With Desus & Mero (and Desus Nice and The Kid Mero) bringing the podcast and talk show duo’s Bronx vibe energetically to Showtime, the Thursday late-night beat has gotten a bit more colorful. With the exuberantly funny pair effortlessly swapping between high-profile (and no-bullshit) politics talk—last night saw the Bodega Boys sit down with rising Democratic star Stacey Abrams—and genially garrulous nonsense, the show is an especially fun and refreshing watch for those looking for a decidedly different take on the evening talk show game. So discovered Pitch Perfect star, Oscar nominee, and obvious good sport Anna Kendrick, who put herself in Desus and Mero’s hands for a day-long tour of their New York.
Eschewing the hosts’ initial plan for a more tourist-friendly educational tour stop (Edgar Allan Poe’s House, the lovely lithographs at the Mosholu Library), Kendrick asked her guides to give her a real deal “hang-hang.” Seeing that their guest wasn’t playing, they immediately sent her to the nearest bodega for a couple of “Dutch” (“Don’t worry about what it is, just tell papi.”) and some scratch tickets, before kitting out the winningly game Kendrick in Yankees gear and a pair of new Timberlands. (Laces undone, for reasons.) “I can’t tell, like whether this is a prank on me, or a prank on white people, or whatever,” said Kendrick at one point. Well, both, sort of, but she quickly got into the mood.
From there, naturally since it was 3:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, it was cocktails at one of the Bronx fine adult entertainment establishments, complete with one of those little dollar bill-shooting tip guns, some advice on shopping at the container store (always sign up for the membership, Anna), and a quick and lucrative (for Kendrick) lesson in Cee-lo out on the sidewalk with a nice dancer named Sapphire. After that, it was all City Island (“off the coast of the Bronx”), for lobster at Sammy’s Fish Box and Kendrick’s tales of running wild on the similarly seafood-scented streets of her hometown, Portland, Maine. (Condoms filled with cottage cheese? Damn, girl.) Some after-dinner weed was considered, then agreed upon, since, as Mero said of their diminutive, famous (and white) new pal, “We with her, so we good.” Sounds like an all-around lovely little Wednesday.