Season finale: OJ Simpson, Barney Frank, no Sarah Palin; No season 2?

Sacha Baron Cohen Squeezes Juice In ‘Who Is America’ Finale — Spoiler Alert
https://deadline.com/2018/08/oj-simpson-sacha-baron-cohen-who-is-america-finale-1202452570/

Sacha Baron Cohen ended his grand experiment seven-episode Showtime series Who Is America tonight with a disturbing segment in which Baron Cohen’s Italian photographer alter ego Gio Monaldo sat with O.J. Simpson and tried unsuccessfully for three minutes to get the former football great to admit he murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The episode just completed its East Coast airing. And by the way, Sarah Palin did not make the cut.

Baron Cohen’s show has gotten mixed reviews. To me, it has been the highlight of a summer filled with polarizing politics. I think he has reestablished himself as every bit the comedy superhero he was considered to be after Borat, and someone whose carefully choreographed and improvised performances would have pleased his idol, Peter Sellers. Baron Cohen’s intent was to create believable characters and provoke comedy, a task way harder than almost any comedian he would be compared to, because most of the participants in his sketches have no idea they are characters in a comedy bit. In seven episodes that were taped over the course of about nine months, Baron Cohen inhabited five richly drawn characters who were disarmingly hapless enough to get nationally known names to feel at ease enough for their arrogance to take over. With the slightest provocation, they reveal an unimaginable level of gullibility and stupidity, and horrible attitudes on important issues like guns and race and tolerance. Each of these required advance choreography to create the set up, and then for Baron Cohen to think quickly on his feet to create humor in the moment, depending on which way his unwitting subject went. I see the word “prank” used but that doesn’t come close to doing justice to what Baron Cohen accomplished here.