The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon Recap – 2-24

It was hard to top Tuesday’s memorable Fallon. Any episode that welcomes Kevin Spacey is destined to be great, and Tuesday delivered. Wednesday did its best to match that level of comedy with Empire’s Taraji P. Henson. Here’s the full recap.

Monologue

Jimmy kicked things off with some talk about the Nevada primary where Trump scored a big win. Jimmy joked that the presidential race is getting so real that Mexico is starting to think that the wall is a pretty great idea. He played a clip of Trump thanking the “poorly educated.” Moving on to Obama, Jimmy commented on the news that Obama is planning on shutting down Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile, Trump may consider opening his own chain of Guantanamo Bays. Parker Brothers are working on a reboot of Monopoly that won’t come with any cash. I’m not sure how that will work considering the whole game is about cash. In an interesting segue, Jimmy moved on to the news that Whole Foods is considering putting tattoo parlors in their stores. Jimmy joked that it wouldn’t be the most regrettable thing for customers who just spent $10 on a free-range apple.

To the Desk

Jimmy shouted out his YouTube channel that was the first late night show to reach 10 million subscribers. YouTube sent him a huge award for the milestone. Very cool.

In Reply To

It’s my least favorite Fallon bit. In Reply To shows a fictitious celebrity tweet and then shows what the tweet was in reply to. Basically, it tells you the punchline before the joke. You can see where the joke is going before it gets there. It’s just like Pros and Cons in that regard. Here are some examples:

Jeb Bush: Wack-a-mole
Question: How do you pronounce “guacamole”?

Chris Christie: Deadpool
Question: What happens when you do a cannonball?

See? It’s just not very funny.

The Guests

Taraji P. Henson

Jimmy congratulated Henson on her Golden Globe win for her role in Empire. She enthusiastically thanked him and seemed really excited to be on the show. Then Jimmy wanted her to explain her tweet after the Super Bowl when she said that she loved Maroon 5 after the halftime show. Of course, Maroon 5 didn’t perform and it was Coldplay. She said it was a simple mistake and there may have been alcohol involved. Taraji shared some behind-the-scenes footage of Empire actors pranking each other by recording their napping sessions. Jimmy asked about what they can expect to see in the new season, but she was tight-lipped about the plot points for the next season.

The Acting Game

The game is simple: Fallon and his guest take turns picking up cards from a pile that have ridiculous scenarios on them. They have to improv the scenario in a serious fashion. Taraji crushed the bit. Check it out.

Mike Birbiglia

Bisbiglia is on the show to promote his one-man comedy show called Thank God for Jokes. If you aren’t aware of him, he’s a comedian. He shared a story from the show in which he got arrested. The story veered into a bit he said about how everything is low to the ground when you’re broke: an air mattress, picking up dirty pants that are on the ground, eating foot while sitting on the floor. Back to the story, he was arrested for driving with an expired license. He then broke out the list of things people preface the fact that they got arrested such as, “basically,” “according to them,” “it was complicated.” I wasn’t aware of Mike Birbiglia before the interview, but I am now. He was the funniest part of Wednesday’s episode.

Next: Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon Recap 2-23

The episode concluded with a performance by FKA Twigs. Tune back in tomorrow for a recap of Thursday’s show when Fallon welcomes Gerard Butler for his part in the upcoming whitewashed adventure Gods of Egypt and Jenny Slate.