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, three comedies finished with a bang.
(Chris Haston/NBC)
The Carmichael Show Plays the Trump Card
The Carmichael Show ended an excellent second season on Sunday with an episode called “President Trump,” in which Joe (David Alan Grier) clashes with his son’s fiancé, Maxine (Amber Stevens West), when he decides to support Trump. Carmichael told Flavorwire that the episode wasn’t meant to teach anyone a lesson: “The lesson to be learned, if there was one, is that even if you completely disagree, listening is the only way forward.”
The Detour Veers Toward Season 2
The new TBS single-camera comedy created by Daily Show alums Jason Jones and Samantha Bee ended a very funny, very twisted first season on Monday. The Detour ’s two-part finale managed to neatly — and hilariously — tie up the season’s storyline while pointing to a totally new direction for Season 2. Thankfully, TBS has renewed this bawdy, irreverent, and yet somehow sweet comedy for 13 more episodes.
A Triumphant Reimagining of Roots
There was some understandable hesitation about the decision to remake the 1977 miniseries Roots , based on Alex Haley’s epic novel tracing his African-American ancestors from enslavement through emancipation; Snoop Dogg even called on viewers to boycott the show in a video posted to Instagram. But the remake, the most-watched miniseries since 2013’s Bonnie and Clyde, is a harrowingly realistic portrayal of the antebellum South from the perspective of the enslaved. With both breadth and depth, Roots explores the brutality of slavery and the strength of the characters’ familial and ancestral bonds — all wrapped up in a tightly plotted, visually striking package.
Amy Schumer Skewers the Sitcom
Thursday’s episode of Inside Amy Schumer included a hilariously biting sketch skewering the gender conventions of network sitcoms. The segment, which Schumer directed, is a spoof of a sitcom called Perfect Matches, which features a very overweight husband and his very thin, super-hot wife — who worries her husband is cheating on her with an even hotter woman. Schumer plays the neighbor who pops in to ask, “When’s lunch?”
Archer Shocker
The Season 7 finale of Archer answered the question posed by the season’s opening shot: Archer, facedown in a pool, seemingly dead. It appears he may really be dead: Mistaking the robot version of Archer for the real Archer, Veronica — who tried to have Lana framed for the murder of her husband, Ellis Crane — shoots him in the chest. But when “robot Archer” malfunctions while attempting to propose to Lana, the gang realizes the Archer floating in the pool must be the real thing. Archer hasn’t been renewed for another season yet; could this possibly be the end? And if not, how can there be Archer without Archer? Well, two words: Jon Snow.