What's on TV this week—The Bear, The Righteous Gemstones, Secret Invasion

Welcome to What’s On, our weekly picks of must-watch shows. Here’s what you need to watch from Sunday, June 18, to Thursday, June 22. All times are Eastern. [Note: The weekend edition of What’s On drops on Fridays.]

The biggies

The Righteous Gemstones (HBO, Sunday, 10 p.m.)

HBO’s greatest toxic family—sorry, Succession—is back, baby. Danny McBride’s black comedy, The Righteous Gemstones, returns for its third season with a two-episode premiere. The trailer reveals that Eli Gemstone (John Goodman) has taken a step back from the business, and his three kids have taken over. When the Gemstones lose out on a $200 million opportunity, they team up with a gun-toting religious militia. (This show really does love upping the ante each season.) The cast includes Edi Paterson, Adam Devine, Walton Goggins, Skyler Gisondo, and Jennifer Nettles, with Shea Wigham, Casey Wilson, and Lukas Haas joining this batch of episodes. The A.V. Club will recap the show weekly.

Samuel L. Jackson is donning Nick Fury’s suit (and eyepatch) once again for Secret Invasion, Disney+’s latest MCU venture. The limited series follows Nick Fury as he uncovers that Skrulls have infiltrated the Earth in powerful political positions. SI is being called Marvel’s version of a spy drama, aided by an ensemble that boasts Cobie Smulders, Martin Freeman, Ben Mendelsohn, Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, Don Cheadle, Dermot Mulroney, and Kingsley Ben-Adir. Let’s see how many surprising cameos also make the cut. The A.V. Club will recap the show weekly.

Last year’s surprise sleeper hit The Bear, The A.V. Club’s favorite show of 2022, is ready to take us back to Chicago. Christopher Storer’s comedy will drop all season-two episodes at once. So let’s start placing bets on how delightfully stressful it’s going to be this time. The show follows Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) as he strives to transform his family’s Italian beef spot into a more ambitious eatery. Ayo Edebiri, Ebon-Moss Bachrach, Liza Colón-Zayas, Lionel Boyce, and Abby Elliott co-star. Look for The A.V. Club’s review and an interview with Moss-Bachrach soon.

Hidden gems

And Just Like That… (Max, Thursday, 3:01 a.m.)

Alright, Sex And The City’s revival series isn’t exactly a “hidden gem,” but is there an accurate category for a show like And Just Like That…? Max’s series returns with Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and even a Samantha (Kim Cattrall) cameo. How will these women continue to dial up their midlife crises, with Carrie reuniting with Aidan (John Corbett) and Miranda running off to L.A. with Che (Sara Ramirez)? We’re … not sure. But at the very least, the results should be entertaining as hell.

For the fifth installment of the franchise, Skull Island is getting an animated series on Netflix. Mae Whitman, Betty Gilpin, Darren Barnett, and Benjamin Bratt star in the show, which follows a group of well-meaning explorers who venture out to sea and get shipwrecked in a place that’s home to terrifyingly large creatures, including the infamous Kong.

Kim Cattrall is returning to the SATC world, but her bigger moment to shine comes on the same day as the AJL… premiere. She stars in Netflix’s Glamorous as Madolyn Addison, the CEO of a makeup company whose business is plummeting. Suspecting insider sabotage, she hires new employee Merco Mejia (Miss Benny) to sleuth around.

More good stuff

LA Fire & Rescue (NBC, Wednesday, 8 p.m.)

NBC saw the success of Chicago Fire and said, “Let’s capitalize on this, but make it about real folks and change cities.” So here’s LA Fire & Rescue, which gives audiences unprecedented access to the inner workings of a few stations of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Directed by Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker, The Stroll is about Lovell’s first-hand experiences in New York City as a transgender woman of color and a sex worker in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, aka “The Stroll.” The film features her narration, interviews, and archival footage of the city from the ’70s to the 2000s, and sheds light on how the trans community came together to fight harassment and violence.

Jeremy Renner isn’t the only former Avenger who’s resorted to playing with cars as a profession. Robert Downey Jr. is teaming up with automobile experts in Downey’s Dream Cars to restore six classics from his collection to make them more eco-friendly. Sure, why not?

Can’t miss recaps

The Idol (HBO, Sunday, 9 p.m.)

Ending soon

Class Of ’09 (FX on Hulu, Wednesday, 12:01 a.m., season one finale)

High Desert (Apple TV+, Wednesday, 12:01 a.m., season one finale)

Clone High (Max, Thursday, 3:01 a.m., season one finale)

Gremlins: Secrets Of The Mogwai (Max, Thursday, 3:01 a.m., season one finale)