Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King (2017)

Hasan Minhaj was always my favorite correspondent on The Daily Show, so it’s only fitting that, since there’s no News Satire Roundup this week and the show’s last new episode featured his goodbye piece, I should review his standup special.  This is a special that fell through a “so much good stuff to watch, so little time” crack for me, even though I’d heard nothing but great things about it, and I’m glad to have (finally) gotten around to seeing it.

This was my first time seeing Hasan perform outside of The Daily Show or things like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  I like that, taking a comedian that you’ve only seen within a very specific context and then seeing what they’re like when they’re calling all the shots.  Obviously, aspects of his overall vibe and performance style remain the same, but it’s cool to see how he’s different in a standup context.

This is such well-put-together standup.  There’s the fact that Hasan has come armed with family photos, rudimentary charts, key Hindi phrases, old social media messages, and national spelling bee footage, all projected onto the wall behind him, but it’s more than that.  It’s the construction of the entire piece.  The anecdotes and routines flow effortlessly into one another – really, it feels like one continuous story, following a natural progression and featuring numerous callbacks and full-circle moments.  Hasan begins with his immigrant parents and his upbringing, spinning us a tale of conditional love, racism, prom dates, and professional struggles/successes, straddling that millennial dichotomy of being raised on dial-up and coming of age with social media.

Hasan makes an early observation that every conversation with his father is like “an M. Night Shyamalan movie” (because immigrant parents love secrets,) and there’s an aspect of that to his standup as well.  His stories are peppered with twists – not just the usual deployment of comic surprise but genuine “can you believe this shit?!” moments from his life, along with sudden changes in tone as his accounts flit from hilarious to sobering and back again.

As for the content, there’s so much amazing stuff here.  I won’t spoil any of the big twists in the stories, but I’ll hit on some of my favorite non-spoilery parts of the special.  Hasan’s earliest birthday memory with his immigrant father.  His explanation of the phrase “log kya kyenge,” which causes a star to fall from the sky every time it’s uttered.  His riff on older and younger siblings.  Watching his father sweep up broken glass from the hate crime committed outside their home after 9/11, especially looking at their different reactions to what happened – his father expecting to pay the “American dream tax,” racism in exchange for opportunity, while the American-born Hasan has the “audacity” to expect equality.  The turn of events taken in adulthood with Bethany Reed.  His experience of meeting John Stewart for the first time.

So, so awesome.  I’m going to miss Hasan on The Daily Show, but I know he’s got more stuff of his own lined up, so good for him.

Warnings

Language (including racial slurs,) sexual references, references to violence, and strong thematic elements.

The Book of Rannells: The New Normal: Season 1, Episode 1 – “Pilot” (2012)

I still wince a little when I watch this show, because it could’ve been a lot better than it was.  As it is, it’s uneven – sometimes cute, sometimes awkward, sometimes grating, sometimes magnificent.  Still, watching it again reminds of how much potential it really had.

Bryan shocks his partner David by coming home one day and announcing he wants them to have a baby.  The two guys mull over the issue, especially David, even as they begin moving forward and making plans.  As they’re in the process of figuring out how to create a family, fate brings them into contact with Goldie, a young single mother from Ohio who’s ready to change her and her daughter’s life, which she’d be able to do with the money she’d get from being a surrogate for David and Bryan.  Matters get complicated when Jane, Goldie’s bigoted nana, arrives on the scene spouting homophobic venom, but the little clan forges ahead.

I already did a write-up of this show as a whole, and many of the issues I pegged there hold particularly true in the pilot.  There’s an off-kilter tone as the show veers from Jane’s pointedly-cruel offensiveness to other moments so sweet they could induce a toothache.  Also, there’s some general sloppiness.  Bryan’s “let’s have kids!” epiphany goes from 0 to 60 in about two seconds, and it’s unclear how long the guys spend working towards things before they meet Goldie and co. – there are a few indicators that a decent length of time is going by, but at other times, it feels like no more than a few days.

But there’s great stuff, too, of both the humorous and the heartening variety.  I like Bryan and David’s sweet chemistry together, especially the scenes of them talking cozily in bed, and there are some pretty funny one-liners.  Justin Bartha is terrific as solid, good-guy David, and Georgia King brings a soft earnestness to Goldie.

