Suburgatory ends season with 2 episodes
Suburgatory has always toiled in the shadow of its more famous companion — Modern Family. Suburgatory has its moments, though, thanks to Jane Levy’s wry, low-key portrayal of a big-city 16-yearold annoyed that her single father uprooted their broken family and moved it to the suburbs. Her dad, played by Jeremy Sisto, made the move thinking that suburbia is a safer, more age-appropriate place to raise a difficult teenage daughter than the big city, with all its distractions and temptations.
The mood has changed, though, as Suburgatory ends its sophomore season with back-to-back episodes tonight. The daughter has become the parent in some ways, and now it’s George (Sisto), the single dad, who’s pining for a return to the past, and Tessa (Levy), the more mature daughter, who’s learned to appreciate her simpler life in the burbs. In the first episode, George tries to think of a way to tell Tessa that he’s sold their house and decided to move in with the new woman in his life and combine residences and resources — every teen’s nightmare.
In the second episode, the official season finale, George goes ahead and buys a new house, even though his carefully laid plan to tell his daughter didn’t go quite as expected. Suburgatory can be wryly amusing at times, thanks in no small part to Levy. Levy conveys a laconic, laid-back drollness unusual in young actors.
Suburgatory has not been officially renewed for a third season, but renewal seems likely. (8 p.m., ABC, Citytv)
Justified, one of television’s finest hours, ends its fourth season with a low-key and unexpectedly contemplative finale — unexpected, given some of the high-octane episodes that preceded it — but in this case, low-key and contemplative is exactly right. The emphasis is on Raylan Givens’ (Timothy Olyphant) inability to come to terms with his past. He’s a cool customer, but that coolness hides a tragic character.
The end is both a fitting conclusion to Justified’s arguably finest season, and a prelude and setup to the fifth season, confirmed for January. (9 p.m., Super Channel)
Mr. D ends its sophomore season with Gerry Duncan (Gerry Dee) offering to coach the school’s girls’ basketball team through the playoffs, to prove he can handle his own team next year. There will be a next year, too: CBC recently renewed Mr. D for a third term. (8 p.m., CBC)
The odds have flipped, though not dramatically, for American Idol’s Top 5 performance show.
The new Idol front-runner is Nashville demo singer Kree Harrison, followed by Candice Glover, who won the judges’ unanimous praise with last week’s show-ending, show-stopping rendition of The Cure’s Lovesong.
Season-long front-runner Angie Miller has dropped to third, in the odds-makers books.
One prediction has run true to form, though. Following last week’s elimination of Lazaro Arbos, the remaining five singers are all female. (8 p.m., Fox, CTV)