A Black Lady Sketch Show season 1 episode 3 recap

This episode of A Black Lady Sketch Show features what not to do at church, a returning favorite and a gang the likes of which you’ve never seen before.

Before we get to the sketches at the heart of A Black Lady Sketch Show, let’s check in on Robin Thede, Gabrielle Dennis, Quinta Brunson, Ashley Nicole Black and the end of the world.

It’s four hours after the world ending event and Dennis and Brunson already pine for the men in their lives who are no longer around. It’s a quick bit where they go around the table as they eat lunch, describing the type of man they like.

Dennis has the worst taste out of everyone, including missing a man who stole her car only to bring it back with another woman in it.

Building on that, Dennis talks about how she likes “mature” men and how she dated a guy 30 years her senior who told her all about how he integrated his high school.

As their lunch winds down (and Dennis polishes off her bottle of wine—she’s had a lot), she decides that a man somewhere must have survived and she’s going to find him. Instead, she drunkenly stumbles into a closet.

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Viral Proposal

This episode of A Black Lady Sketch Show opens with Asia (Black) out with her boyfriend (Jermaine Fowler) when she starts noticing people she knows, but hasn’t seen in a while. Turns out her boyfriend has snuck around and planned an elaborate proposals flash mob dance number in front of a marquee that asks Asia to marry him.

Sounds perfect, right?

Well, everyone is very happy about it, except Asia who keeps pointing out how absolutely bizarre the timing of this is. Her boyfriend just lost his job (well, apparently he quit to devote himself to her), her mom (who choreographed the dance) hates the boyfriend, so does Asia’s best friend (Brunson), and to top it all off, Asia’s dad who abandoned her 12 years ago (played by Larry Wilmore) shows up out of nowhere.

It’s a fun sketch of Black repeatedly asking WTF to every new turn this ridiculous proposal takes—after all, she’s only been dating this guy for three months.

The ending doesn’t matter because the low-key star of this sketch is the dance-loving Brunson, who gets a decent amount of time at the very end to just rock out alone on screen.

Gang Orientation

This sketch features a nice guest spot from Issa Rae (who also serves as an A Black Lady Sketch Show executive producer) as a new member to a gang led by Dennis.

Let me reorient your brain really quick because I’m sure the image in your head of this gang is wrong. This all female gang meets in a suburban garage and Dennis’ podium at the front of the meeting is a treadmill. Topics of discussion include being able to work from home as part of a “Tele-bang policy” and increasing paid parental leave (and being aware enough to call it “parental” leave instead of “maternity leave” to be inclusive of all gender identities).

It’s a business. A gang business.

The crux of this is built around Dennis’ frustration with new members who don’t follow her precise instructions on how to introduce themselves to the rest of the group. This results in Brunson being told to take her gun and her motivational posters and leave the group. She’s fired. No severance. Dennis means business.

The turn at the end is that this is an add for Monster, saying that there are jobs for everyone.

Church Open Mic: Part 1

Let’s go to church. (I’ll go to any church led by the likes of David Alan Greer.) The pastor (Greer) opens the floor for people to come up and ask for prayers at a mic set up up front.

This was a mistake.

First, Thede comes up to practice her stand up routine because it’s hard to find open mic time. Then Dennis comes up to announce she got a job doing market research (a worthy reason to come to the mic). But then she starts polling the congregation about their Sprite consumption.

There’s a long, long line of people forming.

One woman needs a date for her daughter, one wants people to buy girl scout cookies from her kid and another just wants people to give her Instagram some attention.

The best, though, is the final guy of the sketch who is up there as part of an alibi. You know, just in case the police want to know where he was.

A bloody wrench drops out of his pocket and he runs out of the church to end the sketch.

I look forward to whatever part 2 is going to bring.

Hertep Homecoming

Our favorite “wisdom”-spewing Hertep is back and this time she’s at her sister’s wedding. Never give Hertep a mic.

Her maid of honor speech includes telling her sister Hannah that she should abandon that name because “Hannah” can be broken down into “ha” the laughter of their oppressors and “nah” as in nah, she shouldn’t be using that name.

The other great nugget was that Dyson breaks down to “die son,” encouragement from white people for black people to kill their children. Who knew.

Everyone knows that everything Hertep is saying is nonsense, her parents and sister are mortified. The groom and his best man have pulled out popcorn to enjoy the show. Twist is, the best man is actually, legitimately eating everything Hertep says up.

She’s married, but she got married on another plane of existence so, technically, she’s still single in the earthly world. Game on, best man.

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227 Reboot

This is a riff on the NBC series 227 that aired in the late 80s and even features guest spots from actors from the original show, Marla Gibbs, Jackée Harry and Hal Williams

There’s not much to say about it, it’s a nice callback to the sitcom and includes a laugh track.

The only real interesting part is the ending which is a series of jokes about people waking up from a nightmare only. I’m sure it hits home better for people who know the original 227, but for me it was the weakest sketch in the episode.

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

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By Jerald Raymond Pierce | Aug 18, 2019