Fly-Bys: Even with a third of the scenes in Key & Peele being devoted to the interstitial runner, episodes this season seem to have a lot of quick, one-joke sketches. Not one joke that gets repeated over and over and not one joke that takes a lot of careful build-up, like the Miami Vice parody. I’m talking about sketches like the opening newscast and the veteran’s homecoming video, where it’s just one joke and out. It certainly solves the problem of how to end a sketch. In the first, a reporter is telling us about two successive heinous crimes and the arrested parties. “And that’s it for sports.” Zing! It’s a great little opening, because it sells the reality. From the look to the delivery, it feels like a real newscast.
The home video starts out promisingly in that regard, but then… well. Mom and Daughter wait on the porch for Dad, but he’s way more preoccupied with the family golden. Whatever I said about the one-joke format solving the problem of how to end a sketch wasn’t quite right, because this one ends with the vet getting back in the cab with the dog and going off somewhere. Which certainly gets the point across, but it was funnier when it was slightly believable. There’s a pretty big line between spending an inordinate amount of time petting the dog and all-out abandoning your family for the dog.
The funniest sketch: Of the four substantial sketches in this episode, three are really cinematic—a vague word, I know, but I’m saying they wield things like lighting, camera movement, etc. with clear purpose—and the other is the one that made me laugh the most. I’m talking about the steampunk sketch, which is just Peele in a ridiculous costume, the ridiculous prop of the bike, and Key getting increasingly exasperated. “Sup, dude?” he asks. “‘Tis well, Cedric. ‘Tis well.” Steampunk, for those who don’t know, is defined as “Jules Verne and shit.” So Peele has a top hat with a braided belt and googles, a door chain connecting the lapels on two different jackets with an aiguillette on the side, a digital watch head attached to a chain like a pocketwatch, fingerless gloves, and on and on. His bike has a giant horn and the like. He claims to live in a clock now. In a faintly English accent he tells his friend, “I’m just an ill-ass Lemony Snicket in this bitch.” Steampunk is all about excessive detail, and excessive detail is what makes this so funny. It’s all so silly, and there’s so much of it. Add to that Key’s straight man (“I’m telling you, Levi, if you put that piece of pipe up to your eye and use it as a telescope I cannot be your friend anymore”), and the truly ridiculous ending (there’s a mouse living in Levi’s top hat), and this is the funniest sketch of the episode.
The weakest sketch: Not for lack of trying, the one about the guy in the halo brace—think a post-bus Regina George—kind of just lies there. The opening is magnificent, but as soon as it starts going in earnest, it really is just Key making a variety of squeals and sharp inhales. I’m tickled by the concept. This guy is fresh out of the hospital and decides to spend his first night of surely prescribed bedrest hitting on women at a bar. But that doesn’t come through nearly as loudly as the screams in comic agony. Which is kind of funny, but the writing really doesn’t live up to the effort everywhere else. Talk about one joke over and over, and it ends with him returning with a giant fake mustache instead of the halo brace and doing his best Speedy Gonzales for the bartender. Speaking of which, it’s nice to see Peele in a sort of macho role, and I can’t put into words how note-perfect his delivery is when he’s trying to wrap up a story for the ladies he’s boring and get to his new customer, but I can at least give you the hilarious, practically tossed-off story: “It was the first time in a heavyweight battle that the two fighters ended up getting married.”