BoJack Horseman takes his final bow
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Friday, January 31, and Saturday, February 1. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
BoJack Horseman (Netflix, Friday, 3:01 a.m., second half of final season): The final block of BoJack Horseman episodes arriving the day after The Good Place finale feels like something that would happen in The Bad Place, but here we are. It’s time, for the second time in two days, to bid farewell to one of the greats.
Here’s Les Chappell in his recap of “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” the pivotal mid-season finale:
Never a routine show despite a routine season pattern, BoJack has frequently delivered some of the most surprising moments I’ve ever seen on television, giving me cause to call the show an “evil bastard” on at least one occasion. Just when you’d think it was stepping back from that, “A Quick One, While He’s Away” swings a baseball bat into your gut at the very last minute. It’s a game-changing midseason finale, one that goes from the show building to BoJack’s redemption to asking the question if he even deserves it in the first place.
Les returns for one last block of binge recaps. Three will run Friday and three Saturday, with the final two (oh god, the final two) posting on Sunday. To prepare yourself, consider revisiting these five episodes:
Regular coverage
Saturday Night Live (NBC, Saturday, 11:29 p.m.): host J.J. Watt, musical guest Luke Combs
Wild cards
The Kingmaker (Showtime, Friday, 9 p.m.): “‘I miss the clout of being First Lady,’ admits Imelda Marcos, the widow of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, near the beginning of photographer-filmmaker Lauren Greenfield’s new documentary, The Kingmaker. When first introduced, Marcos is being driven through the streets of Manila in 2014—decades after the period of martial law her husband instituted in 1972 and his death in exile in 1989. As the film starts out chronicling the Marcoses’ rise to power, with Imelda providing present-day commentary from her apartment… while researching the project, Greenfield thought she might find a ‘redemption story.’ But the film eventually proves to be a far more troubling examination of the Marcoses’ continued political hold in the Philippines.” Read the rest of Lawrence Garcia’s film review.
Ragnarok (Netflix, Friday, 3:01 a.m., complete first season): “Netflix’s newest series is a six-part Scandinavian drama about angsty teenagers in a small town who just might have unwittingly stumbled into the apocalyptic battle between gods and giants, and the pairing fits together smoothly. Turns out, the outsized emotional states of teens actually perfectly mirror the larger-than-life concerns of Norse legend, something Thor: Ragnarok expressed by making the Hulk essentially a big green adolescent. Still, the comics giant needn’t worry: Nothing about the show challenges Marvel’s mantle as keeper of the most entertaining story with this particular title.” Read the rest of Alex McLevy’s pre-air review.
Doctor Who marathon (BBC America, Friday, beginning at 8 a.m.): Last Sunday’s thrilling, potentially series-transforming Doctor Who featured a cameo that caused many a longtime fan to yelp with delight. While Sunday feels like a long, long time ago, we’re still going to avoid including the name of the actor in question here—it’s such a fun surprise, and if you’re behind, you should experience it for yourself. So just know that the Doctor Who marathon that BBC America is airing today is comprised of some of that actor’s best episodes on the series—and if you really want to know who it is without watching, you can click below to read Caroline Siede’s interview with the person in question.
Falling For A Killer (Amazon Prime, Friday): Falling For A Killer sounds like a Lifetime movie, but Amazon Prime’s new Ted Bundy docuseries is more of an Investigation Discovery-type production. Director Trish Wood aims to reframe the Bundy narrative around the women he victimized rather than the infamous serial killer himself, and she succeeds, at least on a surface level. But the interviews in the series—which center on Bundy’s longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kendall, and her daughter Molly—keep returning to such old saws as remarking on Bundy’s (debatable) good looks and marveling at his chameleon-like ability to pass as a “nice guy,” undermining Wood’s stated intent in the process. Attempts to put the Bundy case into its sociopolitical context similarly fall short in establishing causation rather than simple correlation, although viewers who aren’t familiar with the broad outlines of the rise of women’s liberation in the late ’60s may find the series’ historical segments illuminating. With the series’ feminist bona fides built on shaky ground, what’s left is a parade of dead-eyed humans reciting the horrors they’ve experienced for the umpteenth time—which does serve as commentary on the way the Bundy case has been overplayed in popular culture, but perhaps not in the way the producers of Falling For A Killer were intending. [Katie Rife]