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 week brought major surprises, from buzzy premieres to tragic endings to a surprise new “visual album.”
SNL airs Prince’s SNL40 after-party performance
You might remember when Jimmy Fallon told the story of how Prince came to perform at the epic after-party for Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary last year. The next day, looking slightly hungover and disheveled, Fallon gave us the run-down on his show, describing how he taunted Prince to come up onstage — and His Royal Badness did. On Saturday, in the wake of Prince’s death, SNL aired the full performance, and it did not disappoint. Watch and rave un2 the joy!
D’Angelo and Princess pay tribute to Prince on Fallon
Obviously a guy who would devote a good nine minutes to recapping the time he got Prince to play a surprise show would want to carve out space to pay tribute to the man’s music. On Monday, Princess (Maya Rudolph’s Prince cover band), appeared on The Tonight Show along with D’Angelo to perform “Sometimes It Snows in April.” With just D’Angelo on piano and Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum on backing vocals, it was an appropriately mournful rendition.
Lemonade
It was a big week for music on TV as Beyoncé premiered her new album, Lemonade, via an hour-long film on HBO on Saturday night. It was an audacious and original move, befitting a gorgeous album that blends art forms — music videos, cinema, poetry, music, dance, photography, fashion — to create an indelible experience for the eyes and ears. Close all the tabs with the thinkpieces and just watch.
Melisandre old!
Game of Thrones took care of business in its sixth season premiere, setting up each character’s journey for the season ahead (except for a few who were conspicuously missing, like Bran). But it made sure to end on a gasp: Melisandre takes off her clothes, as Melisandre is wont to do, but there’s a twist this time — when she takes off her necklace, her body sags, and it’s revealed that she’s really a very, very old woman. Is the necklace some sort of eternal life-giver? Is she going to resurrect Jon with her magic bling? Time will tell…
Samantha Bee sticks it to the Harriet haters
“Finally, a black woman making a white man move to the back,” Bee declared in her Full Frontal segment on the Treasury Department’s decision to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 bill. “Once the products of America’s school system finished Googling, ‘Who is Harriet Tubman,’ they were all for it.” She went on to rip into the bigots complaining about the change in a hilarious and spot-on segment.