‘Murphy Brown’ Shuts Down a Steve Bannon Stand-In with a Quote-Worthy Monologue

Who knew that when Fuller House brought the Tanners back to TV in early 2016 that that show was heralding a wave of nostalgia that would spill over into major network primetime lineups? Will & Grace, Roseanne/The Conners, the speedy revival of Last Man Standing, and now Murphy Brown–every major network has at least one veteran sitcom churning out new episodes. As to why these revivals keep happening, there’s the reason given (these classic shows are once again relevant and can speak to today’s times) and the reason that we all know is real (there is a whole lotta attention to be grabbed and money to be earned from getting the band back together).

But when it comes to actually speaking to today’s times, do they? Every single one of these shows has referenced today’s political climate. Okay, Fuller House not so much–although young Max, does reference Donald Trump an awful lot. But still, modern comedies like Broad City, black-ish, Superstore, GLOW, Fresh Off the Boat, and One Day at a Time all do a pretty good job of tackling issues that are important to today’s audiences. So while it’s great seeing these old shows take a swing at issues (like Will & Grace’s heart-wrenching gay conversion episode), they sometimes miss the mark completely (everything Roseanne failed to say about Trump).

And then there’s the newly-revived Murphy Brown, a show about fearless fact-finding TV journalists plucked from the Bush/Clinton era and dropped squarely in the time of “fake news.” And just to hit that point squarely on the head, the first episode of the Murphy Brown revival was titled “Fake News.” As the only comedy currently airing about journalism starring reporters, Murphy Brown came back to fill a void many of us totally missed in the TV landscape. The current administration’s constantly attacking the press and their freedom, of course we need a show that can actually talk about that!

That brings us to “Three Shirts to the Wind,” an episode written by longtime Colbert Report writer Laura Krafft that tackles an issue that every single journalist is grappling with in 2018: do you give attention to Nazis? Wow, right? A multi-cam, primetime, major network sitcom devoting a half hour of content to the duty of the free press when it comes to handing a microphone over to unrepentant bigots.

The episode’s token bigot is a blowhard firebrand named Ed Shannon, played by “hey, it’s that guy!” actor David Costabile. Shannon is a stand-in for Steve Bannon, and not one they tried all that hard to obfuscate. He’s a racist ex-White House staffer that’s described as blotchy and wears a week’s worth of shirts at once, obviously he’s supposed to be Steve Bannon. The first thing we hear Ed Shannon say is, well, exactly what any comedy writer would put in Steve Bannon’s mouth: “Let the bleeding heart lib-tards call you racist. Let them call you nativist. Wear it as a badge of honor, because this is our country and we are taking it back.” And he caps it off with a low-key Nazi salute, because this is the kinda thing that happens in America now.

The entire episode hinges around one question: will Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen) take Shannon up on his offer to go head-to-head on Murphy in the Morning? Shannon’s got a book coming out (American Carnage, which is itself one of Trump’s sayings, albeit a B-side to his more popular “build the wall”) and Murphy in the Morning could use a ratings boost (Avery Brown’s morning show on the rival Wolf Network is gaining on his mom’s morning show). The intensely calculating network bigwig Diane practically demands Murphy do the interview. Producer Miles (Grant Shaud) agrees, saying that if anyone can knock out Shannon in a war of words, it’s Murphy. Co-anchors Corky (Faith Ford) and Frank (Joe Regalbuto) are against it, Corky because of the guilt she feels over her family’s history of racism and Frank because he just wants to punch Nazis. “We are not considering having that slime bucket on,” says Frank. “Why, to do one of those normalizing pieces? ‘Nazis, they’re just like us!'” Yep, pieces that humanize Nazis are also the kinda thing that happens in America now.

It’s at this point in the episode, when the “to debate or not to debate” question drives the plot from the newsroom to the bar hangout, that it becomes clear: this episode is all about journalistic integrity. It’s not just the A-plot while, I dunno, Corky joins Snapchat a year too late or Avery asks out Murphy’s boss on a date or something. The entire episode is about Murphy’s decision–a decision that no other character on TV could grapple with.

Helping her make that decision is former series regular Jim Dial (82-year-old Charles Kimbrough, making his first appearance on the revival). He steps into Phil’s Bar, having returned from his sailing trip to Bermuda, and plants himself with real old school Walter Cronkite-level gravitas. Would he interview Ed Shannon? “No!” Even if it meant big ratings? “No!” Even if it was a fight he knew he could win? “No!”

“Let me give it to you straight: if you put that human mudslide on the air, you’re creating a perfect example of false equivalency,” explains Jim. “It’s a disease that’s sickening today’s journalism. You don’t have to give equal time to someone who claims Tom Hanks is running a shadow government.” This is the kind of monologue that, again, needs to be on TV right now and also could not be delivered on any other show. It gets an applause break. Also, that Tom Hanks thing is a real thing because, again, this is the kinda thing that happens in America now.

Murphy turns down the interview, explaining that she’s on the air to report the news, not become the news. Integrity won out. But if you thought Murphy Brown was gonna roll credits before pitting its titular truth-teller up against this not-so-fictional racist troll king, think again. Shannon comes for Brown at the bar, away from cameras, and the two have it out.

He enters the scene like a cough in human form and calls her a coward. The two trade barbs, Murphy never really breaking a sweat while debunking all of his racist talking points. And then it hits Murphy, and cue monologue:

“Underneath all that clothing is an old white guy who’s scared of losing his place at the table. You and your friends, you’re all dinosaurs… This is your last gasp, your last chance to prevent progress from happening and the good people, let’s call them ‘single shirts,’ they’re going to stamp out your hatred and bigotry and they will replace you. You will end up in an exhibit in a museum standing in your country club diorama with a gin and tonic in one hand and your putter in the other. A sad, sad, sad, sad, sad dinosaur who went extinct.”

It’s quite a speech–it’s a really on the nose speech, the kind of speech you see strung together in tweet threads all the time, definitely the kinda speech you have fantasized about giving to any number of racist goons in the headlines. The show’s depiction of this moment rings a teeny bit false when it posits that this is a point Ed Shannon has never heard before, and that this speech would do anything to make the real Steve Bannon back off. It really wouldn’t. But still, you wanna see feminist icon Murphy Brown stick it to these guys, and the speech is satisfying on that level. It’s pure wish-fulfillment, but it’s also a sitcom.

And you know, there’s a place for that. There is a place in our human process of grieving and griping and striving for answers for the kind of pat comfort a half-hour sitcom provides. It’s not realistic because it’s not supposed to be, and the solution is way too tidy (Shannon just leaves, and the entire argument goes viral when a bar patron puts it online; there’s even a dance remix). But “Three Shirts to the Wind” does what the very best very special episodes need to do: give audiences the words they’ve been struggling to find to identify a problem and to provide them with a solution. Maybe there are viewers out there that haven’t heard Murphy’s speech before, and maybe it clicked something into place that previously didn’t fit. Maybe it’ll give them the words they’ve been looking for when these difficult conversations come up in real life. That’s important.

And Murphy Brown is the only show and the only character that could tell this particular story and give that particular speech right now.

Stream Murphy Brown on CBS All Access