Patti LaBelle in the ‘Neighborhood,’ Jessica Biel Is ‘Candy’ All Week Long, Parenthood Woes on ‘Breeders,’ ‘Song’ Finale
R&B legend Patti LaBelle visits CBS’s The Neighborhood as Calvin’s mother. Jessica Biel is a 1980s Texas housewife who snaps, murderously, in Hulu’s Candy, airing over five consecutive days. FX’s darkly comic Breeders returns for a third season, reminding us that parenting doesn’t get easier as the kids get older. NBC crowns a winner of its American Song Contest.
The Neighborhood
Look who’s bringing a new attitude to the ’hood. R&B legend Patti LaBelle guest-stars on the sitcom as Marilyn, Calvin’s (Cedric the Entertainer) hard-to-please mother, who shows up when her son is honored by the Chamber of Commerce for his business success and its impact on his community. Could this be the achievement that finally wins her approval?
Candy
Series Premiere
Shades of The Thing About Pam, but let’s hope not quite so cheesy, when Jessica Biel (The Sinner) tackles the role of ’80s Texas housewife Candy Montgomery, who finally snaps under the pressure of suburban comformity. Her victim: best friend Betty Gore (Yellowjackets’ Melanie Lynskey), with whose husband (Pablo Schreiber) the married-with-children Candy had been having an affair. In an unusual scheduling move, the docudrama’s five episodes will roll out one a day, Monday through Friday.
Breeders
Season Premiere
The edgy British comedy about beleaguered London parents is back for a third season, with the life lesson that raising kids never gets easier. The new season picks up only a few days after the Season 2 finale, when teenage son Luke (Alex Eastwood) punched his dad, Paul (Martin Freeman), who moved out to stay with his mother-in-law (Stella Gonet). Paul’s wife Ally (Daisy Haggard) has her own problems: early menopause, career insecurity and a strained relationship with newly adolescent daughter Ava (Eve Prenelle). Remind me: Was Mother’s Day only yesterday?
American Song Contest
Season Finale
The Top 10 artists perform their original songs one more time, as the votes of viewers and music-industry jurors decide a winner in real time. In the tradition of The Voice, expect the contestants to be upstaged by celebrity guests taking the stage.
Inside Monday TV:
- 9-1-1 (8/7c, Fox): Suspicious about the circumstances of a call center dispatcher’s death after last week’s fire, Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) play detective to see if a fellow paramedic has been endangering others by playing God.
- Bob Hearts Abishola (8:30/7:30c, CBS): A proud nurse, Abishola (Folake Olowofoyeku) brings her son Dele (Travis Wolfe, Jr.) to her hospital workplace, where she realizes her dream of him becoming a doctor may never happen.
- BBQ Brawl (9/8c, Food Network): Chefs Bobby Flay, Anne Burrell and Jet Tila fire up the latest search for a grill master who merits a gig on the Food Net’s digital platform. Nine hopefuls vie for slots on the trio’s teams, but not all of them will be able to stand the heat.
- New Amsterdam (10/9c, NBC): On a special night, with another episode airing Tuesday, Max (Ryan Eggold) finds a flaw in ruthless medical director Veronica Fuentes’ (Michelle Forbes) scheme to usurp Max by buying the UMI medical clinic. He believes this could be the key to her undoing, in which case we should all cheer him on.
- When Claude Got Shot (10/9c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): Filmed over five years, an Independent Lens documentary examines the insanity of gun violence through the story of three lives in Milwaukee: Claude Motley, a lawyer shot in the face in an attempted carjacking by 15-year-old Nathan King, who was later paralyzed from the waist down when he was shot trying to rob Victoria Dawson, who fired her gun in self-defense.
