In ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’ Season 3, Robin Thede Cements Her Status as a Sketch Comedy Powerhouse

Sandra Miska

Season three of HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show” sees Robin Thede and company continue to create hilarious and insightful comedy. Thede, along with co-stars Ashley Nicole Black, Gabrielle Dennis and Skye Townsend, as well as numerous guest stars, bring to life characters with relatable wants and needs who find themselves in absurd situations. 

While “ABLSS” has the occasional reference to pop culture and the current state of the world, the humor mostly centers on everyday life and problems. People of all ages, genders and backgrounds will find something to relate to “ABLSS,” but much of the humor speaks to Black women. Episode one opens with sketch in which a common problem, the purchase of expensive beauty productions that cannot be returned if they prove to be unsatisfactory, is turned into a parody of “The Purge” when a stampede of Black women have 12 minutes to return half-used hair products to the store for full refunds. The theme of Black hair care is front and center in another funny and action-packed sketch in the final episode of the season, episode six, when a woman is confronted by a trio of villains representing three different hairstyle options in a dark alley. In another episode, Ashley Nicole Black kills it as a woman so desperate to find lotion for her ashy feet that she finds herself bargaining with There’s wisecracking devil.

Thede continues to be a powerhouse in season three, and her character “pre-PhD” Dr. Hadassah Olayinka Ali-Youngman, a self-proclaimed slam poetry Nobel laureate and faux intellectual, continues to get laughs as she holds people captive with her nonsensical lectures, this time a group of unsuspecting school children who were told they would be meeting a real doctor. In another hilarious sketch, Thede plays a struggling comic at an open mic who is so bad that a heckler played by Wanda Sykes calls on God to smite her. Later, she channels her inner child as an adult masquerading as a smoking toddler who has duped a bougie couple into adopting her.

Other highlights of the season included a sketch in which Townsend plays a woman whose fun visit with new friends turns into a horror film after she discovers these women’s lives are dedicated by the sayings on painting and throw pillows from HomeGoods (“It’s wine o’clock!”). Another sketch makes fun of the awkwardness of large funerals by having Bob the Drag Queen emcee a runway show in which the tackiest guests strut their stuff. Another relatable sketch finds the foursome around a campfire as part of a self-centered friend’s over-the-top, only to find their innermost thoughts revealed after a supernatural entity reveals how fed up they are with the very extra birthday girl.

Finally, Thede, Black, Dennis and Townsend are supported by numerous familiar faces, not all who can be revealed in advance. In addition to Sykes and Bob the Drag Queen, other guests stars viewers can look forward to include Vanessa Williams, Holly Robinson Peete, Michael Ealy, Wayne Brady, and director Ava DuVernay, who finds herself being pitched a show called “Trey’s Anatomy” by a Black’s overzealous cable woman. Disney Channel star Raven-Symoné shows off her adult comedy chops as a lesbian hairdresser with a neck tattoo. Another former child star, Kel Mitchell, pops up, as does “SNL” alum Jay Pharoah, as well as “In Living Color” vets David Alan Grier and Tommy Davidson. 

“A Black Lady Sketch Show” premieres April 8 and airs Fridays at 11 p.m. ET on HBO.