Worth Watching: ‘McMillion$’ on HBO, Party Time on ‘Prodigal Son,’ a ‘Girl Scout Cookie Championship’
A selective critical checklist of notable Monday TV:
McMillion$ (10/9c, HBO): As addictive as a large order of fries, this six-part true-crime docuseries plays like a giddy big-screen caper, or a boffo Scorsese film yet to be made. McMillion$ vividly unravels a multi-million-dollar fraud targeting the popular McDonald’s Monopoly promotional game from 1989 to 2001. In that year, FBI agents in Jacksonville, Florida, got a tip about the game being rigged by a company insider known only as “Uncle Jerry,” who stole game pieces and sold them to friends, family — and eventually a mobster also named Jerry, which is where the story gets messy. Enter then-rookie agent Doug Mathews, whose hyper eagerness is infectious as he relates the undercover sting that brought down the crooks and dupes who cashed in.
Prodigal Son (9/8c, Fox): After his latest trauma, will Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne) really take some mandated R&R time off? Not likely, especially once a new killer emerges who’s copying his methods from one of Malcolm’s favorite childhood books, The Count of Monte Cristo. With help from his murderous father, Martin (Michael Sheen), the trail leads to a high-society wedding that Malcolm attends with police partner Dani (Aurora Perrineau). And guess who else gets herself invited? Malcolm’s socialite mom, Jessica (the hilarious Bellamy Young).
Girl Scout Cookie Championship (8/7c, Food Network): Now here’s a baking competition I can get into, much the way I dig into a box of Thin Mints during the Girl Scout Cookie season. Buffy and How I Met Your Mother alum Alyson Hannigan, a former troop member, hosts the four-episode contest, in which five experienced bakers use the iconic cookie brands as a base ingredient to create edible pieces of art — like a three-tired blueberry mint glacier cake featuring (you guessed it) Thin Mints.
Inside Monday TV: Also the basis of Clint Eastwood‘s recent big-screen Richard Jewell, Spectrum Originals presents the 10-episode docudrama Manhunt: Deadly Games on Spectrum’s On Demand platform. Cameron Britton (Mindhunter) stars as the man wrongly accused of the bombing at Atlanta’s 1996 Summer Olympics. Judith Light co-stars as Richard’s distraught mom, Bobi… The latest crisis on Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star (8/7c): a tornado sweeping through Austin. … Doubling (or tripling) down on its hit franchise, ABC devotes all three hours to The Bachelor (8/7c), with Peter taking the women to Costa Rica. Another episode airs Wednesday… David Letterman is the special guest as Showtime launches a second season of its late-night talk show Desus & Mero (11/10c), with another episode airing Thursday.
