What to Watch this Weekend: American Idol signs off for the season with live remote finale
We know TV has a lot to offer, be it network, cable, premium channels, or streaming platforms including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Facebook Watch, and others. So EW is here to help, guiding you every single day to the things that should be on your radar. Check out our recommendations below, and click here to learn how you can stream our picks via your own voice-controlled smart-speaker (Alexa, Google Home) or podcast app (Spotify, iTunes, Google Play).
FRIDAY
The Blacklist
HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 8 p.m. on NBC
Season Finale
Elizabeth Keen’s (Megan Boone) seasons-long quest to discover if there’s darkness inside was kicked into high gear when her Russian superspy mother reappeared in her life this season. Armed with a desire to save herself and get revenge on Raymond Reddington (James Spader), Katarina Rostova (Laila Robins) put her daughter in the middle of a dangerous grudge match that comes to a head in this year’s animation-assisted season finale. “With her mother now in the picture, Liz has an opportunity to get answers she’s been searching for years. I think it’s fair to say that our weird little dysfunctional family is reaching a breaking point,” shares executive producer Jon Bokenkamp. In the finale, Liz will have to finally choose a side, and she’ll learn a truth about who she is at her core. “Liz has wondered aloud about whether there is a darkness inside her. In the season finale, she gets the answer — and it’s not the one she was looking for,” adds executive producer John Eisendrath. —Alamin Yohannes
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The Great
HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: Streaming on Hulu
Series Debut
If you love your period dramedies to be sexual, crude, witty, incisive, and only sometimes factually accurate, then Hulu’s The Great is right up your alley. Elle Fanning executive produces and stars as Catherine the Great, Russia’s longest-ruling female leader, who famously rose to the throne by overthrowing her unpopular husband, Emperor Peter III (played here by Nicholas Hoult). The show has much in common with another truth-bending take on the aristocracy, The Favourite, which makes sense given that The Great creator Tony McNamara penned both projects. The 10-episode series features lush production and costume design, and excellent performances from its cast, who pull off the biting one-liners and sharp wit with ease. It’s worth a watch just to see Fanning and Hoult spar with each other in increasingly ridiculous ways. Just don’t blame us if you walk away from it saying “Huzzah!” to anyone or anything. —Lauren Huff
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She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: Streaming on Netflix
Final Season Premiere
It’s all been leading to this. She-Ra showrunner Noelle Stevenson told EW that she and her team were given their full episode order right from the beginning, so they’ve been able to construct this incredible animated saga exactly the way they wanted it. The final season is different from predecessors in the sense that there’s a bit of a genre change; this season leans much more heavily into the sci-fi side, thanks to the techno-organic hivemind empire controlled by Horde Prime (Keston John) and the fact that the planet Etheria has now escaped its personal shadow dimension and come back to a universe full of spaceships and other planets. Even so, plot threads and character relationships that have been building for the whole show finally come to fruition here in a way that should be very satisfying for fans. —Christian Holub
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What Else to Watch
Streaming
Seberg (movie) — Amazon Prime Video
The Last Narc (docuseries debut) — Amazon Prime Video
It's a Dog's Life With Bill Farmer (docuseries debut) — Disney+
White Lines (series debut) — Netflix
Magic for Humans (season premiere) — Netflix
Castle on the Ground (movie) — Digital
8 p.m.
The Greatest #StayAtHome Videos — CBS
Shark Tank (season finale) — ABC
9 p.m.
Bravery and Hope: 7 Days on the Front Line — CBS
Basketball County: In the Water (documentary) — Showtime
9:30 p.m.
11 p.m.
Betty — HBO
SATURDAY
Graduate Together
It might be a small consolation to the class of 2020, who are missing out on their graduation ceremonies due to COVID-19, but they'll be able to brag about their commencement speakers for years. The hour-long special Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020 will feature appearances by LeBron James, Malala Yousafzai, the Jonas Brothers, and former President Barack Obama among many other high-profile guests, delivering performances and messages paying tribute to students, teachers, and their families. The special will air simultaneously on all four major networks and more than 20 other broadcast and digital streaming partners. The circumstance isn't great, to say the least, but the pomp will be spectacular. —Tyler Aquilina
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What Else to Watch
12:30 p.m.
Barefoot Contessa: Cook Like a Pro (season premiere) — Food Network
8 p.m.
The Twisted Twin — Lifetime
9 p.m.
Fear Not With Iyanla Vanzant (series debut) — OWN
How to Train Your Husband — Hallmark
10 p.m.
