We’re rolling through every episode of Key and Peele on Pop Thruster. Here we go with “East/West Bowl 2,” Season 3 Episode 12. Follow along on the journey!
Also: check out ALL 351 Key & Peele Sketches Ranked (In Painstakingly Funny Detail)!
Dropping Paint
“Dude, my eyes are up here.” – Key
In this truly oddball episode opener, K&P are walking along, having a nice little chat about Star Wars, when paint falls on Key’s black shirt from some scaffolding above them. When Key tries to rub it off and it spreads all over his chest, Peele… uh, gets quite interested in what’s happening, I guess?
East/West Bowl 2
“Bisquiten Trisket, University of Michigan.”
The East/West Bowl was so much fun the first time around, that we get a second round for 2013, served up by commentators Dave Sasson and Jeff Worthing. Basically, it’s an excuse for the boys to trot out another wave of increasingly bizarre names, introduced national football game style – with super fun/weird characters to match. It’s not quite as much fun as the first go round, but I’m in the camp of happily enjoying this kind of stuff all gameday long.
Sexual Things in the Workplace
“Don’t you pre-judge me!” – Latrell
This one is difficult to write about simply due to how much cultural and sexual mores have shifted over the last decade or so. It’s not so much that Key plays a gay character, Latrell, as much as that Latrell projects every “gay stereotype” in an over-the-top way that one might conjure up. That said, the set-up with Latrell interrogating his officemate (Peele) about his feelings with regards to gay men and gay culture is smartly done, and I must admit I laughed pretty hard when Latrell blows a little penis whistle before yelling, “Homophobe alert!” Bonus: the “twist” at the end is very nicely handled.
Cult Mass Suicide
“Although I will say the term cult is a little judgmental… not knowing the full doctrine.” – Peele
Rick Nicklesby reports live from a “gruesome scene” in which cult members from QET (Quest for Eternal Truth) took their own lives by drinking “cyanide-laced cherry Kool-Aid” (having recently watched the hilarious first episode of Seth Rogen’s The Studio, my thought bubble at this line was OH YEAH!). The comedy comes in as Nicklesby interviews K&P, two obvious cult members (with amazing bowl haircuts) who clearly bailed out to save themselves at the last moment. Or did they?
An Unwanted Visitor
“Gerald, you tiny little bitch!” – Devon
I love when I can get hilariously surprised by a comedy sketch, and this one fully delivers on that score. When a rather pimped out landlord named Devon (Key) shows up at Peele’s apartment door, it seems like he’s just some super weirdo out on some kind of bizarre quest to find a diminutive, purple bearded, crack starved person called Gerald, until…
Metta World News: Part Eight
“In science news, it is impossible to knock yourself out with your own fists.” – Metta World Peace
In this eighth outing of Metta World Peace (formerly known as Ron Artest) sitting behind a news desk delivering rando one liners, I’m pretty much out. That being said, biscuit biscuit biscuit!
Bedtime Story
“But I’m not gonna live forever because I’m only half alien?” – Key
This sketch works so well because it’s grounded in a very relatable situation: Key plays a little boy who has a nightmare in the wake of losing his mother, with Peele as his blue-collar father attempting to comfort him and get him to go to sleep. The outstanding comedy comes in when the son unwittingly but expertly paints his dad into corners based on pop’s good-natured mistake of assuring his son that “nothing is ever going to happen to me.”
Some stats and info about Key & Peele, “East/West Bowl 2”
TV SHOW – Key and Peele
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 3, Episode 12
AIRED ON – December 11th, 2013
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Comedy Central/Hulu
GENRE – Comedy, Sketch Comedy
CREATED BY – Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele