What’s Worth Watching: ‘Inside Amy Schumer’, ‘Mom’, ‘Scandal’ and more for Thursday, April 21
Inside Amy Schumer (10/9c, Comedy Central): “Bawdy” barely begins to describe Amy Schumer’s fearlessly below-the-belt brand of sketch comedy, brazen as ever as the Emmy-winning series returns for a stretch of nine episodes. The opener’s best bit finds Amy in a doctor’s office awaiting a pap smear, only to be interrupted by an all-male House Committee on Women’s Health getting in her business. An attempt to be trendy, as she auditions her Betsy Ross musical for Hamilton‘s Pulitzer-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda, is better in concept than execution, but no one could accuse this comedian of throwing away her shot when it comes to provocative satire.
Mom (9/8c, CBS): This dangerously funny sitcom has an uncanny ability, not seen since the glory days of Norman Lear and, later, Roseanne, of finding laughs in the darkest situations. So it is when Christy (Anna Faris) and her AA group realize that they’re listening to testimony from Travis (a fine Jesse Luken), the young addict who was with Christy’s charge, Jodi, when she fatally overdosed. Though Marjorie (Mimi Kennedy) insists, “Travis didn’t kill her, her addiction did,” Christy finds it hard to show mercy. On a somewhat lighter note, Bonnie (Allison Janney) brings her skeptical new boyfriend Adam (the terrific William Fichtner) to a meeting when he begins feeling left out. Turns out AA isn’t for everyone.
Scandal (9/8c, ABC): If my mailbag’s any indication, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) may have finally crossed the line with her recent whack-a-mole murder of the villainous Andrew (Jon Tenney). But now she’s in the company of even greater Big Bads, including her Papa Pope (Joe Morton) and Jake (Scott Foley), whose back story is revealed in flashbacks that explain just how he got caught up with B6-13 in the first place.
Inside Thursday TV: Another relationship-turned-friendship is in peril on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (8/7c). No sooner did April (Sarah Drew) and Jackson (Jesse Williams) resolve their dispute—for now—about the bun in her oven, than Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) is consulting a lawyer, presumably to keep Callie (Sara Ramirez) from taking their daughter to the opposite coast. … When Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon (Jim Parsons) clash during a Big Bang Theory (8/7c, CBS) get-together, whose side will their friends, and mates, choose? … History’s popular survival series Alone (9/8c) returns for a second season, once again stranding 10 adventurous souls in the Vancouver Island wilds, recording their own ordeal without camera crews and producers getting in their way. … It’s a sing-off (of sorts) between Marvel heroes, when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Clark Gregg goes up against Agent Carter‘s Hayley Atwell in Spike’s Lip Sync Battle (10/9c).