As Bryan, Andrew Rannells is already at work breathing much more life into this character than he might have had.  Bryan has a moderate case of pilot characterization and hasn’t quite settled into who he’s going to be yet – the episode leans fairly hard into his materialistic/frivolous side, with things like thinking he can order up “a skinny blond child who never cries.”  Not that Bryan can’t be materialistic or frivolous – because he is, certainly – but the pilot turns the dial a little too far in that direction.

But even here, Rannells is mining Bryan for all he’s worth.  He plays the sillier stuff to perfection – I find that he has a talent for selling utterly-ridiculous lines with complete sincerity, and in this episode, he pulls that off with the excellent phrase “womb terrorist” and the confession, “I faint at the sight of vaginas; they’re like tarantula faces.”  He plays Bryan’s vanity and shallowness as well as his heart and sensitivity, allowing room for Bryan to be all of that.  Watching as his face as he imagines his child calling him “daddy” is a genuine pleasure.

Recommend?

In General – A cautious maybe.  I feel like, if you go in knowing it’s uneven, you can still appreciate it for its truly-good parts.

Andrew Rannells – Yes.  Rannells does a great job here, where Bryan’s characterization is still a little wonky, and this is one instance where I’ll jump ahead a bit and I say I know it gets even better from here.

Warnings

Language (including homophobic/racist insults,) sexual content, drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.

Favorite Characters: John McIver a.k.a. Bushmaster (Luke Cage)

Luke Cage’s first season had a couple of strong villains in Cottonmouth and Mariah, as well as a not-so-good one in Diamondback, but the overall effect of juggling several villains over the season made it feel a little scattered and unfocused at times.  Season 2 also has multiple villains – with Mariah returning and a new addition in John McIver, better known as Bushmaster – and the balance this time feels a little better to me.  I really enjoy what Bushmaster brings to the mix (a few Bushmaster-related spoilers.)

When you get down to it, the Netflix branch of Marvel doesn’t have a ton of villains that lend themselves well to traditional superhero showdowns.  Characters like Fisk, Gao, Kilgrave, and, yes, Mariah, are certainly compelling, formidable adversaries for our heroes, and they’re great to watch, but they also typically prefer to work through other people, having henchmen/lieutenants/pawns handle the fighting.  This is one of the first strengths of Bushmaster as a character.

While Bushmaster’s powers come from a different source than Luke’s, he too has super strength and some healing ability.  A native of Jamaica, Bushmaster started using nightshade at a young age to help him heal and advance his strength – the first time, it was a last-ditch effort to save his life, but since then, it’s been for the power it gives him.  As such, he can withstand a lot of the same attacks that don’t phase Luke – for instance, he’s not bulletproof, but he can power through the pain of getting shot, pluck the bullets out of his skin after the fight is over, and wait a short time for the wounds to heal.  Similarly, Bushmaster may not be able to pierce Luke’s skin more than anything else can, but he packs enough of a punch that he can cause internal damage beneath Luke’s impervious outsides.

This gives Luke some real fights to take part in, and it’s a pleasure to watch Bushmaster in action.  He’s fast, sleek, and deadly, with the moves and the skill to back up the extra juice the nightshade gives him.  For once, Luke can’t just push his way through or patiently wait for the baddies to empty their magazines – Bushmaster can put him in some real danger.

A not-uncommon theme in stories about superpowers, especially when we’re talking supervillains, is the idea that their powers come at a cost.  I mean, how many mad scientists have been horribly disfigured by the accident that gave them their powers, or how many villains’ powers cause mental instability?  (There’s a fair amount of ableism in that trope, but I’m not getting into it today.)  In Bushmaster’s case, his abuse of nightshade is predictably taking its toll.  Like any other powerful substance, it grows less effective over time as his body builds a tolerance to it, but the more he takes, the bigger the comedown is as it wears off; though he’s more powerful than he’s ever been, he’s shortening his life with every dose.

Additionally, Bushmaster is just a good wildcard to throw into the proceedings.  He likes Mariah even less than he likes Luke, due to a longstanding vendetta between their families, and he causes some major shakeups in the criminal underworld.  You can never quite predict what he’s gonna do or how far he’s gonna go, which pretty much always makes for good television.