‘Lone Star’ Chaotic Carnival, ‘Auto’ Revs Up, Marlee Matlin Directs ‘Accused,’ ‘Masters’ Profiles Roberta Flack
9-1-1: Lone Star opens its fourth season with chaos at a county fair—and a possible love connection. NBC’s American Auto comedy brings aboard Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet as a crisis manager. Marlee Matlin directs a potent episode of Fox’s Accused anthology about a deaf surrogate mother who steps in on behalf of a deaf infant. American Masters kills us softly with a profile of singer-activist Roberta Flack.
9-1-1: Lone Star
Season Premiere
The more extreme the emergency, the better the episode of the Texas-based 9-1-1 spinoff. So it is for the Season 4 premiere, when a severe storm and subsequent heat surge creates so much havoc at a country fair—an airborne port-o-potty, a disabled Ferris wheel, assorted heat strokes—that one of the 126 crew even likens it to the volcanic eruptions from Season 2. One side effect: Tommy (Gina Torres) treats a single dad (her Suits co-star D.B. Woodside) who sparks her interest. On the other end of the romance spectrum, T.K.’s (Ronen Rubinstein) and Carlos’ (Rafael Silva) wedding planning hits a speed bump because of a secret from Carlos’ past.
American Auto
Season Premiere
The corporate chicanery within the fictional Payne Motors is so out of control it makes Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter seem smooth by comparison. As the second season of the dysfunctional workplace satire gets underway, embattled CEO Katherine (Ana Gasteyer) enlists Ian (Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet), a crisis manager, to navigate the company through the latest storm of bad publicity involving the C-suite’s coverup of defective auto parts. While Sadie (Harriet Dyer) gets flop sweat during press conferences and corporate counsel Elliot (Humphrey Ker) develops hives among other manifestations of woe, with falling stock prices and leaked memos, is there any way Katherine and her team can keep their jobs? (The unanswered question: Why would they even want to?)
Accused
Marlee Matlin sets a compassionate tone in her direction of an emotionally loaded episode of the legal anthology. Her empathy is clearly with Ava (Stephanie Nogueras), a young deaf woman acting as surrogate for a young couple (The Blacklist’s Megan Boone and Aaron Ashmore). When the baby is born deaf—there’s a history in the biological mother’s family—Ava takes extreme measures to prevent the parents from going forward with a surgical procedure on the infant. The Walking Dead’s Lauren Ridloff co-stars as a deaf lawyer who’s committed to getting a jury to see Ava’s side of things.
American Masters
Her songs have stood the test of the time, with the success of “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly” making Roberta Flack the first artist to win the Grammy for Record of the Year two years in a row (1973 and 1974). American Masters uses Flack’s own words and musical archives to profile the classically trained performer and civil-rights activist, with commentary from Jesse Jackson, Clint Eastwood (who famously used “First Time Ever” in his movie Play Misty for Me), Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Peabo Bryson and more.
Inside Tuesday TV:
- FBI (8/7c, CBS): A bioweapon leaves two MTA transit workers dead in a case that adds to Jubal’s (Jeremy Sisto) stress level, compounded by son Tyler’s (Caleb Reese Paul) latest health scare. Followed by FBI: International (9/8c), where the Fly Team looks for a kidnapped American teenager in Austria, and FBI: Most Wanted (10/9c), with FBI’s Isobel Castille (Alana De La Garza) checking in on the Fugitive Task Force as they investigate an explosion at an Ohio energy plant.
- Finding Your Roots (8/7c, PBS): Henry Louis Gates, Jr. reaches beyond our borders to Italy, Switzerland, Korea and Mexico to discover the family histories of pop star Cyndi Lauper and actors Jamie Chung and Danny Trejo.
- The Rookie (8/7c, ABC): During a heat wave and citywide blackout, Nolan (Nathan Fillion) and Aaron (Tru Valentino) discover criminals hiding in the station.
- The Winchesters (9/8c, The CW): Moving an hour later (following Winchester repeats), the Supernatural prequel returns with Mary (Meg Donnelly) and John (Drake Rodger) watching over her rescued dad, Samuel (Tom Welling), while John’s mom Millie (Bianca Kajlich) helps him recover from his injuries.
- I Am Jazz (10/9c, TLC): Jazz Jennings was a high-schooler in 2015 when this series began, and as the eighth season opens, the transgender female returns to her Florida family for summer break after her first year at Harvard. She also starts dating.
- Will Trent (10/9c, ABC): The mercurial Will (Ramón Rodríguez) decides to try to get along with his colleagues, finally opening up to his partner Faith (Iantha Richardson) and even trying to mend fences with Detective Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) to make Angie (Erika Christensen) happy.
- Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (10/9c, HBO): The sports newsmagazine examines incidents of cardiac arrest among young athletes, following Bills player Damar Hamlin’s shocking collapse. Another segment digs into the welfare scandal embroiling Packers Hall of Famer Brett Favre.
- How I Met Your Father (streaming on Hulu): The second season of the How I Met Your Mother romcom spinoff opens in the wake of Ian (Daniel Augustin) showing up at Sophie’s (Hilary Duff) gallery show, with Sid (Suraj Sharma) and Hannah (Ashley Reeves) hosting a wedding reception after their elopement.
