A Black Lady Sketch Show season 1 episode 2 recap: Your Boss Knows You Don’t Have Eyebrows

Episode two of A Black Lady Sketch Show continues to cleverly combine comedy with important topics and the horror genre.

It’s back to the end of the world to start the second episode of A Black Lady Sketch Show. But now, it’s mere minutes after “the event.” Gabrielle Dennis, Robin Thede, Quinta Brunson and Ashley Nicole Black all sit around drinking champagne, celebrating being the last four people on earth.

Turns out, Thede invited them all over for the end of the world and they came because they’re friends. They never actually thought she’d be right. They take turns going through the bags they each brought and ridiculing their end of the world packing choices (including Thede with all medical supplies and medication and Brunson with all…less legal drugs).

This results in a segment with the four women discussing the lengths black women go to to protect and maintain their hair. Black has an arsenal of hair care products in her bag, but doesn’t use a head scarf when she sleeps which the others find outrageous.

Eventually Brunson steps up and says they shouldn’t force their idea of blackness on her. This leads to a nice moment when each woman admits to something that could fit into a stereotype of being black that they actually don’t do—like Brunson admits she doesn’t eat chicken.

The heart to heart ends when Dennis says she doesn’t use lotion and the other three women just walk away from her.

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No Makeup

The first sketch of this episode is a dark, hilarious take on judgements placed on women surrounding makeup. Centered around performances by Dennis and Thede, A Black Lady Sketch Show once again delves into the comedy that can be derived from a horror aesthetic.

Thede’s character struggles to get to work on time every day because she takes so long with her makeup in the mornings. Dennis suggests Thede simply go without makeup, but Thede says people always assume there’s something wrong with her when they see her without makeup.

The next day, Thede actually shows up to work on time! She did go without makeup and she literally looks like the walking dead (there’s a great joke about her being cast as a zombie extra once when someone saw her without makeup).

Dennis is horrified. As Thede goes about her work, we see things through Dennis’ perspective—Thede slowly transforms from a woman without makeup to a woman on her death-bed surrounded by family, doctors and a preacher saying a prayer over “this near corpse.”

Dennis watches as Thede dies. The sketch cuts to Dennis crying over a picture of her and Thede.

Just then Thede walks in, having just put on her makeup. She notices she messed up her lipstick, but Dennis screams for her to stop, horrified at the thought of watching her friend “die” again.

Chris and Lachel Part 1: Alter Falter

This short sketch takes places at the wedding of Chris (Thede) and Lachel (Brunson).

Chris is struggling to simply say “I do” when asked by the officiant. It’s a comedic cross between Chris being ‘too cool’ to say those specific words and some obvious cold feet at the commitment. He keeps dancing around the phrase, saying things like “Fo’ sho’!” and “Don’t I!”

Of course, the officiant needs to hear the specific two words she’s looking for. Eventually, Lachel gets fed up and starts to leave back down the aisle.

Finally, thanks to the officiant heavily implying that Chris will never have sex with Lachel again if he doesn’t say “I do,” Chris says the words.

Lachel comes back down the aisle and now it’s her turn.

The turn here is that she also can’t just simply say those two darn words. She has questions about every aspect—in sickness or in health? Well, how sick? Itchy throat? Why is his throat itchy?

Eventually the officiant gives up and says fine, it’s official and she just leaves.

Invisible Spy: Part 2

We rejoin Trinity, our favorite oft-ignored CIA agent as she runs through the streets after a recluse (played by Aja Naomi King) who wants to sell nuclear codes to Russia.

Trinity is able to catch up to her and they both draw their guns, but the recluse is so attractive that Trinity gets distracted and the recluse gets the best of her.

The recluse ties Trinity to a chair and talks about how she’s been dreaming of killing Trinity. While she’s distracted being villainous, Trinity is able to free herself, call for backup and pull a gun on her captor.

That’s when the recluse reveals that she’s actually Trinity’s mysterious doppelgänger who was wearing waist trainer. They fight and Trinity things she finally has the upper hand when sirens sound and her backup arrives.

But, of course, they completely disregard Trinity’s doppelgänger (who, with very little effort, pretends to be a janitor) and instead assume Trinity was delusional when she said she caught the recluse.

The Basic Ball

This is a quick little riff on drag balls from A Black Lady Sketch Show. But rather than great outfits and exciting dancing, everyone strutting their stuff on the runway is ripped straight from real life.

It starts with a group that is simply serving up looks of “depression”—including sadly eating ramen from a bowl and Thede doing a death drop that’s actually just her collapsing on the floor and going to sleep.

Next are the BBQ Daddies, followed by Running Errands and Just Awkward in the Body.

The last one is my favorite because it’s just Black barely even trying to dance, she’s just super uncomfortable at the thought of things like telling a waiter “you too” after they tell you to enjoy your meal.

Killin’ It

The final sketch of this episode of A Black Lady Sketch Show goes right back to that horror vibe.

It starts out innocently enough: Brunson’s character can’t find her coffee mug, so she goes to her office’s security guard (Black) to see if anyone had turned it in. Black says she hasn’t seen it but offers to go through the security tapes to see what happened to it.

Brunson immediately starts to backtrack and we quickly learn why. As they watch through the tapes, it’s clear that Brunson killed somebody in her office at some point. Brunson tries to stop the playback and hits at the controls causing the tape to skip forward.

All the possible murderer thoughts drop away as they watch Black clearly walk right into Brunson’s office and steal her mug.

Black cops to what she did and meekly gives a menacing Brunson the mug back.

The sketch ends with a brief cameo from Lena Waithe who is also looking for a lost mug.

What did you think of this episode of A Black Lady Sketch Show? Let us know in the comments!