I suspected that lightning would not strike twice. This is pretty much same old same old, since 2021 was a continuation of 2020 and just as f---ked up as 2020 was (which Samuel L. Jackson, sadly missing from this year's special, would surely have said).
There is the usual assortment of supporters of the former guy posting comments about this special, blathering about leftist Hollywood, liberal NetFlix, and how the special was too easy on "Sleepy Joe." It isn't...but as Joe is not a deranged and delusional, eclipse-staring anti-intellectual and anti-science bully and blowhard who tells Americans to inject Lysol to fend off COVID and hurricanes what states to strike with a Sharpie, there's not as much material to satirize him. January 6 is covered, of course. But so is the Afghanistan debacle, which another poster claimed was totally missing.
Lucy Liu, Stockard Channing, and Tracey Ullman (barely recognizable as a spray-tanned Jeanine Pirro-like nut) are the new additions and they breath new life in this special, and are hilarious. Liu has great comic timing I never noticed before.
The rest of the cast, including Hugh Grant, Diane Morgan, and Joe Keery, are brought back from last year, along with Laurence Fishburne as narrator. They repeat the same schtick from last year but are not as funny. Jackson, Lisa Kudrow, Leslie Jones, and Kumail Nanjiani are missing from this one, and sorely missed as they were the best characters from Death to 2020. Stockard Channing is a great replacement for Leslie Jones' cynical character, though. She has the best lines.
Watch Don't Look Up instead, which is a longer time investment (over 2 hours) but sums up the year, particularly the celebrity and social media obsessions and anti-science movement, better.
