RuPaul’s Latest Race, Daniel Levy’s ‘Good Grief,’ Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s Confessions, Sabotage on Mars on ‘Mankind’
RuPaul welcomes a new cast of drag divas to compete in the 16th season of the Emmy-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race. Daniel Levy (Schitt’s Creek) is star, writer and director of Good Grief, a dramedy about a gay man coping with sudden loss. Lifetime presents a three-part true-crime docuseries about child-abuse victim Gypsy Rose Blanchard, recently released early from prison after serving time for her role in her mother’s murder. Sabotage plots and violent reversals fuel the penultimate episode of For All Mankind on Apple TV+.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Season Premiere
Clear the runway. It’s time for a new gaggle of drag divas to strut their stuff in the 16th season of the Emmy-winning competition ruled by RuPaul, whose upbeat mantra “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” inspires this exercise in glamorous self-acceptance. With a $200,000 grand prize and the title of “America’s Next Drag Superstar” on the line, RuPaul is joined by guest judge Charlize Theron for the first of a two-part premiere, presented as a Maxi Challenge talent show for the new contestants to introduce themselves to the regular panel, including Michelle Visage, Carson Kressley, Ross Mathews and Ts Madison. Among the more memorably named queens: Amanda Tori Meating (sound it out), Hershii Licquor-Jeté, Mirage, Plane Jane, Plasma and Sapphira Cristál.
Good Grief
Movie Premiere
Schitt’s Creek’s Daniel Levy stars in his feature-film writing and directing debut as Marc, an artist who’s thrown into an emotional tailspin when his famous husband (Luke Evans) suddenly dies, leaving him well off but bereft. The dramedy that ensues is a character study of loss and friendship, as his best pals Sophie (Ruth Negga) and Thomas (Himesh Patel) see Marc through his first year of widowhood, capped by a journey of discovery in Paris.
The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard
Documentary Premiere
Over three nights and six hours (continuing Saturday and Sunday), a true-crime docuseries gives Gypsy Rose Blanchard a chance to tell her story in full. In interviews conducted before her parole hearing last fall, which led to her early release on Dec. 28, Blanchard recounts her role in the 2015 murder of her mentally ill mother Dee Dee, who had subjected Gypsy Rose to years of physical and mental abuse in an extreme example of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Dee Dee had forced Gypsy for years to feign symptoms of cancer and muscular dystrophy, and when the traumatized daughter was 23, still posing as a teen, she recruited her then-boyfriend to kill her mom, a situation dramatized in Hulu’s The Act, also the subject of HBO’s Mommy Dead and Dearest. “I want to talk about it now because I want to be free of all the disturbing secrets,” Blanchard says.
For All Mankind
The riveting fourth season of the alternative-history space drama is nearing its end, and tension is rising on Mars and on Earth. On the Red Planet, entrepreneur Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) plots with sidelined astronaut Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) and their cohorts to hijack the approaching asteroid and keep it in orbit around Mars to ensure future investment in the space program. While they risk discovery from embedded agents (CIA and KGB), back on Earth there’s potentially even greater risk for NASA defector Margo (Wrenn Schmidt), who’s conducting secret meetings with her former Soviet contact Sergei (Piotr Adamczyk). The cliffhanger will have you counting the days until next week’s finale.
Reacher
Another action-packed episode is an especially strong showcase for Domenick Lombardozzi (The Wire) as Team Reacher’s NYPD ally Russo. “He’s like that angry, p—sed-off detective from that movie,” quips Reacher cohort O’Donnell (Shaun Sipos). When asked which one, O’Donnell retorts, “All of ’em.” An archetype for sure, but an entertaining one, as Russo learns of more corruption within his department and rejoins Reacher (Alan Ritchson) as they try to protect the on-the-lam director of the defense contractor behind this season’s carnage.
INSIDE FRIDAY TV:
- The Greatest @Home Videos (8/7c, CBS): Cedric the Entertainer presents the second annual “Cedy Awards,” selecting his two top viral videos and giving the home viewer (in Eastern and Central time zones) the chance to vote in real time on the winner. Cedric’s The Neighborhood co-star Max Greenfield drops by to verify the results.
- Dr. Death (8/7c, NBC): In a rare case of reverse synergy, the new season of Peacock’s true-crime docudrama airs its first two episodes in linear fashion, featuring Edgar Ramiréz as the fraudulent Dr. Paolo Macchiarini.
- Friday Night Vibes (8/7c, TBS): A new season of the film franchise, featuring hosts Nina Parker and Kevin Fredericks riffing during breaks, kicks off with a double feature of Black Panther and King Richard.
- True Crime Watch: On ABC’s 20/20 (9/8c), Matt Gutman reports on the 2022 murder of cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson, gunned down by the jealous ex-girlfriend of Anna’s close friend, spurring a 43-day hunt for the killer. On Dateline NBC (10/9c), Andrea Canning follows an Ohio mother’s crusade for justice for her 14-year-old daughter’s murder, eventually solved through new DNA technology.
ON THE STREAM:
- Foe (streaming on Prime Video): Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal star in director Garth Davis’ futuristic psychological drama, set in 2065, as a couple facing an existential challenge when an uninvited stranger (Aaron Pierre) enters their secluded world.
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (streaming on Apple TV+): In Season 1’s penultimate episode of the sci-fi thriller, flashbacks reveal the first time Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell) descended into the underworld realm of the Titan monsters back in 1962. His older self (Kurt Russell) is stranded in “inner Earth” once again, along with Cate (Anna Sawai) and May (Kiersey Clemons), who are all thought dead by those on the surface.
