Rating: 7/10
Hasan Minhaj returned with his weekly dose of laughter and world issues with Patriot Act. This week his attention was on the general election results in India and the 1MDB scandal in Malaysia.
In the first part of the episode, Minhaj discussed the landslide victory that the BJP enjoyed in the Indian elections. He joked about victorious BJP candidates and how some of them had pending criminal cases against them.
He even poked fun at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for losing his seat in Amethi to a “soap opera star”. The first half of the episode did have a lot of references from India, but Minhaj gave enough context for all to enjoy.
He did not hesitate to poke some more fun at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for documenting his meditation before election results. The second half of this act focused on the 1MDB scandal in Malaysia which involved sovereign wealth funds.
This part involved a lot of explaining from Minhaj’s side because it was not an easy concept for everyone to understand. This took out a little bit of the comedic element out and replaced it with information. Although Minhaj was his usual witty self, some of the jokes did not fit.
On the positive side, there were a lot of interesting facts which involved Goldman Sachs, PSY, The Wolf of Wall Street and someone called Jho Low. The scam apparently involved billions of dollars and a lot of fooled people.
Overall, it was a great episode and Minhaj was a joy to watch. There were some country-specific references but it was well done to make everyone understand the situation and not feel lost. The use of videos, pictures and infographics was spot on and definitely helpful.
The episode is available both on YouTube (in 2 parts) and Netflix.
You can watch part 1 here:
And part 2 here: