Full Frontal Episode Review: Samantha Bee Looks Again and Askance at the Candidates
I wonder if, deep within the recesses of the place where her worst fears reside, the publicly fearless Samantha Bee considers what the Devil she is going to do after the present standard bearer for the GOP falls victim to The Greatest Rigging in the Entire History of Mankind. That is not to say that Full Frontal does not cover other material. It does, as the most recent show certainly did, but when they “no longer have Nixon to kick around,” 2016 updated version, how will they fill the entire time? I guess we will have to stay tuned, which may not be such a bad thing.
All of this is not to say that Donald Trump got off scot-free. In fact, he was the centerpiece of the first segment, as you can well imagine, since it covered the third presidential debate. It was quite well-presented. Feel free to check out the sample below.
The show’s second segment took us a bit off the campaign trail, even if it did start with another clip of Trump making a fool of himself at the Al Smith charity function. But then the piece transitioned to the people that Al Smith got his weekly wine-and-wafer fix from, presumably, every Sunday. Specifically, Ms. Bee took up the matter of Catholic hospitals. She did make it clear that if you needed an appendectomy or any other gender-neutral fix, a Catholic hospital was as good as any. On the other hand, if you were in obstetric distress, a Catholic hospital was very likely to make the problem even worse. It seems they have some objection to thwarting the will of God if that involves dying in the act of giving birth. Let us keep one thing in mind (that was not covered in the show, but is quite relevant): for a good many years, including up to the start of the 20th century, the actuarial tables for men and women were equal in the field of life insurance, even though wives, as they have for centuries, continued to outlive their husbands by about eight years. That is to say, wives who survived the process of childbirth. Enough of them did not, to the point where that global 8-year advantage was completely cancelled out. That is a lot of death. Since then, medical science has reduced that possibility by such a factor that is is hardly considered anymore. Yet it still can happen. Ms. Bee made the very pertinent point that, for many people in isolated areas, the Catholic hospital is the only one they can get to, so it’s not entirely a matter of the prospective mother making a bad choice.
There was one important omission in this segment, which would have made it better and more honest if the host had given it at least a nod of recognition. Samantha Bee seemed to imply that the only choices in a gravely difficult delivery are that either the baby dies or both the baby and the mother die. Not so. In many of these sad instances, the baby survived, even while the mother perished. Even including that in the presentation, it should be incumbent upon any hospital—Catholic or otherwise—to do all it can to prevent a woman from dying in childbirth.
The third segment of this show was the weakest, as it often is, because it frequently involves Ms. Bee or one of her staff reporters doing interviews. Every once in a while, these too are very droll and creative, but not nearly so much as the host letting loose on her own. In this instance, anticipating a Hillary Clinton victory, she interviewed other women who have been in power, starting with Madeleine Albright. Not nod-off-to-sleep boring, but not all that exciting either. Still, by that time, I felt I had already gotten my money’s worth. You will too, if you catch the show.
Sources
Full Frontal, TBS, October 24, 2016
