Amber Ruffin discusses New York reopening and culture wars

The Amber Ruffin Show returned on Friday complete with more of the host’s signature segments, sketches, and elaborate musical numbers.

In last night’s episode, Ruffin, alongside her sidekick, Tarik Davis, starts her monologue by talking about President Joe Biden’s comments on what’s next with vaccinations, the Kentucky Derby, The Twilight Zone, MJ the Musical, Jeff Bezos, and the return of the popular Japanese portable digital pet, Tamagotchi.

Ruffin continues by talking about the reopening of New York State which prompts her to go into another one of her musical performances that revolves around starting a consistent routine again post-pandemic. Obviously most of the material in the song is exclusively making light of New York-centric happenings but viewers from all over will appreciate that the Ruffin and her team are excited about the news of more places reopening.

You can watch the full monologue and musical performance below:

Amber Ruffin talks to viewers about culture wars

"When politicians get riled up about something seemingly small such as Dr. Seuss’ family pulling his racist books from shelves, there’s a name for it. It’s called ‘the culture wars.’"

In the show’s recurring segment, “How Did We Get Here?,” Ruffin discusses the effect of culture wars and how it’s affected the current political landscape. Ruffin gives the example of Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert who tweeted about President Biden’s climate plan including cutting 90% of red meat from American diets. Ruffin continues by discussing Rachel Levine’s confirmation as the Secretary of Health and notes that Republicans had opposed her nomination, specifically Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Sen. Paul also blocked a bill that would make lynching a federal crime as the nation mourned the death of George Floyd.

Watch the full segment below:

Afterwards, Ruffin is seen wishing on a star for multiple things to happen including wishing gum was a vegetable, a remake of Dirty Dancing where Baby lifts Johnny, and everyone in the world is happy all the time, and more. One of Ruffin’s wishes comes true, as she pulls a giant milkshake from underneath her desk.

Amber Ruffin receives her “Allyship report card”

Amber Ruffin goes over to her mailbox where she is greeted by her puppet mailman, Mr. Mailman, to see if she received her “allyship report card.” It’s a list of grades on how well someone has been an ally to different identity groups.

Mr. Mailman announces that Davis has gotten all A’s on his allyship report card. Ruffin is shown to have received three C’s and one F. Ruffin is visibly upset by this and goes through the different sections to ask why she got low grades such as talking about all of her friends in the LGBTQ+ community in order to refute her grade in LGBTQ allyship.

Mr. Mailman tells Ruffin that using her LGBTQ+ friends to justify her getting a higher score is worth a C at best.  When Ruffin sees that she received a C in black allyship,  she protested, “I’m Black!” and is asked to name just one Black person. Davis picked Ruffin and repeated that Ruffin has been watching a lot of Friends lately.

Watch the full segment below:

To close out the episode, stand up comedian and actress Michelle Buteau appears on screen and explains how she and Amber are very similar and claims that she’ll drop off her two kids to Amber after her “edible kicks in”.

This episode of The Amber Ruffin Show felt even more whimsical and fun than previous airings. I enjoyed seeing the return of Mr. Mailman and admired the fact that Ruffin tackled the topic of allyship and delved deeper into how much of an impact it has on conversations surrounding what the responsibility entails.

You can watch The Amber Ruffin Show when episodes premiere on NBC’s Peacock website and app Fridays at 9:00 P.M. EST.