Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Monday, February 20. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
Bates Motel (A&E, 10 p.m.): Bates Motel’s fifth season premiere is a “Dark Paradise.” According to the episode synopsis, “Norman tries to keep up appearances despite a troubling discovery; Dylan and Emma receive a surprise guest.” It’s the beginning of the end for Bates Motel, and Alex McCown-Levy is ready to take that morbid ride.
Timeless (NBC, 10 p.m.): Timeless certainly knows how to end a first season: with “The Red Scare.” “With one of our heroes’ lives on the line, the team chases Flynn to 1954 through the paranoid corridors of Joe McCarthy’s (guest star Spencer Garrett) Washington, D.C., en route to a secret, once-a-generation meeting of Rittenhouse leaders. While there, Lucy must wager the ultimate sacrifice to save history as we know it.” Allison Shoemaker just wants someone to ask: “Are you now or have you ever been Rittenhouse?”
Billy On The Street (TruTV, 10 p.m.): This “special presentation” of Billy On The Street is all about “Political Comedy!” The exclamation point makes it extra special. TruTV is actually airing a mini-marathon (two hours of episodes hand-picked by Billy Eichner) of Billy On The Street, starting with this compilation episode of the fifth season’s most “politically charged segments.”
Premieres and finales
Unlocking The Cage (HBO, 8 p.m.): You like animals? Well this HBO documentary is all about animals, specifically “animal-rights lawyer Steven Wise and his Nonhuman Rights Project”: “Wise and his team endeavor to provide limited personhood rights for relatively intelligent animals such as chimpanzees, whales and elephants, which would protect the creatures against captivity and abuse.”
The Talk: Race in America (PBS, 8 p.m.): This PBS documentary explores “how parents of color often feel compelled to explain to their kids, especially sons, about how to behave if they’re stopped by the police.”
Fast N’ Loud (Discovery Channel, 8 p.m.): The 100th episode of Fast N’ Loud is just as fast n’ loud as the rest of the series. Just look at the episode title: “The Vomit Comet.” “With Aaron on vacation, Richard tasks the guys with giving the Gas Monkey treatment to the first car he ever owned back in high school, a vomit green ’74 Mercury Comet.” See? A literally vomit Comet.