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: finales galore, plus a not-so-fond farewell and a couple surprise appearances.
Jack’s back!
This week’s episode of Outlander saw the return of Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall (Tobias Menzies), the English captain who brutally raped and tortured Jamie (Sam Heughan) at the end of Season 1. In “Untimely Resurrection,” Claire and Jamie meet Jack in the gardens at Versailles. It’s the first time we’ve seen him this season, and already his presence has managed to spoil Claire and Jamie’s emotional connection — which is precisely his goal when he assaulted Jamie.
Jeff Neumann/CBS
Goodbye, Good Wife
The Good Wife ended a seven-season run with the satisfying image of Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) refusing to take husband Peter’s (Chris Noth) hand, a reverse of the pilot episode, in which the dutiful wife accompanies her State’s Attorney husband to a press conference where he admits he’s been sleeping with prostitutes. Not everyone was satisfied with the ending — couldn’t have Alicia found independence and love? Did she and Diane have to exit the show as enemies? But with Christine Baranksi’s Diane reportedly getting a spin-off series on CBS’s streaming site, we might get answers to some of these questions. (Eh, probably not.)
Rosalee, meet Harriet
Underground, the WGN America series about a group of 19th century slaves who escape from their Georgia plantation, ended an action-packed first season with a whopper of a new character. The finale saw some characters reach freedom while others were thwarted, but the most exhilarating moment came at the end, when Rosalee (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), one of the few runners who makes it across the Ohio River, returns to the South to help others find their way to freedom — and gets a hand from a woman who introduces herself as “Harriet.” Hmm, I wonder who that could be?
ABC/Byron Cohen
Scandal picks its nominees
Last night, Scandal ended a surreal fifth season that depicted a presidential primary race almost as nasty as the one going on in real life. (At least in this version, two kick-ass women manage to oust the ersatz Donald Trump.) The finale set up next season’s presidential race, with Mellie finding a running mate in Jake Ballard and Frankie Vargas choosing Cyrus as his veep. Papa Pope’s looking a little too pleased to see his “son” Jake and daughter Olivia poised to take over the White House.
Michelle Branch bids Ted Cruz farewell on Full Frontal
Ok, so her voice isn’t what it was 15 years ago, but Michelle Branch’s rendition of “Goodbye, Ted Cruz” (set to the tune of her 2000 hit “Goodbye to You”) was still a perfect send-off to the man who meant so much to Full Frontal, as Samantha Bee points out.