Four segments and a new character debut! The first segment sees the return of Erran Morad (now a sergeant) to consult businesses how to defend against the possibility of a terrorist attack in their offices. His mark for this segment is Shaun McCutcheon, of McCutcheon v. FEC, the case decided by the Supreme Court in 2014 that even further eliminated restrictions on campaign finance and corporate contributions. (America: Fuck yeah!)
McCutcheon is made to do fairly ridiculous things (it’s a nice treat when he hits his office-supply-disguise-hat on the cubicle), but coming two weeks after Jason Spencer took this conceit to a whole new level, it doesn’t have quite the same impact. Still, SBC manages to convince McCutcheon to dress as an Arabian Nights stereotype charming snakes, and this image of McCutcheon and his employee Zan will be hard to forget:
The second segment sees Dr. Nira visit David Pyne, Utah Republican Assembly National Director and an anti-pornography and abstinence-education activist; this one is mostly predictable, with probably the best turn in the first half being Dr. Nira’s attempts to reclaim the word “pedophile” to mean “one who loves children” (platonically, in healthy and normal ways). His insistence on referring to both of them as pedophiles by this new definition really grates on Pyne with time, as he finds himself constantly correcting Dr. Nira and asking not to be referred to that way.
The third segment features the return La Via Diamante di Gio, and though the fourth segment is going to be far more likely to be the one talked about around the water cooler or on social media, this is the one that really struck me as the most pointed segment. Gio talks to a yacht salesman and makes inquiries on behalf of a silent business partner– at first strongly hinted and then outright stated to be Bashar al-Assad– as to whether it’s a problem for the dealer to deal with someone like him (of course not), and then gets into the kind of amenities he wants aboard the yacht, like anti-aircraft guns, safe rooms, and, eventually inquires about trafficking women– wait, girls, as he emphasizes a few times. The salesman makes the point that “If the client has the money, we can make anything happen,” and this segment might have been the best thing on screen this year depicting the complete amorality of capitalism if Sorry to Bother You didn’t exist.
Oh yeah, and his assistant Christina gives him a handjob-leading-into-blowjob, to completion, under a blanket while Gio continues to converse with the salesman.
Speaking of handjobs and blowjobs, the next segment manages to get Joe Arpaio to say he would accept a “blow job” from Donald Trump. We’re treated to another new character, Finnish YouTube star OMGWhizzboyOMG, who apparently is famous for “unboxing”– literally unpackaging items, which I sadly learned is a real phenomenon among the vlogging world. (I also sadly learned the term “vlogging world.”)
The conversation steers sexual when Cohen uses the apparent language barrier and OMGWhizzboyOMG’s accent to refer to work as “hand jobs,” talking about how his first hand job was given to him by his mother, delivering newspapers (and asking Arpaio about his), asking if he could get a golden shower from Donald Trump (since, of course, Trump is so ruch) Not the most incisive segment, but Joe Arpaio is a sadist who thrives on humiliation, so it’s hard to think of a more deserving person to get humiliated on television.
Oh, OMGWhizzboyOMG also mentions that he has a stockpile of guns for “the coming race war,” and Arpaio is maybe a little uncomfortable but just sort of nods. If you want to talk political exposé by way of satire, that’s far more revealing than getting Arpaio to agree to accept a blow job from the president.
We conclude by returning to Dr. Nira and David Pyne, where our woke NPR liberal (this week’s tagline in his introduction: “I believe the world’s most dangerous chemical weapon is testosterone”) explains how he broke his son of pornography with the “smoke every last one of these cigarettes” method, and shows David his children’s book he wrote about what to do if your children discover pornography. It turns very graphic very quickly. Dr. Nira continues to offer to credit Pyne as his co-writer, an offer Pyne explicitly rejects, threatening a lawsuit if he does so. A pretty reasonable reaction to being offered co-author credit for a book you didn’t write containing a graphic depiction of rabbit bukkake. (Link extremely NSFW and possibly NSF human consumption in general)
The depths of fucked-up detail this show goes to almost have to be seen to be believed. A rabbit wife servicing her husband and his friends at a bukkake party while their children watch. What do you say to that other than, “What the hell is Sacha Baron Cohen going to come up with next?”
STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- The name of the yacht salesman is blacked out for the segment, but the closed captioning calls him “Eric.” That, uh, feels like it could be a legal problem for someone.
- SBC’s look as Gio in the header image weirdly reminds me of Ted Danson.
- The lengths this show goes to to create believable details: OMGWhizzboyOMG has a book on Amazon that was published October 23, 2016.
- On the other hand, the prosthetics on Erran and Dr. Nira looked even worse than usual.
- I rewatched the other three episodes today, and what struck me, with not having to be concerned about recapping them and not focusing on whether or not the show was effectively creating real-world change with its satire or whatever, was that it was just really funny. Even the segments I’d previously thought were less effective were hilarious, whether because of the reactions of people to Cohen’s characters, or the characters themselves.
- For any concerned reader who closely follows my recaps (hey, there might be one of you), the Detroiters review from this week will be up soon. I just thought it was more important to get this one out first.
- “I can’t say his name, but, ehm… he would be very As-sad if I told you his name. He is a very Syria-s guy, you know?”