‘Hacks’ Finale, ‘Poker Face’ Gets Schooled, Fox Toons on Thursdays, Matthew Goode in ‘Dept. Q’

Hacks

Did Deborah Vance (Emmy winner Jean Smart) just throw away her career, again, as her furious network bass warned her? The Season 4 finale of the Emmy-winning comedy picks up after the legendary comedian’s momentously spontaneous decision to walk away from her coveted late-night TV show, facing an 18-month suspension from performing anywhere. (Damn those non-compete clauses!) For someone who lives to work, this could be a catastrophe. But as we’ve seen many times before, it might be a mistake to write Deborah Vance’s career obituary prematurely. We can’t wait to see her next move, and thankfully, HBO Max (as it soon will be known again) has already renewed the series for a fifth season.

Poker Face

In one of the best episodes to date of the delightful mystery-comedy, human lie detector Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) meets her match in an 8-year-old bad seed “pigtailed demon child” (the terrific Eva Jade Halford) whose crime falls short of murder but involves killing the spirit of a rival for honors at a private school. Charlie’s taken a job there to “get back some of that childlike wonder,” but ends up marveling at the cunning of little Stephanie, who has the entire school — including its gruff principal (the great Margo Martindale) — quaking in terror.

Bob’s Burgers

No, Sunday hasn’t come early. As a summer treat, Fox is offering new episodes of several of its animated comedies on Thursdays during the off-season. The fun begins with the long-running Burgers, where Linda rallies everyone to go on a family walk, during which the kids discover a weird conspiracy. Followed by the noir spoof Grimsburg (8:30/7:30c), with a case involving the death of male sex workers, Family Guy (9/8c), with a parody of The White Lotus, and The Great North (9:30/8:30c), where Judy seeks stardom in dinner theater.

Dept. Q

Downton Abbey alum Matthew Goode subsumes his natural charm in the scruffy persona of troubled detective Carl Morck in a mordant, gritty crime drama from Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit). The abrasive Morck is damaged goods after being wounded in a shooting that paralyzed his partner and left him stewing in anger and survivor guilt. His bosses assign him to a newly created cold-case unit staffed by fellow outliers, thinking that might keep him out of sight, out of mind. No chance.

And Just Like That…

“I’m a big girl in a big city with a big house to furnish,” mock-whines Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) as the third season of the exasperatingly indulgent Sex and the City sequel gets underway, its characters living in a 21st-century Gilded Age fantasyland. There’s a reason most fairy tales end with the “happily ever after,” even if princess Carrie’s bliss with Aidan (John Corbett) has been temporarily stalled because he’s down in Virginia dealing with family issues while she flounces around alone in her Gramercy Park mansion. Oh, boo-hoo! The less said the better about the subplots involving Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and guest star Rosie O’Donnell, and Charlotte’s (Kristin Davis) encounter with a dog-walking hysteric, not to mention the rest of their smugly privileged entourage.

INSIDE THURSDAY TV:

• Scripps National Spelling Bee (8/7c, ION): Can you spell R-I-V-E-T-I-N-G? That’s the best way to describe the finals when students from around the world gather in Maryland to tackle the challenging gauntlet of obscure words. If you miss the live broadcast, it’s followed by a repeat.
• Transplant (8/7c, NBC): Bash (Hamza Haq) tries to repair his estrangement from the man who helped sponsor his move from Syria to Canada, while Theo (Jim Watson) faces a hospital panel to convince them he deserves to be reinstated.
• Jersey Shore Family Vacation (8/7, MTV): The gang from Seaside Heights is back, marking the 15th anniversary of their raucous MTV debut.
• 100 Foot Wave (9/8c, MTV): You can’t keep a big-wave surfer down for long. In the docuseries’ Season 3 finale, the McNamaras have moved to Italy to slow down, but Garrett can’t resist the lure of the swell when he learns of an opportunity to hang ten in Morocco.
• Welcome to Wrexham (9/8c, FX): Channing Tatum brings more star power to Wrexham, which is busy trying to institute a youth academy.

ON THE STREAM:

• Death Valley (streaming on BritBox): Add John Chapel (Timothy Spall) to the growing list of quirky crime-solvers. Chapel is a retired actor best known as TV detective Caesar, who joins forces with perky Detective Sgt. Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth) to add his “expertise” to her cases in the Welsh countryside.
• The Better Sister (streaming on Prime Video): Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks are estranged sisters put under the media spotlight when Biel’s husband (Corey Stoll) is murdered, exposing a tangled family history in an eight-part adaptation of Alafair Burke’s thriller.
• Scrublands (streaming on AMC+): The second season of the Australian mystery series based on Chris Hammer’s novels brings investigative journalist Martin Scarsden (Luke Arnold) back to his coastal hometown with romantic partner Mandy (Bella Heathcote), who becomes the prime suspect when his childhood best friend is murdered.
• To Get Her (streaming on BET+): Amber Stevens West stars in a thriller about a mother who travels abroad with her sister and a friend to find her missing daughter.
• Criminal Minds: Evolution (streaming on Paramount+): A disturbing new video on the BAU-Gate dark-web site adds urgency to the mission to unlock serial killer Voit’s (Zach Gilford) memory. It’s grisly business as usual for some of the team, who head to Tucson to find the mad doctor behind a series of organ-harvesting killings.