by If Rachel Brosnahan’s Marvelous Mrs. Maisel telling truth to 1960 wasn’t enough for you, how about the real Brosnahan and Phoebe Robinson getting together a bunch of funny women to deliver a final eulogy for 2020?
That’s the premise and conceit for Yearly Departed on Amazon Prime Video.
Brosnahan said goodbye to pants, while Tiffany Haddish bid adieu to casual sex, Natasha Rothwell lamented the downfall of the fantasy portrayed by generations of TV cops, Patti Harrison gave epic shade to the grave to rich girl influencers on Instagram, Natasha Leggero shed tears on behalf of all mothers who became teachers during lockdown, Ziwe wrapped a bow on corporate pandering in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, and Sarah Silverman stuck one final fork in MAGA.
I’m not sure anyone wanted to particularly relive 2020, even through humor. That said, Patti Harrison and Ziwe made the most of their opportunities with their newly expanded platforms. As I wrote in Decider:
Patti Harrison nearly steals the entire show, what with her magnificently stunning variety of reaction shots, as well as her slideshow that accompanied her dressing-down eulogy for “Rich Girl Instagram Influencers.” Sample zinger from Harrison: “But what is tragically certain is that there was still so much left on Earth for them to not learn.”
Ziwe, the other performer who you might not have been as familiar with before now, also takes the most advantage of her camera time. Her topic: Beige Band-Aids. “Isn’t it nice? We asked for equality and we got a brown Band-Aid? A little brown Band-Aid on a systemic bullet hole.” She also lays into the performative b.s. by corporations to seem reliably woke.
More interesting was how they went about filming this with COVID-19 protocols.
