Those Who Can’t heads back to school
Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Thursday, October 6. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars (Logo, 8 p.m.): Oliver Sava has always lived by a simple code: The family that drags together, stays together. So it’s a pretty crazy coincidence that tonight’s episode of Drag Race just happens to be called “Family That Drags Together.” What are the odds? Anyway, it’s down to the top five queens this week, so RuPaul decides to surprise them each with a visit from a family member. Family-centric episodes are a classic reality show staple designed to inject some pathos into the proceedings. Which means the queens (and Drag Race viewers) should definitely wear waterproof mascara tonight.
How To Get Away With Murder (ABC, 10 p.m.): Annalise presents a murder case to the Keating Five that even they find morally questionable. And given how many dubious things the Keating Five have gotten up to in the past two seasons, that’s no small feat. After finding the first two episodes of this season to be something of a rollercoaster in terms of quality, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya straps in for yet another wild and crazy HTGAWM adventure. Here’s hoping this episode is more of a peak than a valley.
Those Who Can’t (TruTV, 10:30 p.m.): Those Who Can’t returns for a second season tonight. Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl, and Ben Roy star as three trouble-making teachers at Smoot High, while Maria Thayer plays the slightly more practical school librarian. In her review of the show’s first season, Allison Shoemaker wrote:
So what, exactly, keeps Those Who Can’t from drowning in its own bitterness? It might be really down on education, and parenthood, and people, and the world, but it is utterly and unabashedly in love with jokes. Cayton-Holland, Orvedahl, and Roy lead a cast that’s committed to finding every last opportunity for a punchline… They’re like truffle pigs, rooting for humor, and they find it with a frequency that’s damn impressive. It’s not subtle, it’s not realistic, and it’s not reinventing the wheel. It’s just plain old funny—relentlessly, defiantly funny.
And in its second season, Those Who Can’t is set to mine more comedic set pieces from the appearance of SNL alum Cheri Oteri, who shakes things up as Smoot High’s new principal.