S03.E03: The Roast of Deborah Vance

[txhorns79]

Airing May 9, 2024

Quote

After learning there's a Late Night vacancy, Deborah snaps into high gear to make sure everything -- and everyone -- is perfect for her upcoming roast. While Ava consults Kiki about boundary-setting, DJ invites Deborah to speak at her NA meeting.

 

[khyber]

Did they mean for all of the roast jokes to be lame?

[txhorns79]

1 hour ago, khyber said:

Did they mean for all of the roast jokes to be lame?

Yeah, the ones they showed weren't exactly hard hitting.  I did wonder why the introduction for DJ was so mean spirited.

I did like Ava and Deborah showing some growth, with Ava insisting on some boundaries and Deborah accepting them for the most part.  I really did love Deborah's workaround of having Josefina read off insults to Ava.      

I also really liked the NA meeting.  It gave you a good idea of how Deborah's mind works.  Something just clicks inside her head when she hears applause, and her five year chip speech to DJ suddenly morphs into a stand up act.  DJ was right that it is like an addiction for Deborah.  

[aghst]

I guess they couldn't get Jeff Ross.

As it turns out, Netflix just released the Tom Brady roast.  I haven't seen it but it's generating a lot of word of mouth and the jokes on this episode were tepid.

 

Yeah Ava setting boundaries was important.  She doesn't need to work for Deborah this time, unlike the first time she was in greater need of a job.

DJ does show some real reasons for having grievance against her  mother and her jokes sounded mean on paper but she pulled it off including the line, which might have caused some backlash these days.

 

[incandescent]

Kaitlin Olson ate this episode up. What a c*nt!

[Irlandesa]

On 5/10/2024 at 9:25 AM, khyber said:

Did they mean for all of the roast jokes to be lame?

I think a fictional roast is hard to write because a roast is so often based on the roastee's history, the audience's memories of the roastee and often the person doing the roasting's personal history with the roastee.

Since Deborah is fictional, none of the comedians have a relationship with her and as an audience, we only have a small understanding of her history.

It's why DJ's section was the strongest.  That's a relationship we do know so the jokes landed a bit better.  Or at least they did for me and I like the real comedians they used. 

 

[Blakeston]

Deb provides a decent amount of material for a roast, with her plastic surgery, her age, and her sordid relationship history.

But the only joke that made me laugh out loud was Patton Oswalt's, about how gay men love her because she smells like poppers and has a face like a nutsack.

[iMonrey]

I actually liked the joke "she's so old her social security number is 2." I don't care if it came out of a joke book.

[hatchetgirl]

On 5/11/2024 at 8:37 PM, Blakeston said:

about how gay men love her because she smells like poppers and has a face like a nutsack.

I laughed too hard with that one.