‘Inside Amy Schumer’ Returns, Familiar Face on ‘Grey’s,’ a Tree-Hugging

Paramount+

The Emmy-winning sketch comedy, which hasn’t produced new episodes since 2016, returns for a brief but brilliant run—two episodes this week, three more to follow—with a bold streak of feminist anger brewing beneath the hilarity. The opener begins with a psoriasis ad that turns bitter and builds to an inspired Hallmark holiday-movie parody featuring Ellie Kemper as the hedge-fund queen who returns to quaint hearth and home—only to remember what it was that made her flee in the first place. Guest stars include Bridget Everett, Olivia Munn and Grey’s Anatomy alum Jesse Williams as a hunk who catches Amy’s eye in a most unusual and pungent setting.

Scott Garfield / © ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection

When has this medical drama ever shied away from talking about sex? This week it’s front and center, as Bailey (Chandra Wilson) enlists the new group of interns to make a series of social-media videos about sexual health with high-schoolers in the audience. And who else has she brought along for her campaign? None other than Kate Walsh, making another return visit as the renowned Dr. Addison Montgomery.

CBS

You’re never so dead that you stop caring about the health of the planet. Or so it seems when Sasappis (Román Zaragoza) urges his human hosts to save an ancient tree their organic-farming neighbors (Saturday Night Live’s Punkie Johnson and Baroness Von Sketch Show’s Carolyn Taylor) are determined to cut down. Turns out the Native American ghost has a personal reason to keep the tree alive. But Thor (Devan Chandler Long) has his own reason for loudly championing the environment: It might help him win over his longtime crush, Flower (Sheila Carrasco).

Sonja Flemming/CBS

CSI franchise creator Anthony E. Zuiker pens an episode that’s a strong outing for returning original cast member Marg Helgenberger as Catherine Willows, who takes lead on an unusually disturbing case. Shades of In Cold Blood as an entire family is slaughtered, including a pregnant woman whose baby miraculously survives, which triggers in Catherine her need to reach out to her estranged daughter, Lindsey (Katie Stevens). She also mentors young CSI Penny (Sarah Gilman), who’s more shaken than she cares to admit by the carnage. Catherine’s sage advice: “The best thing you can do in a case like this is to work it so it doesn’t work you.”

Patrick Harbron/CBS

“We’re in the crazy times, aren’t we?” wonders Liz (Audra McDonald), stating a theme that has run throughout the terrific final season of the go-for-baroque legal drama. This overstuffed episode is a game-changer, with references to Russian sanctions, Buddhism, crypto currency and white supremacy amid the ever-present chaos of today’s politically polarized culture. Guest stars include Ally McBeal/Grey’s Anatomy alum Greg Germann, Sunday Morning contributor Mo Rocca (as a comedic clone of Tucker Carlson) and Broadway star Sherie Rene Scott as a judge who’s part of a special club with Julius (Michael Boatman).

Inside Thursday TV:

• V/H/S/99 (streaming on Shudder): Today’s Halloween horror pick looks back to 1999, when not everyone had adapted yet to DVDs and those bulky VHS cassettes still contained treasures—and possibly nightmares. A sequel to V/H/S/94, the streamer’s most-watched premiere in 2021, 99 features five new and exceedingly graphic stories of found-footage home-video frights on scratchy VHS tapes.
• So Help Me Todd (9/8c, CBS): Just picked up for a full first season, the legal dramedy finds the mother-son team of Margaret (Marcia Gay Harden) and Todd (Skylar Astin) working on behalf of an Olympic athlete who lost his leg when a defective aircraft crashed.
• Call Me Kat (9:30/8:30c, Fox): Will we be calling Kat (Mayim Bialik) “mommy” soon? Her new interest in motherhood leads to a search for a sperm donor, and her latest crush (United States of Al’s Parker Young) is a top prospect. Bialik’s The Big Bang Theory costar Kevin Sussman guests as the owner of a new board game-themed bar that’s competing with Carter (Julian Gant) and Max’s (Cheyenne Jackson) joint.
• One of Us Is Lying (streaming on Peacock): The YA thriller is back for a second season of high-school intrigue for the Bayview Four, whose Big Deadly Secret is in danger of being exposed by a mysterious tormentor known only as Simon Says.
• Hunting the Essex Lorry Killers (streaming on Topic): A true-crime documentary begins with the shocking discovery in 2019 of 39 Vietnamese migrants found dead in the back of a truck in the British county of Essex. The investigation led to the exposure of a human-smuggling ring. The film also travels to Vietnam to interview the victims’ grieving relatives.
• The Fastest Woman on Earth (streaming on HBO Max): Filmed over more than seven years, this inspirational documentary profiles extreme racer and TV personality Jessi Combs, who sacrificed relationships and ultimately her life to set land-speed records in a male-dominated field.

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