‘Yellowjackets’ Returns, ‘SNL’s Homecoming Concert, Sara Bareilles in ‘Waitress,’ Horror in ‘The Gorge,’ ‘Dexter’ Finale

Yellowjackets

As Season 3 of the bizarre thriller Yellowjackets opens (with two episodes), things get trippier than ever for the girls from the 1990s high-school soccer team whose plane crash-landed in the woods. They’ve somehow survived their first winter and the burning of their cabin shelter, but mind games, tribal rivalries, and mind-altering mushrooms keep everyone on edge. It’s not much calmer in 2021, with the adult survivors gathering to bury one of their own. Later, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) enlists needy Misty (Christina Ricci) to babysit one of the strangest sleepovers on record. The episodes air Sunday (8/7c) on the linear channel.

SNL50: The Homecoming Concert

Saturday Night Live’s 50th-anniversary celebration, already marked by several terrific retrospective documentaries, revs up for the big weekend (a three-hour live show on Sunday) with a blockbuster concert featuring performers who’ve played on the stage of Studio 8H over the years. Jimmy Fallon hosts the livestreamed event, with headliners including Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny, David Byrne, Post Malone, Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlile, Chris Martin, Jelly Roll, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and many more.

Waitress: The Musical

The 2016 Broadway musical adaptation of the 2006 film, filmed on stage during a 2021 engagement, finally makes its way to TV on streaming. (It had previously been announced as a PBS Great Performances special.) Sara Bareilles, whose music and lyrics were nominated for a Tony Award, takes the title role of Jenna, a small-town waitress and pie maker with dreams of escaping an unhappy marriage through a baking contest.

The Gorge

What lurks in an abyss within a mist-shrouded ravine is a mystery even to the two expert snipers (Top Gun: Maverick’s Miles Teller and Furiosa’s Anya Taylor-Joy) recruited to guard opposite sides of the chasm in a thrilling action-horror movie. Though forbidden to make contact with their compatriot across the gorge, U.S. Marine vet Levi (Teller) and Eastern European Drasa (Taylor-Joy) break the rules, and in the aftermath, discover the terrible purpose behind their black-ops mission, leading to many a literal cliffhanger.

Dexter: Original Sin

The prequel’s bloody finale leans into the backstory of another killer—Dexter Morgan’s (Patrick Gibson) even more damaged older brother, Brian (Roby Attal)—as we learn what happened to the violently traumatized lad when he was separated as a kid from Dexter and his adoptive dad, Harry (Christian Slater). It’s a sad and sordid tale, one for which Harry tries to atone while keeping the siblings apart and stopping Brian’s murder spree. Elsewhere, Dexter is busy chasing his own prey: the deranged Capt. Spencer (Patrick Dempsey), who’s put his own child at risk. Dexter fans have more grisly fun on the horizon, when Michael C. Hall (narrator of this series) returns to his signature role this summer in Dexter: Resurrection.

Severance

Three’s anything but a crowd after Irving B’s (John Turturro) “innie” is erased following last week’s eventful outing—and we do mean “outing”—with Helly R. (Britt Lower) returning to the downsized MDR office under a cloud of suspicion. Mark S. (Adam Scott) may no longer trust her, but he won’t work without her, and as the mysterious Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) reminds supervisor Milchick (Tramell Tillman), “Mark Scout’s completion of Cold Harbor will be remembered as one of the greatest moments in the history of this planet.” Will it, though?

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• RuPaul’s Drag Race (8/7c, MTV): Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson grades the queens as guest judge during this season’s installment of “Snatch Game.”
• NCIS: Sydney (8/7c, CBS): Yo-ho-ho, but maybe not a bottle of rum when DeShawn (Sean Sagar) and Evie (Tuuli Narkle) go undercover in pirate drag on an 18th-century vessel to investigate the death of a former U.S. Navy officer. Their bosses Mackey (Olivia Swann) and JD (Todd Lasance) are occupied with a crisis on the harbor.
• The Couple Next Door (9/8c, Starz): In the steamy drama’s penultimate episode, Pete (Alfred Enoch) gives Evie (Eleanor Tomlinson) an ultimatum, which only makes her more obsessed with across-the-street neighbor Danny (Sam Heughan).
• Fire Country (9/8c, CBS): A fire breather at a renaissance fair accidentally ignites a tent full of fireworks. Guess who to the rescue? Followed by S.W.A.T. (10/9c), where 20-Squad searches for a child taken from her front yard.

ON THE STREAM:

• Flow (streaming on Max): Gints Zilbalodis’ Oscar-nominated animated film, winner of the Golden Globe, makes its streaming debut, following a cat and its unlikely animal friends aboard a boat as they seek dry land following a devastating flood. The movie premieres on HBO Saturday at 6:30/5:30c.
• Love Is Blind (streaming on Netflix): The unconventional dating show, where couples meet and get engaged from isolated pods before ever meeting in person, welcomes singles from Minnesota for Season 8.