Odd ‘Elvis’ leaves the building

The two-part “Elvis” (7 p.m., CBS) miniseries wraps up on a mythic note, a steaming hot serving of American Faust with a little Memphis-fried Oedipus on the side. After the death of his mother, Gladys (Camryn Manheim), Elvis falls for a 14-year-old girl. He keeps Priscilla (Antonia Bernath) around like a hothouse orchid, only marrying her nine years later. Much of her appeal is in her resemblance to the King’s dear, dead mom.

Colonel Parker’s (Randy Quaid) hold on Elvis only grows stronger as Presley’s musical career wanes. He scuttles a budding romance with “Viva Las Vegas” co-star Ann-Margret (Rose McGowan in a travesty of an impersonation) and ruins Elvis’s chances to appear in serious films, including “West Side Story.”

Doomed to appear in a parade of cinematic piffle such as “Clambake” and “Harum Scarum,” and increasingly addled by pills, Presley turns to self-help books and home-cooked religion. A scene of Elvis pouring his heart out to a philosophical hairdresser is among the more bizarre in this Passion Play. But even this is topped when the Colonel, frightened by his protege’s religious “kick,” organizes a backyard book-burning of bibles and tracts.

“Elvis” concludes with Presley’s popular 1968 TV comeback special. This spares us his twilight years of jumpsuits and obesity. But it also robs us of the film’s essential third act — the sad, logical conclusion to the Colonel’s demonic possession, Presley’s creative claustrophobia and the fetid moral milieu. Bereft of healthy outside influences, surrounded by his high school posse and dissatisfied with his child bride, the King hunkered down in the gaudy desert bunkers of Las Vegas. The public was invited to visit him in his musical tombs, but as we all know, death was the only way Elvis could leave the building.

Tonight’s other highlights

  • Kate’s back pages on “Lost” (7 p.m., ABC).
  • A crypt in Prague may yield satanic secrets on “Revelations” (8 p.m., NBC). With so much travel, this religious-themed drama has become more “Amazing Race” than “Amazing Grace.”
  • The votes are tallied on “American Idol” (8 p.m., Fox).
  • “Breaking the Da Vinci Code” (8 p.m., PAX) explores the controversial claims of a popular novel