TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
The TCM Classic Film Festival home edition is over, but that doesn’t mean TCM is through offering clever program packages to its viewers. Jane Russell continues to be TCM’s Star of the Month, so Mondays in prime time are devoted to her movies. Tonight comes a Jane Russell double feature that’s also a Hair Color double feature: 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (co-starring Marilyn Monroe, whose musical standouts include her iconic “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number), followed at 10 p.m. ET by 1955’s Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, co-starring Jeanne Crain.
AMC, 9:00 p.m. ET
SEASON FINALE: We knew that Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill, a.k.a. Saul Goodman, couldn’t die in the desert two weeks ago. We also knew he couldn’t die when being threatened by a bigwig cartel thug last week. He has to survive, to be able to go on to his exploits as already dramatized in Breaking Bad. But Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler? Now Saul’s wife? That’s a completely different story. Kim was never even mentioned, much less seen, in Breaking Bad – and every week, as in last week, when she boldly stood up to said cartel thug, I worry about why. This is the season finale to what already has been announced as the penultimate season of Better Call Saul, and I’m afraid, sooner or later – maybe even tonight – Kim will meet a tragic and an untimely end. But another part of me hopes, almost beyond hope, that Kim merely gets fed up with one too many of Jimmy/Saul’s duplicitous moves, and walks away, safely, into the horizon. Why? Because Seehorn and Kim might just be the perfect actor and character on which to build an official continuation of this massively impressive TV saga. There’d be Breaking Bad; its prequel/sequel Better Call Saul; and, hypothetically, its full-out sequel, following Kim in whatever she’s doing in a post-Breaking Bad world. But first, she has to outlive Better Call Saul, and I’m not sure that’s going to be easy. Not with the company she’s keeping…
HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET
MINISERIES FINALE: This David Simon-Ed Gross TV miniseries version of the Philip Roth novel ends tonight. Spoiler Alert: If you read the novel, don’t expect things to end with one happy climax after another.
AMC, 10:25 p.m. ET
This is the penultimate episode of this series as well, which I don’t like to contemplate. After next week, it won’t be the same fabulous evening of television: no Better Call Saul, no The Plot Against America, and no Dispatches from Elsewhere. Oh, well. The Mamas & The Papas warned us, long ago: “Monday, Monday, so good to me / Monday morning, it was all I hoped it would be / Oh, Monday morning, Monday morning couldn’t guarantee / That Monday evening you would still be here with me…”