There are scores of TV shows out there, with dozens of new episodes each week, not to mention everything you can find on Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming, and HBO Go. How’s a viewer to keep up? To help you sort through all that television has to offer, Flavorwire is compiling the five best moments on TV each week. This round, we’ve got multiple plot twists involving siblings, and multiple season finales to slow, brooding dramas — some more beloved than others.
PLL Finally Unveils A
For those not familiar with the show and its many acronyms: PLL is ABC Family teen drama Pretty Little Liars, and A is its amorphous, anonymous villain who’s been terrorizing the main characters throughout the series. Obvious spoiler alert: A is CeCe Drake, the once-institutionalized sibling of Ali and Jason DiLaurentis. In a highly #problematic twist, CeCe is also transgender — assigned male at birth, she’s known to the little liars as “Charles,” Ali’s long-lost brother. The Internet is still dissecting the reveal, which also comes with a boatload of plot holes unrelated to CeCe’s gender identity, but that’s the basic takeaway for non-viewers.
All in the Unstable Computer Genius Family
Mr. Robot and quirky HBO comedy Bored to Death have about zero point nothing in common — at least, they didn’t until this week, when USA’s hacker drama topped off an episode full of twists with a particularly crazy one involving three of the show’s central characters. Yet another spoiler alert: unhinged FSociety member Darlene is protagonist Elliott’s sister, and namesake anarchist Mr. Robot is either their father or a figment of Elliott’s imagination who looks exactly like their father. It’s unclear what that means for the show as a whole, but we doubt any family bonding time will ensue.
Billy Eichner, John Benjamin Hickey, Kate McKinnon
Great People on Difficult People
Difficult People is a show that knows its audience, mostly because it assumes that audience is exactly like its protagonists: urban, probably Jewish, definitely women and gay men. Nothing demonstrates that knowledge like the cameos in its third episode, “Pledge Week”: Kate McKinnon as sober magician Abra Cadabra, plus Bridget Everett, Marc Shaiman, and Martin Short appearing as themselves. Short is particularly excellent when comparing Klausner to Jerry Lewis in the least flattering way possible.
L to R, Luke Kirby and Aden Young – in the SundanceTV original series “Rectify” – Photo Credit: Curtis Baker
Off to Nashville
Clocking in at a mere six episodes, Rectify‘s third season had to be a little more efficient with its action than usual for a notoriously slow drama. Hence this week’s finale, which saw ex-con Daniel Holden leave his small Georgia hometown — and Rectify‘s setting — behind and relocate to Nashville. Most of the cast remains in Paulie, but it looks like the fourth season (already ordered by Sundance) will infuse some fresh blood into the series.
#TrueDetectiveSeasonFinale
Our long national hatewatch is finally over. The final installment of Nic Pizzolatto’s neo-noir wasn’t enough to salvage its critical reputation, but it did deliver some memorable moments — which is more than could be said of its muddled, lifeless early episodes. Sex was had, deathbed desert visions were hallucinated, and escapes to Venezuela were made (and a murder was solved, but the ostensible premise for this whole thing didn’t turn out to be especially important). ‘Til next year, when a writers’ room hopefully helps NP iron out that dialogue.