Welcome to Now See This, THR chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg’s weekly viewer guide newsletter dedicated to cutting through the daunting clutter of the broadcast, cable and streaming TV landscape! Comments and suggestions welcome at daniel.fienberg@thr.com.

That's My Bush!

It's only been a few weeks since Stranger Things launched its fourth season and, with it, a Kate Bush renaissance. "A few weeks" is also how long it would take to watch the first seven episodes of Netflix's nostalgic coming-of-age pastiche ahead of the pair of season-closing installments that run a combined four hours and easily could have been split into four segments. Fortunately, and efficiently, everything I wrote in my initial season four review applies to the conclusion. These episodes are bigger and scarier and more ambitious than anything in the series before and, at the same time, they're clumsily paced and generally lacking in the show's trademark charm, though Joe Keery, Maya Hawke and Natalia Dyer try really hard. A warning: The finale, clocking in at 142 minutes, is unquestionably expansive and occasionally intense, but isn't nearly as brutal as the cast and creators have been promising in recent interviews.

Nathan's for You

Monday is July 4! That's just the sort of service journalism this newsletter was created for. You can celebrate your day off with programming staples like Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on ESPN, Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular on NBC, A Capitol Fourth 2022 on PBS or CMT's self-explanatory Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th special. Or you can celebrate the country that inspired all of the fireworks with Disney+’s new NatGeo-produced documentary series America the Beautiful. If that's not enough, you can just ring in the new year — that's what this holiday is, right? — with the classics, including John Adams on HBO and Hamilton  on Disney+. Remember what a big deal it was when Hamilton dropped two years ago at this time? Such a big deal!

The List Is Life

Amazon and Chris Pratt are celebrating the holiday weekend with The Terminal List, a dull and overextended combination of hollow, rah-rah patriotism and poorly plotted revenge. It's Pratt at his most leaden and self-serious and an overqualified supporting cast — from Constance Wu to Taylor Kitsch to JC Pardo to Jai Courtney to Riley Keough — that all plays like a subpar television version of The Expendables. Of course, if all you want are lists, might I recommend Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (HBO Max), The Blacklist (Peacock), Big Food Bucket List  (Hulu) or Peyton? There are TWO Peyton Lists. Not so Terminal at all!

'The Princess' and the Slog

The Terminal List is a 90-minute military propaganda feature stretched to eight hours. If you prefer your movies to actually be feature-length, Hulu's The Princess is one of the weekend's few new streaming options, featuring Gen-Z icon Joey King as a strong-willed princess who refuses to be a damsel in distress. Our Lovia Gyarkye correctly notes that this has been the plot line of roughly half of the movies Disney and Pixar have made in the past 15 years, deeming The Princess to be more conventional than it initially appears. My sense is that there should be very little overlap between  The Terminal List and The Princess, so three cheers for counterprogramming!

Stuck in the Middle With '22

We've passed the summer solstice and we're into July, which can only mean several things, one of which is: Best of 2022 at the Midpoint lists! Our esteemed team of film critics put together a list that includes several movies — After Yang, Turning Red — that are already available to stream or OnDemand. The TV list, assembled by Angie Han and yours truly, includes a solid mixture of returning favorites (Better Things,  Atlanta, Barry ) and new shows that are always worth checking out (like Pachinko and Severance). Angie and I discussed our respective favorites on last week's TV's Top 5 podcast.

This Week's THR Staff Pick

Senior copy editor Lisa de los Reyes raves about one of those shows from our Best of 2022 (So Far) list. She writes, "Lately, I’m not much for bingeing shows – I tend to need a break after an episode or two. But Barry  is the rare exception that has kept me clicking right through to the next episode every time. Picking up effortlessly where they left off three years after season two came out, Bill Hader and company have delivered another action-packed, A+ season. Hitman Barry (Hader) continues to walk the tightrope of killing criminals and bystanders alike while trying to navigate a normal life, and his girlfriend Sally (Sarah Goldberg) and acting mentor Gene Cousineau (the legendary Henry Winkler) face compelling dilemmas as they each start to grasp who he really is. Also, shout-out to Anthony Carrigan (as NoHo Hank) and D’Arcy Carden (as Natalie), who make me smile just by existing. Every time the credits roll, I wonder how a whole episode could have gone by already."