WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW
LATE NIGHT INVITES US INTO A WONDROUS ALTERNATE reality—a world in which a woman is the host of a premier late-night talk show, and has been for so long that she’s now jaded and considered out of touch. when we first meet emma thompson’s witheringly sardonic and immaculately dressed katherine newbury, she’s accepting yet another emmy for her 28-year stint as the face of a show called tonight. but the awards don’t amount to much, we soon discover; her ratings have been in decline for a couple of years, in part because her writers’ room comprises entirely milquetoast men whom she has never even taken an interest in meeting. when an argument with one of these (uniformly white) men culminates in katherine being accused of hating women, she issues her ever-patient producer brad (denis o’hare) a simple dictum: hire. a. woman.
The speculative thrill of a woman reigning for decades over the daily, uniquely American ritual of late-night television primes us for the even more fantastical movie-logic that introduces Mindy Kaling’s Molly Patel to Late Night. Molly is an efficiency technician at a chemical plant and has no experience in comedy beyond cracking puns over the PA system at her factory. When she shows up to interview for the writing job, Brad is puzzled as to how she ended up there. Molly’s explanation is ridiculously, hilariously contrived, involving an essay contest and a skillfully wrangled meeting with an executive at the company that owns both her chemical plant and the network that airs Katherine’s show. Brad is about to dismiss her when he receives an impatient phone call from Katherine: “Have you hired a woman yet?” He sighs, and Molly gets the job.
