a stroke of genius,” minus the “of genius” part.Che:Trump later backtracked and said he was just being sarcastic, which is just what you say when you know you’ve said something terrible. You know, Colin, speaking of terrible, you know how when a kid has really bad parents, somebody steps in and they have to go live with another family, right? [Jost: “Sure.”] Do you think it’s possible another country could come take custody of us, maybe? I mean, like, just until our government gets back on its feet. Somewhere stable, like Germany or Japan or Nigeria. Or even Iraq. I’ll take Iraq now. Don’t they owe us a favor anyway? Didn’t we, like, kill their dad when they were in trouble? I’m being sarcastic, obviously. More

What’s on TVBAD EDUCATION (2020) 8 p.m. on HBO; stream on HBO platforms. Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney star in this dark comedy-drama, a cross between “Election” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The movie, directed by Cory Finley (“Thoroughbreds”), reimagines a multi-million-dollar embezzlement scandal that rocked a high school on Long Island in 2004. The mastermind behind the scheme is Frank Tassone (Jackman), the superintendent of the school district, who wins over parents and students alike with his good-natured charm. His machination lasts years, and it slowly starts to crumble only after he encourages a student journalist (Geraldine Viswanathan) to dig deeper into a puff piece she’s working on. (Big mistake.) In his review for The New York Times, Ben Kenigsberg wrote that Jackman steals the show. His role is “a plum part” and “a chance for the actor to channel his charisma toward dark, mischievous ends.”[embedded content]HUSTLERS (2019) 9 p.m. on Showtime. This crime drama chronicles a very different real-life scandal, though “Hustlers” and “Bad Education” were inspired by articles in New York magazine. Constance Wu stars as Destiny, a newbie stripper and protégée of a veteran dancer named Ramona (Jennifer Lopez). Much of their tips come from Wall Street clients. But after the financial crisis hits, there’s less money to throw around, and the women have to find new work. When they reconvene a few years later, Ramona hatches a plan to seduce men, bring them back to the strip club and run up their credit cards. The scheme grows darker and tests just how far Ramona and Destiny will go to sustain their expensive lifestyles and get back at disgraced Wall Street types. Critics praised Lopez’s performance, but some argued the movie lacks nuance and character back stories. It roots for the two leads from the get go, leaving much to be explored.What’s StreamingDEFENDING JACOB Stream on AppleTV Plus. A chilling case upends a Massachusetts family’s quiet life in this new mini-series, adapted from William Landay’s novel of the same name. Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery play Andy and Laurie Barber, whose teenage son, Jacob (Jaeden Martell), is accused of killing a classmate. The parents are horrified at the thought and ready to stand by their son. But over the course of eight, slow episodes, their doubts come to the fore, revealing their own long-held secrets.MET OPERA AT-HOME GALA 1 p.m. on metopera.org. This week, the Metropolitan Opera’s performances take on a new format. A virtual gala features more than 40 artists from around the world performing over Skype, straight from their living rooms. The Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, and music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, will host from their homes in New York and Montreal. Classical fans may miss the acoustics of concert halls, but unlike a lot of in-person performances, this one is free. It will be available to stream on the Met’s website until 6:30 p.m. Sunday. More

