Black Panther Himself Competed in S.N.L. ’s Hilarious New “Black Jeopardy”

Saturday Night Live’s “Black Jeopardy” sketches are always some of the show’s strongest. The format usually features two black contestants competing against a hapless white character who is way out of place. Tom Hanks’s Trump voter “Black Jeopardy” was one of the show’s best, but last night’s, featuring host Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther’s King T’Challa himself, might have usurped the throne.

The sketch starts off with Kenan Thompson’s Darnell Hayes saying how exciting it is to have Black Panther competing on the show: “This might be the blackest Black Jeopardy yet!” But T’Challa, being from the utopian Wakanda, seems completely unaware of why someone would pretend to be dead to escape student loans, or the suspicion with which black people, for obvious reasons, must treat law enforcement. When T’Challa says the reason someone’s cable bill would be in their grandmother’s name is “to honor her, as the foundation of the family,” Hayes thinks for a second.

“Hmm,” he says, ” that’s really nice. It’s wrong. But that’s really nice.”

Fortunately for Black Panther, he finally starts to get it when he picks one of the clues in the “White People” category: “Your friend Karen brings her potato salad to your cookout.” In a burst of genius that rivals the code cracking scene from A Beautiful Mind, the king of Wakanda works it out.

“Ah, I understand,” T’Challa says. “It is noble that she would volunteer to cook for everyone, and although I have never had potato salad, I sense that this white woman does not season her food. And if she does, it is only with a tiny bit of salt, and no paprika. And she will probably add something unnecessary like raisins. So, something tells me that I should say: Aw hell naw, Karen! Keep your bland-ass potato salad to yourself.”

Even in a place as idyllic as Wakanda, some crimes are just unforgivable.

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