Thursday’s episode of Chelsea left porn behind and focussed on politics and Zelda Williams. Williams is playing transgender character Drew Reeves on Freeform’s Dead of Summer and has a couple of films coming out.
The show opened with Chelsea outlining the first 100 days of both presidential candidates. It was funny and irreverential. This led nicely to the first guest of the episode, President Obama’s speech writer Jon Favreau.
He and Chelsea spoke of flying in Air Force one and the DNC. Favreau explained what writing speeches for Obama was like. Chelsea expressed amazement that the president could find time to write at all.
Favreau explained what being an American really means; as Obama pointed out in his speech. Chelsea mentioned David Axlerod which segued nicely into an interview with the author and politico.
Axlerod spoke of Hillary Clinton and what she is like.
It was a nice look at the potential new president of the United States. Back to Favreau, he talked about what made Clinton into the politician she is today. The conversation moved onto what candidates are allowed to know about classified material.
The conversation with Favreau ended with a Clinton/Obama comparison and Chelsea reminding the audience to register to vote. She then interviewed 25 year CIA veteran Phil Houston. He can tell if people are lying without a polygraph machine.
Like the father in “Meet the Parents” Houston uses “tells” and body language to work out if suspects are lying. Chelsea then took Phil to interview her staff to see who has been lying to her. A very amusing segment that was pre-recorded.
The next and final guest of the episode was Zelda Williams; the daughter of the late Robin Williams. She has a film coming out on Lifetime “Girl in the Box” and she is a regular on “Dead of Summer.”
She and Chelsea spoke about her bisexuality, keeping to the show’s theme of LGBTQ, and then moved onto Zelda’s break from Twitter. Rather interestingly, Williams pointed out that Twitter use is actually part of Hollywood contracts now.
The 27 year old actress gave great interview and came across as someone who has “their sh*t together.” Zelda spoke briefly about her father’s death and how she handled it. She also talked about her voiceover work and how that helped her to focus on the good things.
“Girl in the Box” was the next topic of conversation. It is based on a true story about a couple who kept a kidnapped girl in a box (under their bed) for seven years. Chelsea wound up the episode with “The Word of the Day” which turned into a lesson for Donald Trump on what “sarcasm” really means.
Chelsea left out sports figures in this episode as it was pretty equally split between Favreau and Williams. The political segment was more personal than informative which made it more enjoyable. Zelda’s segment gave the audience a chance to see what lay behind the tragedy and how she coped.
Williams came across as the type of person who is down to earth and focussed. She is, perhaps, the best guest on the season thus far. Ms. Handler’s talkshow streams on Netflix three times a week. Tune in for a breath of fresh air and some Chelsea humour.
