Worth Watching: ‘Modern Family’s Farewell to Fred Willard, ‘Deadliest Catch,’ Netflix’s ‘Trinkets’

Ty Burrell and Fred Willard on Modern Family
ABC/Richard Cartwright
Modern Family

A selective critical checklist of notable Tuesday TV:

Modern Family (8:30/7:30c, ABC): One of the more moving episodes from the sitcom’s final season has gained even more poignancy since it first aired in January, after the passing of the great character actor Fred Willard in May. He made his final appearance in this episode as Phil’s (Ty Burrell) dad, Frank, who’s been exhibiting some alarming behavior, which compels Phil to visit his dad for a very special day.

Deadliest Catch (8/7c, Discovery): It’s a perfect storm in the Bering Sea for the crab fishermen in another grueling episode of Discovery’s signature docuseries. If rogue waves, supermoon tides and a cyclonic snowstorm weren’t more than enough, Saga skipper Jake Anderson has to deal with a broken rudder. He knows that to make the needed repair in rough seas is to risk capsizing, but duty calls.

Trinkets (streaming on Netflix): Otherwise known as “Sticky Fingers,” the teen drama returns for a second and final season. It’s about the secret friendship that forms among three very different teens who bond during a Shoplifter’s Anonymous meeting. Tabitha (Quintessa Swindell) is the poor little rich girl, Elodie (Brianna Hildebrand) is the grieving outsider who moved to Portland, Oregon from New Mexico after losing her mother, and Moe (Kiana Madeira) is the brainiac from an underprivileged family. They’re there for each other through the many trials of adolescence.

Inside Tuesday TV: The CW’s satirical Dead Pixels (8/7c) continues with gamers Meg (Alexa Davies) and Nicky (Will Merrick) leading the protest when Vince Vaughn is cast as their favorite character from the Kingdom Scrolls universe… OWN’s long-running Tyler Perry soap The Haves and the Have Nots (8/7c) resumes its seventh season with back-to-back episodes, in which Hanna (Crystal Fox) makes her stand while Vinny (Oscar Torre) does his damnedest to get Mama Rose (Rachel Winfree) out of jail… ABC’s What Would You Do? (9/8c) enters the immigration debate with a hidden-camera scenario in which Latinx men speaking Spanish in a restaurant are challenged about their immigration status by another patron. Will onlookers react differently in New Jersey and El Paso, Texas?