Weekend Preview: Bryan Cranston Breaks Bad Again, And ‘Big Mouth’ And ‘Shameless’ Are Back, Baby

Your Honor (Sunday, Showtime 10:00 p.m.) — Bryan Cranston’s intense (although uneven) limited series faces inevitable comparisons to Breaking Bad, and for sure, Cranston’s character executes his most Walter White-like maneuvers since Heisenberg left the building with AMC’s 2013 “Felina” finale. Some The Wire vibes and Defending Jacob vibes resonate throughout as well, and here he’s playing a sort-of everyman (albeit one with more power than Walt), who tangos with the criminal underworld after making an incredibly bad decision that quickly sets off a series of even worse decisions, eventually leading to a sh*tload of collateral damage. And a lot of Panic Faces.

Big Mouth: Season 4 (Netflix) — One of TV’s funniest shows is back to drum up anxiety, courtesy of Tito the Mosquito (who will be voiced by Maria Bamford), in addition to all the hormone monsters that you dearly love. Newcomer voices on the series include Ayo Edebiri replacing Jenny Slate as Missy, along with Zach Galifianakis, Seth Rogen, Josie Totah, Lena Waithe, Quinta Brunson, John Oliver, Sterling K. Brown, Paul Giamatti, Maya Erskine, and Anna Konkle.

Shameless (Sunday, CW 9:00 p.m.) — The Gallaghers are dealing with the pandemic in their own way on Chicago’s South Side, which forces Kevin and Veronica to get really creative with the Alibi, as Frank’s fretting over gentrification. It’s the final season, y’all! Here’s a list of what we’d like to see happen before finale time.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 11 (Disney+ series) — The bounty-hunting Star Wars series follows up on revealing Baby Yoda’s name and that Grand Admiral Thawn moment that got the fandom going.

Mank (Netflix film) — All the iconic directors are crafting Netflix movies these days, and David Fincher is now joining them. Even more notably for cinephiles, he’s doing so with a 1930s Hollywood throwback to the days of Orson Welles, and when social critic/alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. “Mank” Mankiewicz scrambled to put the finishing touches (and his name) on the Citizen Kane screenplay. If Gary Oldman in the title role wasn’t enough to get you onboard, then perhaps hearing that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are doing the musical honors will be the final enticement you need.

Small Axe (Amazon film collection) — It’s week three of five for this batch of Steve McQueen-directed movies. The stories, set in London’s West Indian community, will explore the endurance of the human spirit despite setbacks from discrimination and rampant racism, all set from the late 1960s to the 1980s.

Hardy Boys (Hulu series) — The beloved detective book series gets the reboot treatment with Frank (Rohan Campbell) and Joe (Alexander Elliot) leaving the city for their parents’ hometown following a tragedy. What seems like a quiet summer grows more intriguing when they stumble upon some key evidence.

Selena: The Series (Netflix limited series) — The Walking Dead‘s Christian Serratos stars as as Selena Quintanilla Perez, the Queen of Tejano Music, who began as a young girl from Texas but became the most most successful female Latin artist in history before being murdered in 1995 at the age of 23.

Here’s the rest of this weekend’s notable programming:

Supermarket Sweep (Sunday, ABC 8:00 p.m.) — Leslie Jones and every bit of her enthusiasm will host contestants in this revival of the grocery-shopping game show.

Pandora (Sunday, CW 8:00 p.m.) — The Galaxy’s staring down war while the ghosts of Osborn’s past come back to haunt him, and Jax must rally the team together to save them all.

Euphoria Part 1: Rue (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — Need a little Zendaya to tide you over before the show returns (at an undetermined date) for Season 2? The Emmy award winner returns for the first of two special episodes. This one officially lands on HBO on Sunday, but you can catch it early already, only on HBO Max. Rue’s relapsing and ends up in a diner whilst contemplating life after Jules leaves her along at the train station following their winter formal.

The Outpost (Sunday, CW 9:00 p.m.) — Talon’s discovery of a deadly power coincides with Gwynn learning Tobin’s secret, and opposing groups are hunting for Yavalla for opposite purposes.

Murder On Middle Beach (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — First-time director Madison Hamburg (who we spoke with) reveals his nearly decade-long journey to investigate who murdered his mother, Barbara, in a still-unsolved case out of Connecticut. It’s a heck of a watch that will keep you guessing.

Moonbase 8 (Sunday, Showtime 11:00 p.m. EST and streaming) — Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, and John C. Reilly are here to make space funny as astronauts working toward a lunar mission. This week, Cap takes a psychological test that doesn’t end as expected for him, and he’d like to… move the base?

In case you missed these recent picks:

Heaven’s Gate: The Cult Of Cults (HBO Max documentary series) — Way back in 1997, the Heaven’s Gate cult made headlines with a comet-chasing mass suicide that echoed Jonestown. However, this incident turned out to be the most voluminous suicide on U.S. soil and also involved 20 people’s disappearances. An alien-conspiracy theory and applesauce and disturbing infomercials soon surfaced, and this documentary series surfaces never-before-seen footage and first-person accounts to fill in blanks and add some UFO weirdness to the mix.

The Flight Attendant (HBO Max series) — Kaley Cuoco busts away from the The Big Bang Theory with a fun flight of (darkly comedic) fancy. She plays portrays an airline stewardess whose international jet-setting lifestyle includes falling into bed in various countries with various handsome men. During the course of one particularly fateful encounter, Cassie wakes up next to the dead body of a one-night stand. She spends the rest of the series attempting to clean sh*t up. Surrender to this madcap ride.