Desus & Mero Are Saving Late Night TV
You should probably tune in. On YouTube if you don’t have Viceland. Or on Viceland. Or torrent that because everyone else is doing it.
Trying to look for a silver lining in the Trump Presidency is like wading through a never-ending, chest-deep sea of excrement and wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, just to find two dollars at the bottom of it. Ultimately pointless, entirely debasing and you come out smelling like shit no matter the outcome. Any kind of “positive” outcome you may come up with in your twisted head is entirely tangential. Furthermore doing so will inevitably stretch your moral values to the point of complete and utter transparency.
Many people have said that the Trump presidency has saved late night TV alongside the news industry. While that may be true in terms of the bottomless cesspit of material that they have to dip into now, that is a pretty weak silver lining argument opposed to the compound amount of hate, suffering and overall unfathomable stupidity the tangerine colored human scrotum unleashed on both the United States of America and the World. Yeah, it’s cool, but I’d rather he stop trying to kill 22 million people by repealing the ACA.
Anyways, I digress, I am here to talk about Desus & Mero — the best late night show you’re not watching. (The previous tangent related directly to one of the observations made by Mero that Trump has in fact provided them with enough material to fill three entire seasons even if they extended the show by another half an hour).
For those unfamiliar with the Bronx Apostles, stop reading and check out an episode of Bodega Boys if you can, it’s worth it. I’ll wait. Go.
Back? Okay.
Now. Desus & Mero is the best thing about Viceland and possibly the one show that actually fulfills the media networks self assessment that they provide something no one else can. Despite what they might think, Vice wasn’t actually breaking any ground on news reporting by sending people to destabilizes and distant zones. News outlets have been doing that since this time called forever. As far as Desus & Mero goes, it is an entirely new show for the internet era and the podcast generation.
Clocking in at a modest 22 minutes (I would watch an hour straight or this over anything America Next Top Anything) the Bronx Prophets rattle off on daily news and updates as well as internet’s best in rapid fire fashion. The short runtime ensures that there isn’t filler, forced intro monologues or a reliance on an audience to squeeze faux laughs per minute. The only audience is the shows staff behind the scenes and their involvement seems genuine (if you can hear their laughter through your overwhelming wailing as the jokes roll on).
Trump is of course the topic of many discussions because we truly live in the darkness timeline, but they manage to talk about literally everything else while offering a perspective that isn’t unique in terms of political ideology yet is culturally unmatched, mostly because name me a late night host that isn’t some sort of shape of off-white (I will conveniently exclude Trevor Noah for my own argument’s sake here). For all the effort and personal gravitas (the Seth Meyer speech after the election) most of other Late Night TV doesn’t as much miss the point sometimes as it flies past the point, circles the earth one more time and jettisons itself into the moon. For all the anti-Trump rhetoric, no other show is able to capture other realities of politics and culture, which is something that usually happens due to a lack of real (or perceived consequence).
Desus & Mero feels real (it is real), from the format (two dudes going back and fourth on cataloguing stupidity-du-jour to the topics they discuss. They are able to take on issues big and small and bring a cultural counterpoint to anything on air at the exact same hour. This discussion on HBO’s “who thought of it, probably Becky with the braids after her vacation in Jamaica” newest project: Confederate is worth a watch all on its own.
You can argue that sure, the guest section is still structured around a traditional “ya’ll got something to promote so why not do it on here” structure, to which I may say “who let you in the house?” Even the guest appearances feel incredibly more genuine and PR-less (say it ain’t so!), they take up less than 7 minutes and sometimes even forget to mention the damn thing they end up promoting (derailing into us learning some new “really tho” information about the guest and zeroing in on that).
The unscripted (or at least the perceived unscripted nature of the show) differentiates itself and it feels like some real ass shit. It’s like coming home from a hard day’s work, turning on the news and seeing some ole bullshit. You can’t help but turn to whoever is near and say “can you believe this shit right here?” Actually, can you believe this shit right here is the defining tone of Desus & Mero that is able to cut through the many “we can’t say that on television” or “I still like making all this money so let’s play it safe” limitations of the traditional late night TV model.
The two hosts walk the fine line of casual conversation, but don’t get this confused, it’s still as insightful as anything else. Desus & Mero bring their own brand of politics, culture and perspective that we in fact haven’t seen on TV before. Unchained by Vice’s open policy on content and pushing boundaries (true for once) they’re able to not hold back and speak. This is the one late-night show that’s able to cut through the noise with surgical precision and the one most equipped to call America on its own bullshit night in and night. If you’re not watching it, you better start.
