A ‘Jury Duty’-Style Company Retreat, Streaming ‘Wicked: For Good,’ a ‘Peaky Blinders’ Movie, Jane Lynch Gets ‘Happy’

Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat

“You couldn’t even make this up for a TV show,” blurts temp worker Anthony Norman, the 25-year-old dupe at the center of an elaborate hoax in which he’s the only one not in on the joke. As in the Peabody-winning Jury Duty, everyone but Anthony is an actor playing to a script, pretending to be employees of the fictional Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce family-owned company, whose founder and CEO is about to step down. The genial Anthony is hired as a temp assistant to help out at the annual company offsite retreat, staged at a resort where goofy team-building exercises and bizarre seminars add to the absurdity when it becomes clear that the heir apparent is an unqualified doofus. Anthony accepts the mock documentary cameras following the action, but even after things start going off the rails, he insists, “Honestly, this is so authentic and real, like nobody could sit down and write a script like this.” Poor Anthony. If he only knew — and we can’t wait for him to find out. Launches with three episodes, with five more over the next two Fridays.

Wicked: For Good

Snubbed by the Oscars but not by fans, the second half of the wildly successful Oz-inspired musical makes its streaming debut. Ariana Grande (nominated for a Golden Globe) as Glinda rises to the occasion in Act 2 when Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is demonized after learning the truth about the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). Most of the fun stuff and best numbers were in the first film, leaving the unmistakable impression that splitting the property in two was little more than a cynical cash grab. But at least now Wicked devotees can watch it all without waiting a year.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man

The Godfather‘s Michael Corleone might empathize with Tommy Shelby (Oscar winner Cillian Murphy), the former criminal gang leader who gets pulled back into the underworld years after the long-running crime drama Peaky Blinders shuttered in 2022. A movie sequel, written by series creator Steven Knight, thrusts a reluctant and haunted Tommy into danger when he learns that his estranged son Duke (Barry Keoghan), now running the Peaky Blinders “like it’s 1919 all over again,” is implicated in a Fascist plot in war-torn 1940 Birmingham.

Happy’s Place

Stunt casting alert: Glee Emmy winner Jane Lynch drops by the Knoxville tavern as Val, the estranged and rather strange mother of Gabby (Melissa Peterman, only 11 years Lynch’s junior), who’s been telling horror stories about her mom for years. Though Val instantly charms Isabella (Belissa Escobedo), Steve (Pablo Castelblanco), and even Emmett (Rex Linn) with her flattery, Bobbie (Reba McEntire) isn’t sure this reunion is a cause for sentimental celebration.

Outlander

The winds of war, American Revolution-style, are blowing again around Fraser’s Ridge, and Jamie (Sam Heughan) is none too pleased. Especially after reading his premature obituary in Frank Randall’s back-from-the-future history book. “I don’t know what’s real or not anymore,” declares his wife Claire (Caitríona Balfe), who’s also perturbed that Jamie can’t shake off his jealousy over her brief marriage to Lord John (David Berry). Their passionate argument and subsequent making up will be catnip to Outlander fans as the final season presses forward, with Claire experiencing another epiphany about her healing powers while Jamie’s son William (Charles Vandervaart) seeks more answers about his cousin Ben’s alleged death during wartime.

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• NCAA Basketball: First-round coverage of the women’s tournament begins at 11:30 am/ET on ESPN2 with No. 3 Duke vs. No. 14 College of Charleston. More games will be shown on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, and the ESPN app. The men’s first round continues, starting on CBS at 12:15 pm/ET in St. Louis with No. 10 Santa Clara vs. No. 7 seed Kentucky, with more games on TNT, TBS, and truTV.
• RuPaul‘s Drag Race (8/7c, MTV): Ghosts star Danielle Pinnock is the guest judge when the queens perform cowboy makeovers. Giddyap!
• 20/20 (9/8c, ABC): In “Murder She Wrote: The Kouri Richins Trial,” the true-crime newsmagazine reports the latest on the sensational trial and conviction of Kouri Richins, who wrote a children’s book about mourning a parent after the death of her husband Eric, later accused of lacing his cocktail with a fatal dose of fentanyl.
• Great Performances at the Met: La Boheme (9/8c, PBS): Franco Zeffirelli’s lavish production of the Puccini classic features soprano Juliana Grigoryan as the ill-fated Mimi, with tenor Freddie De Tammaso as her poetic amour Rodolfo.
• Neighbors (9/8c, HBO): Just renewed for a second season, the reality series ends its first with a vignette about lifelong San Diego resident Danny, who decides a Florida community is more to his liking when his yellow thong bikini starts raising eyebrows in his neighborhood.
• Remarkable Women Across America (9/8c, The CW): A documentary special celebrates women from 125 cities across the country who are singled out for their impact on public policy and social progress.

 ON THE STREAM:

• The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel (streaming on Netflix): Musicians pay tribute in a documentary to Hillel Slovak, original guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who helped establish the band’s sound before his untimely overdose death in 1988 at 26.
• 1000 Women in Horror (streaming on Shudder and Sundance Now): A Women’s History Month special salutes women pioneers and contemporary players in horror cinema, which is no longer just a boys’ club if it ever was.
• Deadloch (streaming on Prime Video): The funky Australian crime comedy returns for a second season, with detectives Dulcie (Kate Box) and Eddie (Madeleine Sami) in a swampy mess when an unidentified body part is found inside a crocodile in remote Barra Creek.
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (streaming on Prime Video): After the underwater Titan swallows a Coast Guard vessel off American Samoa and is tracked heading toward landfall in San Francisco, the Monarch team breaks into Apex Cybernetics to retrieve Hiroshi’s (Takehiro Hira) device, which they hope will lure the creature into deeper waters.
• Is This Thing On? (streaming on Hulu): Bradley Cooper‘s dramedy makes its streaming debut, starring Will Arnett as a fledgling stand-up comedian who turns to the stage for solace after separating from his wife (Laura Dern).