Entertainment News - TV

THIS ISSUE: BrainDead, UnReal, Guilt, Reign, The Late Late Show With James Corden TOP MOMENT OF THE NIGHT BrainDead Has Politics on the Brain CBS BECAUSE: Robert and Michelle King (aka, the bosses behind The Good Wife) are back, and with them they bring... itty bitty aliens? Their new CBS series BrainDead starts out simply enough -- "In the year 2016, there was a growing sense that people were losing their minds" -- but it's quickly revealed that, at least among the politicians of Washington, D.C., those minds have gone rogue because their brains are being eaten by space bugs and replaced with pink sludge. Sure, we miss Alicia and the gang, but color us intrigued.

UnREAL Lifetime WHAT HAPPENED: Toward the end of Monday's episode of UnREAL, Romeo tells Rachel, "As far as I can tell, everyone is manipulating everyone" -- so at least this guy gets it. Quinn and Chet are even more at odds than usual, disagreeing about the direction the season 14 premiere should take, so they spend the episode filming completely different shows that they plan to take to present to the network. That means Rachel is out of the boss' chair and back on manipulation duty, convincing Beth Ann the Racist to wear her confederate flag bikini while Ruby the Black Activist dons an "I Can't Breathe" tee over her bikini in return. And how does Chet retaliate? By having Quinn's "wifey" contestant sex up Romeo in the bathroom for his new version of the show,EverBLASTING, but of course. Tired of her demotion, Rachel rats Chet and Quinn out to Gary thinking it will put her back in the showrunner's seat, but instead he sends in new blood with EP Coleman Wasserman. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: Happy endings don't come easy on UnREAL, do they? Oh, and did we mention -- in addition to Rachel, "slinking back into her dirty-hair, kicked-puppy role and giving even more momentum to the lopsided tilt-a-whirl that is [her and Quinn's] abusive relationship," as YahooTV says, her dear mother has also gifted her with a brand new set of purse pills. Rachel is getting pushed from all angles, and considering that her mentor is floating out lines like, "Maybe your mother was right... you're great until you're not," (hey, remember what Romeo said about manipulation?) a meltdown doesn't seem far off. Plus, regarding Rachel and Coleman's little bonding moment at the end of the episode, YahooTV has a prediction: "Because it will be a very bad decision for Rachel to get involved with this man, I predict it will happen VERY soon."

Guilt Freeform WHAT HAPPENED: Freeform's new series Guilt really isn't kidding around with that one-word title. Sure, American-in-London Grace Atwood has eyes that are the very widest, her demeanor, ever so innocent, but she's got a roommate, Molly, with 17 stabs to the gut to account for, and her only alibi is that she was getting busy on the roof with her French boyfriend, high on a number of mind-altering substances. And then there's that bloody footprint by the body. Boyfriend Luc doesn’t have a footprint, but there is video footage of him getting frisky on the dance floor with Molly the night of her murder. This is probably a good time to mention that Molly was actually pregnant, potentially by someone named -- not kidding -- Prince Theo, plus there's Grace's sketchy step-dad, whose scarf her sister nabbed from the scene of the crime. Needless to say, EW recapper Amanda Bell's Guilt-O-Meter is spinning off the charts, and Guilt is positioned to spend the season living up to its name. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: But Variety isn't quite sure Freeform's new series is up to the task: "Summer’s the right time for a potboiler that involvespretty people, murder, and the English aristocracy, but the London-set Guiltnever quite knits an array of reasonably promising elements into a watchable warm-weather melodrama." The most promising of those elements they declare are the acting wells of key cast members Anthony Stewart Head (real-life father of Daisy Head who plays not real daughter, Grace, on the show) and Billy Zane. But Variety found that even Zane's "deliciously shady lawyer" wasn't quite enough to elevate Guilt above "the rote superficiality of lesser ripped-from-the-headlines Law and Order episodes." But hey, maybe that means Guilt is destined for a similar fate: getting binge-watched on "sick days."

Reign The CW WHAT HAPPENED: We've got a feeling that Reign 's little adventure to Scotland is going to be fun. Mary and Bash -- er, Pauline and Pierre -- are making their way to the infamous Munro and the Land of Clan McPhee, to which EW recapper Maggie Fremont says, "Sure, it’s cold, wet, and all of its inhabitants are inflicted with resting bitch face, but these people sure know how to party!" Indeed they do, and flirt too, which is what Mary and Munro get down to, each trying to get their way, but in the end, Mary stabs Munro with a necklace and then with the reclaimed sword Frances once gave her. Like we said: Scotland -- fun! Even more fun: Bash and Mary galloping back to Edinburgh just in time to prevent some dummy named John Knox from influencing Mary's half-brother to dissolve the monarchy, and Mary marching into the castle covered in blood, declaring, "I am Mary, Queen of Scots, and I have come for my throne." WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: And all that bad-assery is without even mentioning other bad-ass queen Catherine. And that's because Reign is fully leaning into the separation of their show's two most interesting characters. As the A.V. Club says, "The narrative question in Reign splitting up its queens is how it would balance their stories. [Monday's episode] tackles it head-on, putting each queen in crisis, making her fight her way through, and leaving it to us to decide who wins." And that dramatic ending might seem to declare Mary (Queen of Scots -- did you know?) the winner, but the A.V. Club insists it's a little more complicated than that: "The amount of serendipity required to give [Mary] this victory and a smooth reclaiming of the throne feels a little neat in comparison to Catherine’s dirty fighting and Elizabeth’s careful maneuvers. Mary risked her crown to satisfy her personal feelings; one imagines that will come back to haunt her."

One More Thing...

Carpool Karaoke in RHCP's Lane CBS CLOTHES OPTIONAL: Monday brought The Late Late Show With James Corden's latest installment of Carpool Karaoke, and we'll just tell you this much: There's a wrestling match on someone's lawn, a rendition of "Food Glorious Food" from Oliver!, and a trio of shirtless gents.