A Billy Joel Milestone, Robert Downey Jr. Times Four in HBO’s ‘Sympathizer,’ TCM’s 30th Anniversary Marathon, Salman Rushdie on ’60 Minutes’

SUNDAY: Get in a New York state of mind, because Billy Joel certainly is. The musician’s landmark residency at New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden has been a sensation for the last decade, and before calling it quits in July, he recorded his milestone 100^th concert (on March 28) for a prime-time broadcast special. Special guests include Sting, performing several hits, and Jerry Seinfeld, helping celebrate the event, but the draw is watching the Piano Man in action, bringing down the historic house.

SUNDAY: Come for the stunt, to marvel at the versatility of Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer) inhabiting multiple extravagant roles, recalling Peter Sellers’ tour de force in Dr. Strangelove. Stay for the suspenseful saga of an unnamed half-Vietnamese, half-French antihero known only as the Captain (a boyish Hoa Xuande) who describes himself as “a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces … cursed to see every issue from both sides.” The Captain is a Communist “sympathizer,” secretly working for the North Vietnamese as a mole in the employ of a delusional South Vietnamese general. Downey makes his first appearance as a manipulative CIA agent in the turbulent days leading to the fall of Saigon—memorably re-created during a harrowing an explosive evacuation sequence. (See the full review.)

Special

SUNDAY: The essential haven for vintage movie lovers marks its 30^th anniversary of the day of TCM’s 1994 launch with a 24-hour salute to the channel’s original prime-time host and anchor, the late Robert Osborne. Every movie features Osborne’s introductions, starting overnight with 1950s noir classic The Breaking Point, alongside Noir Alley’s Eddie Muller. Through the day, current TCM personalities provide context to Osborne’s contributions to TCM, with a Private Screenings special at 6:30/5:30c and his 20^th anniversary tribute airing overnight Sunday at 1:30 am/12:30c. The prime-time highlight is 1939’s epic Gone with the Wind(8/7c), the first film ever shown on TCM, this screening including cultural context from Ben Mankiewicz.

SUNDAY: Following Masters Golf Tournament, Anderson Cooper conducts the first TV interview with acclaimed novelist Salman Rushdie since surviving a brutal attack in 2022 at a literary festival in which he was stabbed 15 times and lost his right eye. Rushdie, whose new book Knife addresses the incident, discusses his life after Iran’s religious fatwa called for his death following the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988. Other segments include Bill Whitaker’s report on a hacker attack on Las Vegas hotels and casinos, and Jon Wertheim’s search for the Tasmanian tiger on the Australian island.

SATURDAY: He charmingly crashed Kristen Wiig’s Five-Timers Club celebration last week, and he’s still got a way to go before earning his own jacket. But any time Ryan Gosling, Barbie’s Ken and the star of the upcoming The Fall Guy, shows up on the late-night sketch comedy show, it’s an event. For his third appearance as guest host, he’s joined by country superstar Chris Stapleton, also on his third round as musical guest.

SUNDAY: The second episode of the stirring Masterpiece docudrama introduces more U.K. postmasters whose lives were ruined when the post office wrongly accused them of theft. Enter forensic accountant Bob Rutherford (Ian Hart), who’s moved to tears by these working-class victims’ plight: “The more of you people I meet, the less I know how you’re all still standing.” The fight is just beginning.

SUNDAY: After the violent ambush on Tongai family head “the Horse” (Zackary Momoh), a resourceful Grey (Giancarlo Esposito) takes refuge while taking stock of the peril into which he’s put himself and his worried family. Two alums from The Handmaid’s Tale make their first appearances: Bradley Whitford as Anton, a shady businessman behind the hit on the Tongai crime family, and Amanda Brugel as Sister Anne, an acquaintance of Gray’s whose compassion overrides her dismay over his latest bloody dilemma.

INSIDE WEEKEND TV:

• Saturday Night at the Movies: Hallmark Channel’s Legend of the Lost Locket (8/7c) stars Natasha Burnett as an antiques expert hunting for a magical locket that promises true love. This might have come in handy for the title character of Lifetime’s Secret Life of the Pastor’s Wife(8/7), starring Jennings Rice as a charismatic preacher’s neglected wife, who finds comfort with the pool boy.
• 48 Hours (Saturday, 10/9c, CBS): Peter Van Sant reports on the 2013 disappearance and murder of Minnesota mother Madeline “Maddi” Kingsbury and the two-month search for Maddi led on social media by her sister Megan.
• Bluey (Sunday, 7:30 am/6:30c, Disney Channel, streaming on Disney+): The beloved Outback-set cartoon about a family of blue heeler dogs presents its first full-length special, “The Sign.”
• 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing (Sunday, 8/7c, Food Network): The cooking equivalent of a dance-a-thon kicks off with 24 chefs attempting to create 24 dishes in 24 hours, nonstop.
• Far Haven (Sunday, 9/8c, INSP): Longmire’s Bailey Chase stars in a Western as a wrongfully convicted father who returns home from jail in 1887 to start over but ends up leading a war against bandits and local corruption.
• Secrets of the Hell’s Angels (Sunday, 10/9c, A&E): A docuseries detailing the violent history of the biker gang opens with the account of undercover ATF agents who infiltrated the group.