TV Watchlist: Robert Downey Jr. Hits HBO, Lily Gladstone Leads a Murder Mystery

Plus, Conan O'Brien has a new Max series and Zack Snyder's "Rebel Moon" saga concludes on Netflix Week of April 13 – 19 This week is big. Bigger than most. How big, you ask? How about Robert Downey Jr. playing multiple characters in a miniseries based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book (“The Sympathizer”)? Or a new Zack Snyder extravaganza (“Rebel Moon 2”)? If that’s not your cup of tea, what about a documentary about how the Oklahoma City bombing sowed the seeds of the current antigovernment underground (“An American Bombing”)? Or a Billy Joel concert special (“The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden”)? There’s all that, plus a new mystery series starring Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough (“Under the Bridge”), a nature documentary series narrated by Cate Blanchett (“Our Living World”) and Conan O’Brien getting sent to far flung locations (“Conan O’Brien Must Go”). Like we said: big. On with the television! The Sympathizer Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m., HBO Source: HBO One of the most anticipated new limited series of 2024, “The Sympathizer” is based on the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen and hails from A24 and Rhombus Media. In the HBO show, Hoa Xuande plays the Captain, a North Vietnam plant in the South Vietnam army. He is forced to flee the country towards the end of the Vietnam War, winding up in the United States, in a community of South Vietnamese refugees. It’s there that he is wooed by the American intelligence community while still spying on his neighbors and sending the information back to the Viet Cong. One of the big draws of “The Sympathizer” is the appearance of recent Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr., who plays several roles, including a CIA operative trying to win the Captain to his cause and a filmmaker based on Francis Ford Coppola. (How perfect is that?) The series was created by South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy,” “Decision to Leave”) and Canadian auteur Don McKellar (“Exotica,” “Last Night”). They both co-wrote every episode and director Park directed the first three episodes (the remaining four episodes were handled by Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles and English director Marc Munden). This series seems totally insane – and also deeply unsettling, emotional and strange. And while they might be marketing it as a miniseries, keep in mind that there was a book sequel, “The Committed,” released in 2021. Just how quickly can a limited series become an ongoing series? [[TRAILER](] Manhunt Friday, April 19, Apple TV+ Source: Apple TV+ “Manhunt,” based on the white-knuckle nonfiction book “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” by James L. Swanson, became an unlikely hit when it debuted on Apple TV+. Tobias Menzies played Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War and friend of Lincoln’s, who led the charge to find the man responsible for the President’s death and uncover the conspirators working to keep his whereabouts a secret. (The assassination was actually part of a much larger, more horrible plot that was mercifully dropped.) This wraps up the John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle) storyline, but Swanson wrote a sequel of sorts, “Bloody Times: the Funeral for Abraham Lincoln and the Manhunt for Jefferson Davis,” that could make for a cool season 2. Also there was an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” in 1991 that hypothesized that Booth was not the man killed in the barn and that he lived, somewhat happily, for years to come. It sounds like hooey. But hey, stranger things have happened. [[TRAILER](] Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver Friday, April 19, Netflix Source: Netflix That’s right. There’s another “Rebel Moon” movie. But, good news, “Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver” is significantly better than last year’s “Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire.” It’s bigger, badder, more full of life, and with a manageable amount of characters that you can easily follow. (All of this is in stark contrast to the first movie.) This time around Sofia Boutella’s Kora, a former warrior who thought she had eluded combat by retiring to a small backwoods planet, mobilizes the farmers and townspeople of her village against the evil Motherworld. And most of the movie is an extended action sequence, as the villains invade her small town and the townsfolk and her fellow warriors (including Djimon Hounsou, Doona Bae and Anthony Hopkins as the voice of a weird robot) work together to defend themselves and render a blow to the Motherworld. Will they be successful? And who will survive to celebrate that success? There’s only one way to find out. Director Zack Snyder, who also co-wrote the screenplay, produced the movie and shot it, indulges in his base impulses for better or worse, lingering poetically on a swaying blade of wheat or reveling in the way that a laser sword sticks into the hull of a spaceship. The whole thing is unabashedly over-the-top, in a way that is charming and forgivable. But we won’t see the true scope of