‘Cape Fear’ Finale, ‘Adults’ Prequel, ‘Fightland,’ Sharkzilla in New York

Cape Fear

A looming hurricane adds to the overheated atmosphere in the berserk finale of the already twice-filmed thriller. (Third time wasn’t exactly a charm.) The episode begins in the titular backwater, where beleaguered lawyer Anna (Amy Adams) has escaped from her encounter with sadistic killer Max Cady’s (Javier Bardem) depraved family. The melodrama is far from over, though, because Max hasn’t finished with the Bowden family quite yet. And perhaps vice versa, because Anna knows a secret that would give even Sweeney Todd pause.

Adults

Fans have been waiting for more than a year for the return of the funky comedy about a group of misfit 20-somethings hanging out and living rent-free in one of their parents’ homes. The second season doesn’t begin until August 27, but as a tease — you could call it an amuse-bouche, if you were so inclined — they’ve dropped a standalone prequel episode that shows how the stud named Paul Baker (Jack Innanen) became part of their inner circle. It all has to do with the New York Marathon, for which Anton (the hilarious Owen Thiele) has been fibbing to his co-workers that he’s been training. (“Lying is only a problem if you’re bad at it,” he quips.) Horrified to learn his office mates are on the sidelines waiting to cheer him on, Anton and his pals concoct their latest farcical scheme.

Fightland

Much of the bloody action occurs outside of the boxing ring in this British-set crime drama, executive produced by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (the Power franchise) and starring Howard Charles as pro boxer and heavyweight champ Duke Kilroy. His triumph is short-lived when he becomes the victim of a brutal attack that claims his brother and leads to a prison sentence, after which he returns to London to get revenge on the promoter Kingsley Marshall (Nicholas Pinnock), whom he blames for his downfall. His approach: to infiltrate Marshall’s drug-running criminal enterprise on behalf of a rival cartel, a scheme complicated by Marshall’s recent disappearance and Duke’s undying attraction to Marshall’s wife, Joy (Deborah Ayorinde).

Sharkzilla Takes New York

Sounds like one of those cheesy Sharknado movies that used to be a staple of the Syfy network, but it’s just Shark Week going about its regular business. In one of three new specials, conservation biologist Dr. Craig O’Connell investigates shark attacks on other marine life in the New York area, a search that leads to a former nuclear dumping ground with the implication that some local sharks may in fact be radioactive. The evening opens with Secrets of the Great White Kill (8/7c), an analysis of great white hunting tactics, and ends with My Strange Shark Addiction (10/9), which could hardly be more apropos in describing the appeal of this annual programming stunt.

Sugar

The battle between John Sugar (Colin Farrell), the L.A. private eye from outer space, and corrupt sheriff Ray Vega (Better Call Saul‘s Tony Dalton) comes to a head in Season 2’s penultimate episode. For Sugar, forever on a slippery slope toward human assimilation, violence is always the last option, but he may have no choice now that Vega has his client Danny (Jin Ha) in custody, using him as leverage to get Sugar to give up Danny’s brother, Ji (Raymond Lee).

INSIDE FRIDAY TV:

• Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Happiness (9/8c, HBO): Larry David‘s mirthful mangling of history takes on Paul Revere’s ride, the battle of the Alamo, women’s suffrage, and the first moon landing.
• Time and Water (9/8c, National Geographic): A deeply personal documentary depicts Icelandic poet Andri Snaer Magnason compiling a video time capsule as a tribute to the glaciers that are melting before his eyes.
• Put a Ring on It: Cheathab (9/8c, OWN): A reality-show spinoff gathers couples who’ve been affected by infidelity into a Miami “Cheathab House” to explore trust issues and test their relationships by dating other people.
• Dateline NBC (10/9c, NBC): Andrea Canning reports on the 2021 disappearance of Dee Warner from her Michigan farm, with her allegedly abusive husband Dale the prime suspect well before her body is discovered three years later.
• Real Time with Bill Maher (10/9c, HBO): The host interviews environmental activist Erin Brockovich, immortalized in the 2000 Julia Roberts movie.

ON THE STREAM:

• Batman: Caped Crusader (streaming on Prime Video): The animated series returns for a second season, depicting the fabled superhero in his early years.
• Silo (streaming on Apple TV): A flashback to the rescue of Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) and Bernard (Tim Robbins) from the incinerator leads to more revelations about the resistance in Silo 18, while Juliette struggles to retrieve her suppressed memories.
• Snoopy Presents: There’s No Place Like Home, Snoopy (streaming on Apple TV): Charlie Brown’s in the proverbial doghouse in a new Peanuts special that sends him and Snoopy on a search for the pooch’s beloved peaked home, which was mistakenly sold during a yard sale.
• The Drama (streaming on HBO Max): The wedding-bell-blues dramedy makes its streaming debut, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a couple whose trip to the altar is clouded by some uncomfortably shared truths. The film makes its linear debut on HBO Saturday at 8/7c.
• Nightborn (streaming on Shudder): Harry Potter alum Rupert Grint stars with Seidi Haarla in a horror film from Finnish director Hanna Bergholm, playing parents of a newborn son who brings terror into their remote forest home.