Empire building

The ice water that ran through Michael Corleone's veins also flows through the lead characters of "Narcos: Mexico," the latest chapter of the heart-pounding series that explores both sides of the drug wars. Michael Peña, playing an ambitious DEA agent, and Diego Luna, as an equally ambitious drug lord, are stone-cold brilliant in this 1980s-set season that plays cops and robbers better than anything else on TV.

Now streaming on Netflix

All hail the queen

PBS and Washington, D.C., are not known for letting their hair down, but the stuffy institutions are nonjudgmental hosts for "Julia Louis-Dreyfus: The Mark Twain Prize." That means viewers can watch Keegan-Michael Key make a killer Bill Cosby joke and Larry David suggest that his former "Seinfeld" star faked getting cancer to draw sympathy from Kennedy Center judges, both without bleeps. Louis-Dreyfus, naturally, steals the show with an acceptance speech that graciously includes a snippet of the Elaine dance.

8 p.m., TPT, Ch. 2

Beat it

The team behind the award-winning adaptation of John le Carré's "The Night Manager" turns its attention to the author's "The Little Drummer Girl," which will attempt to erase the memory of Diane Keaton's off-rhythm 1984 feature film. Alexander Skarsgård ("Big Little Lies") and Michael Sheen ("Frost/Nixon") are among the actors playing the spy game.

8 p.m., AMC

Neal Justin