The Best Clips from Samantha Bee’s ‘Full Frontal’ Premiere

Someone let a girl do late-night TV.

Late night television, as everyone knows, is a man’s game. Members of the fairer sex prefer to stay indoors at night, busying themselves with homespun domestic rituals such as exfoliating and needlepoint. Traditionally, they save their television hosting for the daylight hours, a time when most able-bodied males—blue collars and white collars, working stiffs and masters of the universe—are putting in the hard hours, inventing the world and making it go. 

That’s just how things are.

But last night, there was a glitch. An actual woman somehow snuck onto late night television. Samantha Bee was the “Daily Show’s” longest-serving regular correspondent when she was passed over for the top job, not because she was a woman of course but because a guy from South Africa stumbled on to the set at precisely the right moment. Which isn’t to say he isn’t funny. He’s funny. 

Bee’s better, though, and last night she proved it with a solid first episode of “Full Frontal” that was heavy on politics, with a relentless series of potshots lobbed to both the right and the left.

Here, she flames Trump and Rubio. 

She eviscerates Bush. 

She hammers Sanders and Clinton. 

And she savages Cruz. 

Probably the highlight, though, was this press conference sketch, in which Bee dealt frankly with the gender issue. Have a look.

“Full Frontal” airs Mondays at 10:30 pm on TBS.