Full Frontal with Samantha Bee Punches Up and Punches Hard

There’s a scrappy quality to Full Frontal, the new TBS late night talk show led by former Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee. Confident and natural on stage, the host—who’s currently (as no one’s been able to let her forget) the only woman in late night—strikes out immediately with a fury that’s startling and invigorating.

The humor of Full Frontal is furious and fiery. Bee delivers her jokes with an unrelentingly sharpness that often made me (a Gawker Media writer!) utter an admiring, “Damn, that’s fucking mean.” Mean, yes, but also immensely satisfying:

In a segment called “Elected Paperweight of the Month,” Bee addresses Mitch Holmes, the Kansas State Senator who instituted a dress code for female witnesses, telling him, “You don’t get to regulate what other people wear to work. I wouldn’t try to regulate your finger-painted tie or skeevy facial hair. And if I get distracted wondering if that yellow stain around your mouth is whiskers or just the lingering impression of a glory hole, that’s my problem, not yours.”