What to Watch This Week: June 14 to 19

From brooding werewolves to trusted father figures, we round up the top 10 shows to watch this week

1. 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? – Sunday, June 14, 5 p.m. & 9 p.m., TLC | Season Premiere

If it seems as though there are dozens of 90 Day Fiancé spinoffs airing on TLC, that’s kind of because there are. This one catches up with the couples to find out what happened with their relationships after their experiences on the original series. The new season kicks off with a bombastic two-hour episode airing immediately after a two-hour “Countdown to the New Season” special (at 3 p.m.) that offers a retrospective refresher on the couples who’ll be featured in this new season. Among those returning is Colt, whose brief marriage to Larissa can charitably be described as a dumpster fire atop a trainwreck.

2. I Know This Much Is True – Sunday, June 14, 8 p.m. & 11:15 p.m., HBO Canada | Series Finale

Prevailing Hollywood wisdom says the most interesting, ambitious, altogether satisfying stories are being told not on film but on TV these days. That’s no doubt how HBO lured three-time Oscar-nominee Mark Ruffalo to the small screen.

In this miniseries based on Wally Lamb’s harrowing novel, the erstwhile Incredible Hulk has been pulling double duty as twin brothers Thomas and Dominick Birdsey—one a dangerously unstable paranoid schizophrenic, the other more or less functional but suffering from PTSD.

Tonight, director Derek Cianfrance’s six-part exploration of their fraught bond wraps up, as Dominick has an explosive encounter with his stepfather. Later, a tragic turn sends him on a mission of reconciliation, at the end of which, “the question that has plagued Dominick all his life is finally answered.”

3. Insecure – Sunday, June 14, 9 p.m. & 12:15 a.m., HBO Canada | Season Finale

Issa et al. cap off season four this week, as Molly takes Andrew with her to a work function and the two end up at odds, before the entire gang receives some sad news about a friend. But chin up: in case you didn’t get the memo, the show will be returning for season five.

4. Roswell, New Mexico – Monday, June 15, 6 p.m. & Midnight, Showcase; 9 p.m., The CW | Season Finale

Given that The CW has picked up Roswell for a third season, don’t be surprised to see a shocking cliffhanger ending (and even a few fatalities) as the storylines involving the extraterrestrials and their human counterparts crash together.

5. Godfather of Harlem – Wednesday, June 17, 10 p.m., City

A scintillating real-life gangster saga has been unfolding on Canadian airwaves the past few weeks—that of Bumpy Johnson, the crime boss with a heart of gold who, in the 1960s, got out of prison to find his old Harlem neighbourhood in squalor, his territory now lorded over by the Italian mob. (We’re heading into episode seven this week; if you’d like to catch up, old episodes are available on demand or online via citytv.com)

In order to claw back his power and restore his community, Mr. Johnson (played by Oscar winner Forest Whitaker) has forged an alliance with civil-rights firebrand Malcolm X (Nigél Thatch), and over these past six episodes, Bumpy has gone about the messy business of eliminating rivals and consolidating power.

Tonight, his master plan reaches a tipping point, as Bumpy pits the Bonanno and Genovese crime families against each other. Meanwhile, Mayme and Elise team up to find the missing Margaret, Stella is forced to divulge a dark family secret and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. “feels the repercussions from his slander dispute.”

6. Love Life – Thursday, June 18, Crave (Streaming)

Anna Kendrick—in her first full-length scripted series—heads the cast of this new anthology series for the just-launched HBO Max streaming service. Since HBO Max is presently not available in Canada, some of the new streamer’s programming can be seen on Canadian streaming service Crave, including this one. Love Life is about the journey from first love to last love, and how the people we’re with along the way make us into who we are when we finally end up with someone forever. This fresh take on a romantic comedy anthology series comes from creator Sam Boyd, and will follow a different protagonist’s quest for love each season, with each half-hour episode telling the story of one of their relationships.

7. The Order – Thursday, June 18, Netflix | Season Premiere

Revenge is always tricky, but it’s especially so in a fantastical world of witches, warlocks and werewolves. Worse yet, as he continues trying to avenge his mother’s death, young Jake Manley and his friends must now also contend with that amnesia enchantment cast upon them (by a trusted ally, no less!) at the end of season one. The returning cast includes Adam DiMarco (SyFy’s The Magicians) and Vancouver’s Katharine Isabelle (NBC’s Hannibal), as can-she-be-trusted Chancellor Vera Stone.

8. Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn – Friday, June 19, 7 p.m. & 11:35 p.m., HBO Canada

Described by his own cousin as “the personification of evil,” lawyer Roy Cohn is best known these days for mentoring Donald Trump, and this new documentary delves into the life of the still-controversial figure.

9. Dads – Friday, June 19, Apple TV+

As the daughter of one of Hollywood’s most prominent directors, it’s no wonder Bryce Dallas Howard, having distinguished herself as an actress in films like The Help and Jurassic World, would eventually delve into directing. The fact that one of her first efforts behind the camera is a documentary about dads… well, that’s certainly fitting! Here, Howard talks to her father, Ron, as well as her brother Reed and her late grandfather, Rance, but she also chats with a wide variety of very funny celebs about their parenting experiences, including Will Smith, Patton Oswalt, Conan O’Brien and Neil Patrick Harris.

10. The Politician – Friday, June 19, Netflix | Season Premiere

Yes, Ryan Murphy fans, season two of The Politician is nigh, but it was touch-and-go there for awhile as to whether viewers would see it sooner or much, much later. Thankfully, Murphy’s satire about a high school student with plans to become the president of the United States managed to wrap up filming and editing just before the COVID-19 shutdowns.

If you watched the series’ first eight episodes, then you know the writers pulled a time jump at the end of season one, careening forward three years to catch up with Payton (Ben Platt) in post-secondary life at New York University; by the end of that finale, he’d thrown his hat into the ring as a candidate for state senate… running against Judith Light, no less! OK, not actually Judith Light, but her character: Dede Standish, the senate majority leader who—unbeknownst to Payton—is making plans to become vice president of the United States.

“The best thing about the season is the Ben Platt vs. Bette Midler [who plays Standish’s chief of staff] and Judith Light aspect,” Murphy told Collider. “It feels very topical. It’s sort of a story about baby boomers asking themselves, ‘Is it time for us to pass the power that we have onto the next generation or are they too dumb to figure it out yet?’ And I think you can see that battle playing out daily in our political landscape. It’s a very cutthroat race that they run. It feels much more adult, much more sexualized.”