Pose and Alternatino wrap up for the year
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Tuesday, August 20. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
Pose (FX, 10 p.m., second season finale): Last week’s beach vacation detour was one of the strongest episodes of Pose’s second season, forgoing the explosive intra-house drama of weeks prior for a self-contained celebration of trans sisterhood. From Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya’s recap:
Pose eschews the typical “girls’ trip” framework for less of a “girls gone wild” narrative and more of a “girls live their best lives” one. Normally a wild weekend away would lead to mishaps and conflict, a trip gone awry, as in movies that fall in this genre like Rough Night and Girls Trip. Pose skips that in favor of a genuinely uplifting episode.
For tonight’s second season finale, the focus is back in New York, with Blanca struggling to reassemble the House Of Evangelista, and Pray Tell confronting his past traumas. Pose co-creator Ryan Murphy also revealed that tonight’s finale will set up the the show’s third season with a time jump to 1991.
Alternatino With Arturo Castro (Comedy Central, 10:30 p.m., first season finale): Season one of Alternatino With Arturo Castro comes to a thoughtfully raucous end tonight. As we noted in our review of the premiere episode, newly-minted (and wholly deserving) series lead Arturo Castro owns the ever-moving spotlight, whether he’s playing the provocateur, dad of an anti-Macklemore kid, or a deadly serious Bruno Mars fan. Like the team behind A Black Lady Sketch Show, Castro uses his interstitials to tell a season-long story, that of a fictionalized version of his Latino millennial self. It’s that Arturo who gets into hot water in the season finale, which also poses the question “Phalluses or dicks?” Before reaching a properly ludicrous grace note, “The Dreamer” engages in a more nuanced discussion about immigration than can be found on most news programs. The episode demonstrates Castro’s greatest strength—an ability to combine the topical with the timeless, the universal and the specific, the hilarious with the downright infuriating.
Regular coverage
Mindhunter (Netflix, ongoing)
Wild card
Most Expensivest (Viceland, 10 p.m., summer finale): 2 Chainz and Viceland’s deep dive into the economy built exclusively for those with exorbitant wealth concludes its summer run tonight.