Reacher’s New Mission, Ted Lasso Back in Richmond, Charles Manson Tapes, Apple’s ‘Women in Blue’

Reacher

“I’m good at not letting people get away with things,” is how Lee Child‘s iconic action hero Reacher (Alan Ritchson) tersely explains his latest mission, after the hit series’ fourth season opens with a violent incident aboard a Philadelphia subway train. Even in the City of Brotherly Love, Reacher finds himself leading with his formidable fists when he’s pursued by mercenaries, feds, and shady CIA agents who all assume he knows more about the messy situation than he does. His new entourage includes Tamara (Sydelle Noel), a local Philly detective, renegade journalist Russell Plum (Alias‘ Kevin Weisman), small-town cop Jacob (Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette), who’s way over his head, and the alluring Lila (Agnez Mo), whose crusade against an ambitious congressman (Marc Blucas) stirs up several weeks’ worth of bone-crunching mayhem. The season opens with three episodes.

Ted Lasso

Ted Lasso’s (Jason Sudeikis) sunny personality can win over just about everybody — but he may have met his match in Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds), most recently seen as the haughty Caroline Bingley in The Other Bennet Sister), who’s been acting as interim coach of AFC Richmond’s fledgling women’s team. Sullen, intense, and peeved when Ted is brought back from the States to take over the squad, Coach Chilton confronts team owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), asking, “Did you consider any woman?” While a fretful Rebecca worries about her feminism bona fides, Ted reunites with Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) and player-turned-men’s coach Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and gets to know his new team, whose amenities leave much to be desired. Can he make them “believe?” If Ted can’t lift their morale, no one can.

Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes

The final installment of Joe Berlinger‘s Conversations with a Killer franchise focuses on Charles Manson, the cult leader responsible for the “Helter Skelter” killing spree in the late 1960s that continues to haunt Hollywood pop culture and the true-crime industry decades later. Featuring newly released recordings of Manson’s phone calls from prison and interviews with surviving members of his so-called “family,” the three-part docuseries explores how he was able to indoctrinate young members of the “flower power” generation to do his deadly bidding. “That’s always what the devil does,” Manson gloats. “He’ll never let you know what he’s thinking. He puts on your face and plays you back to yourself.” This is truly the face of evil.

Women in Blue

Set in the early 1970s, when women police officers were still a novelty, this entertaining crime drama from Mexico returns for a second season, with María (Bárbara Mori) promoted to lieutenant but still fighting with the rest of her all-female unit to be taken seriously. Their new case involves the murder of a student activist that may be connected to the military’s student massacre of 1968. Defying their bosses to pursue leads that could expose institutional corruption, these women in blue risk their careers and maybe their well-being.

The Shards

Another student goes missing, rattling the privileged upper-class students of Ryan Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis‘s ghoulish and glossy 1980s melodrama. In back-to-back episodes, teenage Bret (Igby Rigney) follows a hunch all the way to Cielo Drive in the Hollywood Hills, site of the infamous Manson Family massacre that claimed starlet Sharon Tate. Things come to a head at a lavish party thrown to welcome newcomer Robert Mallory (Homer Gere), where these poor little rich kids act out in bizarre ways while an even stranger danger intrudes on their decadent fun.

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV:

ON THE STREAM: