Let’s be honest: This is a little bit of a fake week, if you’re in the U.S. Many folks are still smarting from the election, while also stuck making plans (food, travel, or otherwise) for Thanksgiving next week, and maybe even recovering from Daylight Savings a few weeks ago. What are we left to do with our time while we winnow down the increasingly little daylight hours?
As ever, my advice is: watch TV! Why not? There are so many good options going around these days as we barrel towards the end of the year. Personally I’m emotionally steeling myself for the Arcane finale on Friday, looking forward to more Abbott Elementary, and eagerly awaiting the strange delights of both Based on a True Story and Interior: Chinatown.
Here’s all the best new TV finales and premieres this week.
New shows on Netflix
Arcane series finale
Image: Riot Games, Fortiche/Netflix
Genre: Animated heartbreak (look, I said I’m preparing)
Release date: Nov. 22, with three episodes
Showrunner/creator: Christian Linke
Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell, and more
Well that didn’t go great. With Viktor’s utopic Hextech community all switched off, Ambessa’s forces overwhelming Vi, Cait, Jinx, Isha, and Warwick, things don’t look great for peace in Piltover and Zaun. Isha’s sacrifice in Act 2 might’ve done something, but I can’t say I’m hopeful for it being hunky-dory. All that and Mel is still stuck in the Black Rose’s clutches maybe, and Heimerdinger and Ekko are lost to the Arcane? I will be seated and very concerned.
New shows on Hulu
Interior Chinatown
Genre: Police procedural (at least, to start)
Release date: Nov. 19 with all episodes
Showrunner/creator: Charles Yu
Cast: Jimmy O. Yang, Ronny Chieng, Chloe Bennet, and more
Charles Yu is adapting his own book of the same name, about Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang), who’s a background character in a police procedural called Black & White. He dreams of a world beyond Chinatown — and then, when he witnesses a crime, finds himself front and center, unraveling a criminal web, his family’s buried history, and what the spotlight is really like.
New shows on Max
The Franchise season 1 finale
Photo: Colin Hutton/HBO
Genre: Superhero movie-making satire
Release date: Nov. 23
Showrunner/creator: Jon Brown
Cast: Himesh Patel, Daniel Brühl, Billy Magnussen, and more
Making a superhero movie is no joke, even on a “minor” film like Tecto: Eye of the Storm. The Franchise has certainly explored what a slog and bureaucratic battle the whole thing is. Will creativity win out in the finale??
Well, my guess is it’ll be more poetic than that.
New shows on Peacock
Based on a True Story season 2
Genre: Murder comedy
Release date: Nov. 21 with all episodes
Showrunner/creator: Craig Rosenberg
Cast: Kaley Cuoco, Chris Messina, Tom Bateman, and more
When Ava and Nathan (Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina) set out to make a hit murder podcast with an actual, active serial killer, Matt (Tom Bateman), they didn’t expect him to be such a jag about it (killing to protect their identities and making them cover it up). Now, with a baby on the way, Matt having an affair with Ava’s sister, and a “cancelled podcast” (people don’t think it’s good to platform an active serial killer, turns out), the duo is predictably in a little over their heads. Oh, and their friend just walked in on them mopping up blood.