Snyder’s demented vision until the R-rated version of this movie comes out. Snyder claims that he is having to make cuts to avoid an NC-17. Ah yes. The ultimate unstoppable Motherworld – the ratings board. [[TRAILER](] An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th Tuesday, April 16 at 9 p.m., HBO Source: HBO This documentary sounds fascinating. “On April 19, 1995, the Oklahoma City bombing became the deadliest act of homegrown terrorism against the government in U.S. history. ‘An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th’ examines the details of that day, the experiences of the people there, the hunt for the perpetrators, the pivotal moments of the trials, and its effects still felt today,” reads the official synopsis. The Oklahoma City bombing was such a profound moment in American history, particularly in the 1990s (a time of relative peace and prosperity), it’ll be absolutely gripping to watch how that event connects to the more recent wave of anti-government activity, most broadly scene in the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. Get ready to feel very icky. [[TRAILER](] Rebel Moon Netflix Source: Netflix If you’re going to watch the second “Rebel Moon,” you might as well watch the first one beforehand. (If you already saw it, there’s a helpful recap at the start of part two.) In the first “Rebel Moon” an idyllic backwater planet is threatened by the evil Imperium and a former soldier-turned-farmer (Sofia Boutella) crisscrosses across the galaxy collecting warriors who can help her and her fellow villagers to the cause. It’s like a “getting the team together” montage stretched across an entire movie. And that’s not a knock. You get to see Doona Bae hunt down a scary spider woman played by Jena Malone and Anthony Hopkins is the voice of a robotic knight. Plus Charlie Hunnam shows up as a Han Solo surrogate, who has a much larger spaceship than he probably needs. (Men, am I right?) There are a few thrilling set pieces and Zack Snyder’s characteristically beautiful photography and staging. And you’ll want to have seen this before you watch the sequel. It's necessary and enriches the experience of “The Scargiver.” In other words: it’s out of this world. [[WATCH](] Source: HBO “The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden” Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m., CBS In celebration of the 100th Billy Joel show at Madison Square Garden, part of a longtime residency that is supposed to wrap up this July, CBS is hosting Joel’s first concert on a broadcast network. Joel’s residency began in 1978 and he has sold out Madison Square Garden more than any other artist. (Every single one of Joel’s concerts at MSG sold out.) This concert will undoubtedly be a ton of fun and if you don’t have broadcast TV, don’t fret – it’ll stream simultaneously on Paramount+ and will be housed there afterwards. Long live the king. [[TRAILER](] “Our Living World” Wednesday, April 17, Netflix This new, stunningly photographed nature documentary series “explores the intelligence, resourcefulness and interconnectedness of life on our planet” (according to the official synopsis) and is narrated by Cate Blanchett. Need we say more? [[TRAILER](] “Under the Bridge” Wednesday, April 17, Hulu This based-on-a-true story crime thriller, adapted from the book of the same name by the late Rebecca Godfrey (she died tragically of lung cancer in 2022 at the age of 54), follows the story of 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta), who went to a friend’s party and never came home. Riley Keough plays Godfrey, who is investigating the murder alongside a local police officer (played by recent Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone). According to the official synopsis the series “takes us into the hidden world of the young girls accused of the murder – revealing startling truths about the unlikely killer.” Yikes. [[TRAILER](] “Conan O’Brien Must Go” Thursday, April 18, Max This is what we need. This four-part limited series sends Conan O’Brien to four countries – Norway, Thailand, Argentina and Ireland. It’s an expansion of the “Conan Without Borders” shows that he used to do as part of his TBS series. As he has been doing press for the series, he has been saying that these episodes are of a scale and complexity that he wishes those standalone episodes of his talk show were. And since it’s on Max he can probably do naughtier stuff and say the F-word. Which of course will make everyone giggle even more. [[TRAILER](] “The Spiderwick Chronicles” Friday, April 19, The Roku Channel Fun fact: “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” based on the best-selling fantasy series of the same name by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, was initially made for Disney+. But during the great streaming contraction, Disney dropped the series, leaving the producers to shop the eight-episode first season around. Eventually the show, which stars Jack Dylan Grazer and Christian Slater, wound up at The Roku Channel. Bonus recommendation: the 2008 “Spiderwick Chronicles” movie is pretty good; it has some fun creatures and the script was co-written by John Sayles. It’s available on Paramount+. [[TRAILER](] 2034 Armacost Ave. | Los Angeles, CA 90025 [Unsubscribe](