‘Poker Face’ Finale, ‘Top Chef’ World All-Stars, More of ‘You,’ ‘Ghosts’ Hellish Visitor

Season Finale

One of 2023’s brightest new shows wraps its first season with a twisty episode written by series creator Rian Johnson (Knives Out), in which Charlie Cale (the irrepressible Natasha Lyonne) is jolted back into the real world when her “Jane Doe” cover is blown. Back in the custody of hit man Cliff Legrand (Benjamin Bratt), she reluctantly endures a road trip en route to Atlantic City, where the crime boss (Ron Perlman) who’s been seeking her all season awaits. What happens next is so outrageous even a human lie-detector like Charlie has trouble getting to the truth. But before you know it, she’s on the run again.

Season Premiere

9/8c

TV’s tastiest cooking competition goes global in its 40th season, when host/judge Padma Lakshmi welcomes 16 contestants to London, all winners or finalists from 11 international versions of the franchise. (There are 29 in all!) A fascinating culture clash, this is the first OG Top Chef season to be filmed entirely overseas (the final will be in Paris), and we soon learn that not all countries’ versions of Top Chef are uniform. Several of the chefs are stunned at the frantic pace of the first quickfire, where they have only three minutes to pick five ingredients for their dish. Even the simplest basic mistake can send someone packing, as the initial elimination challenge makes clear.

If you thought You couldn’t go further off the deep end, you haven’t seen anything yet. The thriller’s final five episodes of Season 4 open with London transplant Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), still pretending to be college professor Jonathan Moore, under the thumb of his sinister nemesis, mayoral candidate and apparent serial killer Rhys Montrose (Star Trek: Picard’s Ed Speleers). As the two grow closer in a bizarre dance of death, with the body count climbing, there are new complications when love interest Kate’s (Charlotte Ritchie) mogul dad (Greg Kinnear) enters the scene, and Joe/Jonathan’s intrepid student Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman) continues snooping, using her knowledge of classic whodunits to fuel her suspicions about her bearded American prof.

8:30/7:30c

We’ve heard of people going to hell and back, but for 19th century dowager ghost Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky), it becomes an unpleasant reality when her despised robber-baron husband Elias Woodstone (Veep’s Matt Walsh) drops in via a literal portal from hell. He’s seeking his wife’s forgiveness, but he might as well be asking for hell to freeze over, until he contrives some special conditions. Elsewhere in the manor, Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) gets “Flowered”—accidentally walking through the eternally stoned hippie ghost (Sheila Carrasco)—and he may need to take another hit when he tries to recreate a recipe he concocted while under the influence for a powerful food critic.

10/9c

Eileen (Hilary Swank) is itching to get back to the newsroom only days after the harrowing hostage crisis—her young co-worker Gabriel (Pablo Castelblanco), not so much. And while the reporters’ investigation into the unsolved murder of an indigenous woman takes on new momentum, they’re all distracted by rumors of the Daily Alaskan being sold to a company known for gutting local papers. (Sadly, a harsh reality for many journalists.)

“You just killed us all,” Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) bleakly told his former boss Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in last week’s cliffhanger. It’s certainly looking bleak for the Titan as it drifts powerlessly through an anomaly, with a deadly changeling saboteur on board. Picard uses the down time to reflect on his past and to try to make amends with Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), the son he never knew.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• Jeopardy! (syndicated, check local listings): Whoever wins the first High School Reunion Tournament takes home $100,000 and is guaranteed a spot in this year’s Tournament of Champions.
• Young Sheldon (8/7c, CBS): Sheldon (Iain Armitage), a stranger to failure, doesn’t take it well when his database is a bust. Also out of sorts: overwhelmed new parents Georgie (Montana Jordan) and Mandy (Emily Osment), and Missy (Raegan Revord), who’s feeling like the odd sibling out.
• Grey’s Anatomy (9/8c, ABC): Chez Meredith has now become the House of New Interns, and things have already gotten messy, with Simone (Alexis Floyd) surprised by a past flame right after she ignited her relationship with housemate Lucas (Nico Terho).
• So Help Me Todd (9/8c, CBS): The Walking Dead’s Laila Robins guests as Natalie Harris, former sorority sister and college nemesis of Margaret (Marcia Gay Harden). They square off in court over a teenage hacker who’s charged with releasing classified defense documents, while Todd (Skylar Astin) is put in charge of babysitting the defendant.
• The Torso Killer Confessions (9/8c, A&E): In a two-part true-crime special (continuing Friday), Detective Robert Anzilotti shares his conversations with prolific serial killer Richard Cottingham, who terrorized the New York/New Jersey area from the 1960s through his 1980 arrest. Anzilotti has spent years coaxing information out of the convict, who most recently confessed to the 1967 murder of Mary Ann Della Sala, his earliest confirmed killing.
• School Spirits (streaming on Paramount+): Cobra Kai’s Peyton List stars in a YA “teen noir” as Maddie, a new ghost trapped in her high school, where she tries to solve her own murder with the help of other spirits.