Girlfriends Check In (series debut) — OWN
SUNDAY
American Idol
HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 8 p.m. on ABC
Season Finale
This finale may not have all the fanfare and flourish viewers are used to when American Idol crowns a new winner, but that doesn't mean the talent is any less deserving. Sunday's episode will start with the Top 7 becoming 5, who will then perform twice during the show and compete for America's real-time vote one last time this season. Aside from the competitors, Katy Perry will sing her new single "Daisies," and she'll join former Idols and fellow judges Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie for the first TV performance of "We Are the World" in 35 years. Which also feels like how long we've been isolating and sheltering in place, but I digress. —Gerrad Hall
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Hightown
HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 8 p.m. on Starz
Series Debut
Monica Raymund has left behind Chicago Fire’s Gabriela Dawson to embrace a darker and more complicated character in this new drama. In the show’s debut, the audience meets Jackie Quiñones, a hard-partying Marine Fisheries Agent who forgoes responsibility for nights filled with plenty of booze, drugs, and women. But after finding a dead body that washed ashore, her life spirals out of control. Can she get her life together before she loses it all? —Rosy Cordero
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Snowpiercer
HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 9 p.m. on TNT
Series Debut
This post-apocalyptic drama-thriller stars Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs and is set on the titular train, which endlessly travels around the globe after an attempt to solve the problem of climate change results in a lethal worldwide freeze. Connelly plays Melanie Caville, the train’s head of hospitality, while Daveed Diggs is Layton Well an ex-homicide cop and inhabitant of the train’s hellish tail who Caville recruits to solve a murder. “This show takes place seven years after humanity makes a desperate attempt to correct climate change,” says executive producer Graeme Manson (Orphan Black). “They attempt to cool the planet and that goes desperately wrong. One Elon Musk-type character predicts that this will fail and begins to build an ark, a train where approximately 4,000 people go around and around the world. Unfortunately, what is brought onto the train is class structure, and that is what the show is about.” —Clark Collis
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Supergirl
HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 9 p.m. on The CW
Season Finale
Even though Supergirl’s fifth season wasn’t supposed to end with “Immortal Kombat,” Chyler Leigh believes it’ll work as a solid finale. “It’ll end on a pretty good cliffhanger, as opposed to a lot of times with our seasons, we’ve ended with some more resolution,” Alex’s portrayer tells EW. “I think it’ll actually provide a lot of questions.” In the episode, which was directed by David Harewood, Supergirl teams up with Lena to take down Lex Luthor and Leviathan, a partnership that comes with “a lot of trepidation,” says Leigh. We’ll also get a glimpse at Alex’s new vigilante suit. “It’s definitely that kind of tingling sensation [that makes] you go, ‘Whoa, this is a whole new thing. Nobody’s going to see this coming,’” she says of putting on the suit for the first time. “I think everybody is going to pretty shocked and, hopefully, as stoked as I was.” —Chancellor Agard
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Taylor Swift City of Lover Concert
HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 10 p.m. on ABC
Don’t fret, Swifties — though her Lover Fest performances have been postponed (thanks, COVID!), Taylor Swift is still taking care of you. The Taylor Swift City of Lover Concert special utilizes footage shot at Swift's Sep. 9, 2019 performance at L’Olympia Theater in Paris. Fans who attended the concert at the time reported that she sang several songs off of her seventh studio album, Lover, including “Me!,” “Lover,” “The Man,” “Cornelia Street,” “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” “Daylight,” and “The Archer.” She also performed some of her older fan favorites, such as “Delicate,” “All Too Well,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” so it’s safe to assume the special will feature some of those songs as well, although we’ll have to tune in Sunday to find out for sure. And don’t worry, if you miss the first airing of the special on ABC, it will be available the next day to stream on both Disney+ and Hulu. —Lauren Huff
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What Else to Watch
Check local listings
Baptiste (season finale) — PBS
Call the Midwife (season finale) — PBS
7 p.m.
America's Funniest Home Videos (at home) — ABC
Little Big Shots — NBC
8 p.m.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta (Reunion, part 2) — Bravo
CBS Sunday Movie Night: Mission: Impossible — CBS
The Simpsons (season finale) — Fox
90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days — TLC
Private Lives of the Monarchs (season premiere) — Smithsonian Channel
8:30 p.m.
Duncanville (season finale) — Fox
9 p.m.
Belgravia (season finale) — Epix
Bob's Burgers (season finale) — Fox
The Last Dance (eps 9-10) — ESPN
Aurora Teagarden Mysteries: Heist and Seek — Hallmark Movies & Mysteries
I Know This Much Is True — HBO
9:30 p.m.
Family Guy (season finale) — Fox
10 p.m.
The Wall (special time) — NBC
10:30 p.m.
*times are ET and subject to change
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