Worth Watching: Carla Gugino is ‘Jett,’ ‘Los Espookys,’ ‘Jessica Jones’ Signs Off, Aniston and Sandler Reunite for ‘Murder Mystery’
A selective critical checklist of notable Friday TV:
Jett (10/9c, Cinemax): Although it lasted just a few weeks on ABC more than 15 years ago, Carla Gugino will always be Karen Sisco to me. Since then, this terrific actress has made a name for herself in movies and series as varied as American Gangster, Watchmen and most recently The Haunting of Hill House. She takes center stage again as the title character of a sleek caper created and directed by her partner, Sebastian Gutierrez. Gugino sizzles as Daisy “Jett” Kowalski, a master thief and con artist who has barely had time to reconnect with her daughter after a prison stint than she’s recruited into pulling “one last heist” in Cuba for gangster Charlie Baudelaire (Better Call Saul‘s Giancarlo Esposito). Even when things go awry, Jett is too cool to lose her seductive cool.
Los Espookys (11/10, HBO) If you enjoyed FX’s What We Do in the Shadows, you’ll likely groove on this offbeat Spanish-language comedy (with English subtitles) about a funky group of friends in a Latin America country who stage fake horror shows for bizarre clients. Fred Armisen, one of the executive producers, plays one of their uncles, a genial parking valet who’s mistaken for a conceptual artist. Because why not?
Marvel’s Jessica Jones (streaming on Netflix): Leading off another lengthy roster of streaming premieres is the third and final season of Netflix’s best Marvel series, starring Krysten Ritter as the moody superhero/P.I. who goes up against yet another highly intelligent psychopath (Jeremy Bobb). To take him down, she’ll need to reconnect with her adoptive sister Trish (Rachael Taylor) in what becomes a meditation on the nature of heroism.
The other major Netflix premiere reunites Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler for the first time since 2011’s Just Go With It for the comedic Murder Mystery. He’s a New York cop whose long-delayed honeymoon with his lovely wife goes awry when they’re invited onto a billionaire’s (Terence Stamp) yacht in glamorous Monaco and then accused of his murder.
More streaming highlights: Amazon presents a second season of Absentia, starring Castle‘s Stana Katic as an FBI agent trying to rebuild her life after her six-year abduction/amnesia ordeal, but mysteries about her personal history continue to threaten her future… Joining the game-show craze, Netflix’s Awake: The Million Dollar Game puts contestants who haven’t slept for 24 hours through wacky challenges.
Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life (9/8c, PBS, check local listings at pbs.org): One of our greatest playwrights, whose activism for civil and LGBTQ rights has defined his work, gets the American Masters treatment in a 90-minute special. Winner of four Tony Awards, with credits including hit musicals (Ragtime, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Full Monty) and groundbreaking plays (Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class and the newly revived Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune), McNally is championed in interviews with luminaries including Nathan Lane, Angela Lansbury, Rita Moreno, Edie Falco, Christine Baranski, Chita Rivera, Billy Porter and the late Marin Mazzie and Doris Roberts. That’s some life.
Inside Friday TV: Showtime’s documentary 16 Shots (9/8c), from Oscar-nominated director Richard Rowley (Dirty Wars), revisits the 2014 shooting of African-American teenager Laquan McDonald by Chicago police and the ensuing cover-up… Former Mythbuster Adam Savage is back in a new Discovery series, Savage Builds (10/9c), in which he collaborates with experts on challenging new projects. In the opener, he enlists Richard Browning, inventor and test pilot of the Gravity Jet Suit, to help him get an Iron Man-inspired titanium suit to fly… Kevin Hart continues to scour the country for up-and-coming stand-up talent in a third season of Comedy Central’s Hart of the City (11/10c), with back-to-back episodes taking his crew to St. Louis and Dallas.
