‘Silo’s Descent into Mystery, Roasting Susie on ‘Mrs. Maisel,’ Taye Diggs Visits ‘S.W.A.T.,’ Padma Tastes the Nation (2024)

The sci-fi thriller Silo explores mysteries within a concrete bunker deep beneath the Earth’s surface, where 10,000 survivors uneasily coexist. An exceptional episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s final season provides essential answers during a Friars Club roast of mega-manager Susie Myerson. Taye Diggs guests on S.W.A.T. as Hondo’s former squad leader. A second season of Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi savors regional cuisines with the Top Chef host. A curated critical checklist of notable Friday TV:

Another week, another dystopia. And yet the 10-part Silo, adapted by Justified’s Graham Yost from Hugh Howey’s sci-fi trilogy, benefits from strong performances and an eerily claustrophobic yet expansive sense of place. The setting is a mysterious concrete bunker, 144 levels deep, that none of the 10,000 inhabitants know who or how it was built. (All history prior to a rebellion 140 years earlier has been erased.) They only know it’s best not to ask questions—and relics of the “before times” are forbidden, with the ultimate penalty being sent outside into a toxic environment. Or is it? Mysteries abound as engineer Juliette (Dune’s sinewy Rebecca Ferguson) ascends from the generator room to the upper echelon of law enforcement, with a goal to solve a series of puzzling murders while unearthing a dangerous truth. Launching with two episodes.

The best episode yet in the period comedy’s final season flashes forward three decades from the early 1960s to 1990, when now-legendary talent manager Susie Myerson (Emmy winner Alex Borstein) is treated—or, from her perspective, subjected—to a “testi-roastial” at the Friars Club from those who know, and fear, her best. Or, as Susie puts it, “A real who’s who of who gives a f—.” Former Gilmore Girls cast members Sean Gunn and Danny Strong are among the attendees, but the episode’s real draw are the reveals that help explain the estrangement of Susie and her greatest client, Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan). Can this professional relationship be saved?

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Series star Jay Harrington directs an episode that welcomes All American’s Taye Diggs as a special guest star. He’s Danny Wright, former Marine squad leader and close friend of Hondo (Shemar Moore), who offers his help when Danny’s daughter goes missing. The rest of the team stays busy tracking a crew involved in violent home robberies of elderly victims.

No one’s packing their knives in this succulent series, back for a second season of culinary exploration. Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi travels the USA, from Puerto Rico to South San Francisco, to savor regional cuisines: Nigerian food in Houston with Insecure’s Yvonne Orji, borscht in Brighton Beach and New York’s East Village, Greek specialties in Tarpon Springs, Florida, and halal during Ramadan in Dearborn, Michigan, among other stops.

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Arson at an NYPD evidence storage facility embroils Jamie (Will Estes), who works with the FDNY to find the firestarter. The blaze also destroyed crucial evidence against a cartel leader Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) took down, causing problems for him and Baez (Marisa Ramirez). And Eddie (Vanessa Ray) is feeling the heat after making a controversial arrest at an anti-police protest, asking Frank (Tom Selleck) to put her on modified duty.

Inside Friday TV:

• True Crime Watch: ABC’s 20/20 (9/8c) reaches back to 1990 and the bizarre murder of Marlene Warren in Florida, who was shot at point-blank range at her front door by someone in a clown costume. (Last month, the victim’s husband’s second wife pled guilty to the crime.) On Dateline NBC (9/8c), Keith Morrison revisits the 1997 murder in California of Ricky Cowles, Jr., whose 16-year-old girlfriend was charged with soliciting the crime after he got her pregnant.
• Fire Country (9/8c, CBS): An explosion at an abandoned mine keeps the fire crews on their toes, while Bode (Max Thieriot) has a tough decision to make.
• The Articulate Hour (9/8c and 10/9c, PBS): A provocative three-part series tackles deep subjects from the overlapping perspectives of art, culture and science. The first two episodes explore memory (with guests including musician Ben Folds, neuroscientist Lisa Genova and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gregory Pardio) and the human need for both connection and solitude (with participants including author Lee Child, folk musicians Rhiannon Giddons and Francesco Turrisi and journalist Sebastian Junger).

On the Stream:

• Harriet the Spy (streaming on Apple TV+): Beanie Feldstein returns as the voice of the spunky 11-year-old in the second season of the animated adaptation of Louise Fitzhugh’s beloved book. Also for family audiences, Apple adds more vintage Peanuts specials to its Peanuts Anthology, including the Emmy-winning Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown and You’re a Good Sport, Charlie Brown.
• The Great American Baking Show (streaming on The Roku Channel): Ellie Kemper and Zach Cherry are the hosts, with Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith the veteran judges, in a six-episode version of the global hit baking show, gathering contestants from across the country to vie for the title of America’s Best Amateur Baker.
• Citadel (streaming on Prime Video): More twists and turns in the third chapter of the propulsive, and at times deeply silly, spy thriller, with Bernard (Stanley Tucci) suffering under the questioning of Manticore boss Dahlia Archer (Lesley Manville) and Nadia (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) seeing Mason (Richard Madden) as a liability until he regains his super-spy skill set.