What’s On: Turner Classic Movies Explores ‘Gay Hollywood,’ and ‘Queen of the South’ Returns

TCM Spotlight: Gay Hollywood (starts at 8/7c, TCM): To acknowledge June as Pride Month, Turner Classic Movies devotes its Thursday prime-time lineup all month to films that reveal the influence of gay actors, writers and characters through Hollywood history. Journalist Dave Karger and historian William Mann help provide context, because for the most part, this is all subtext, as gay themes were kept in what’s now thought of as the “celluloid closet” until relatively recently. Cases in point: this week’s back-to-back whitewashed composer bio-pics, with Cary Grant as Cole Porter in 1946’s Night and Day (8/7c) and Mickey Rooney as Lorenz Hart to Tom Drake’s Richard Rodgers in 1948s Words and Music (10:30/9:30c), neither film acknowledging the homosexuality of Porter or Hart. The night continues with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1 am/12c), a fictionalized twist on the Leopold-Loeb murder case, which hints a bit more directly at the relationship between Farley Granger and John Dall (both gay).

Nashville (9/8c, CMT): With Rayna Jaymes now history, Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere) is the current reigning diva on this musical drama, but before she can get back on the concert stage, she’ll have to conquer stage fright, and some pesky repressed memories, in the wake of bruising reviews of her new gospel album. Corporate intrigue disrupts business as usual at Highway 65, where Deacon (Charles Esten) has to choose between Zach (Cameron Scoggins) and Bucky (David Alford) over the future of the label. No one said making country music was easy.

Queen of the South (10/9c, USA): The melodramatic crime telenovela returns for a second season, with Teresa (Alice Braga) brokering a new deal with a smuggler, as Camila (Adriana Barraza) tries to rebuild her empire.