Sitting in his Queens apartment, the stand-up comic Ted Alexandro counts every cough and constantly is convinced he just contracted the coronavirus, at least, he says, for 10 minutes. Then he shifts gears: “Oh, I guess I was just belching.”This is one of many jokes about pandemic anxiety in “Stay at Home Comedian,” a bold experiment that represents the first stand-up special of the social distancing era. Early on, staring at the camera from one of the worst hit areas of the country, he says: “We are all one people, people of the virus.”Alexandro, 51, is one of the sharpest comics working today, a gifted political joke writer and loose-limbed, adventurous performer who has never quite gotten the big break he deserves. The last time I wrote about him, it was to argue that live stand-up is its own distinct form that cannot be duplicated on any screen. Now that crowds are obsolete, that unique art has not only vanished, but its traditional method of developing material, testing and honing jokes in front of audiences, has been compromised as well. What is a club comic to do?One understandable school of thought holds that stand-up on computers is hopeless, doomed to fail, and you can find plenty of support for this watching comedy online. The timing often feels off, bad jokes bomb harder, good ones don’t build momentum. But with the future of live entertainment uncertain, Alexandro, a Comedy Cellar regular, has decided to get outside his comfort zone and take the risk of performing in an entirely new way. He assembled a series of bits from a month of Instagram Live appearances, shot in close-up, with the only feedback being viewer comments scrolling under his face. He released it on YouTube for free.I don’t know if this is the future of standup comedy, but it is most certainly the here and now.There are funny moments, but fewer than in his previous three specials. Still, by making this special quickly, he captures an urgent brand of observational humor, a resonant portrait of the bizarre way we are living now, turning a mirror on our current mundane neuroses.There’s the obsessive hand-washing, which Alexandro says produced so many wrinkles it appears to have “aged him into the danger demographic.” There’s the incensed bafflement at revelers who insist on going to spring break during the pandemic as well as celebrities playing savior. (The “Imagine” video from Gal Gadot and her celebrity friends gets another skewering). And in his most pitch-perfect bits, Alexandro evokes the peculiar brand of panic that this virus inspires, describing taking his family out to the porch for fresh air like the von Trapp family venturing out on a mission through Nazi-occupied territory. More

What’s StreamingBEASTIE BOYS STORY (2020) Stream on Apple TV Plus. The two surviving members of the Beastie Boys, Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, walk an audience through their band’s history in this unconventional documentary. Think of it like a Beastie Boys TED talk: Directed by Spike Jonze, the film shows the present-day Horovitz and Diamond onstage, telling their story as archival footage and video is projected behind them. (The documentary is an adaptation of a stage show Horovitz and Diamond hosted in 2019.) The setup allows for some entertainingly peculiar moments, as when the elder Horovitz interrupts footage of the band’s early shows, where his younger self is reading rap lyrics off a crumpled piece of paper. Turning from the projected video to the audience with apparent embarrassment, Horovitz asks, “Most rappers hold their rhymes in little pieces of paper, right?”THE HOTTEST AUGUST (2019) Stream on PBS.org. New Yorkers sweat, sunbathe and ponder the future in this documentary from the filmmaker Brett Story. Shot in New York City in the summer of 2017, the film compiles interviews with people around the city. They talk about their personal hopes, and where they think the planet is headed. That footage is paired with excerpts from writing by Zadie Smith, Annie Dillard and Karl Marx, which are read for narration by the Canadian actor Clare Coulter. In his review for The New York Times, Glenn Kenny wrote that the combination adds up to “a cinematic gift both simple and multilayered, an intellectual challenge and an emotional adventure.”AFTER LIFE Stream on Netflix. “I still miss Lisa,” Tony (Ricky Gervais) says near the start of Season 2 of this dark comedy series. The line is essentially a summary of the show’s premise: The first season began with Lisa (Kerry Godliman) dying, leaving Tony to wrestle grief while carrying on life in his English town. With little direction left, he started treating everybody with a comic level of contempt. He resolves to do better in Season 2 — with inconsistent success. “With other shows of mine, people come up to me on the street, and they usually say, ‘I love the show,’” Gervais said in a recent interview with The Times. “But with this one — and this was before coronavirus — they come up to me and say, ‘I just want to say, I lost my sister three weeks ago.’” He added, “You suddenly realize, of course — everyone’s grieving. And the older you get, the more you’ve got to grieve.”What’s on TVWONDER WOMAN (2017) 8 p.m. on TNT. The celebrity-laden online cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine” recently orchestrated by Gal Gadot didn’t get great reviews, but Gadot’s performance in the title role of this superhero blockbuster very much did. See Gadot clobber bad guys alongside a World War I pilot played by Chris Pine, as she moves through an origin story that puts pieces in place for the upcoming sequel, “Wonder Woman 1984.” More