With just a couple days left on his guest hosting tenure for “The Daily Show,” Kal Penn brought back a fan-favorite character of his on Wednesday night: Dr. Lawrence Kutner, from “House.” And, with a little help from Dr. House himself — or at least, what appears to be recycled footage of him — the men were able to cure at least one person of a deadly new virus coined by Republicans.
To kick off the show, Penn noted that we are closer to the 2024 presidential election than it seems, and while candidates could be focusing on issues like climate change or international tensions, they’re instead worried about something else entirely.
“Based on what we’re hearing from Republican candidates and right-wing media, there’s one issue that looms larger than all of that,” Penn explained. “It’s the threat posed by a deadly virus — and probably not the one you’re thinking of.”
Penn then played a supercut of Republican politicians and pundits alike, griping on TV about what they’ve dubbed “woke mind virus” that has apparently taken over the country (but more specifically, Democrats).
“Yeah! Republicans are terrified of the ‘woke mind virus.’ I mean, to be clear, not terrified enough to support public health care to treat it, but terrified,” Penn mocked. That said, he did have a solution.
Joking that he once played a doctor on TV, he and his former team could probably cure “the woke mind virus.” And so they did.
Penn then cut to a new “episode” of “House,” in which a man insists he feels fine, but Dr. Kutner (Penn) and Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) force him to accept that he has this fictional virus. To “confirm” it to him, Penn asks the patient a series of questions, like, “Are you pissed off that Mr. Potato Head doesn’t have a penis?” and “Does racism still exist?”
When the man quickly answers “no” and “yes,” respectively, the two doctors ask a few more ridiculous questions, before forcibly sedating the man to “cure” him.
When he wakes up once more, Dr. Kutner asks what his pronouns are, just to confirm the fix worked, to which the man hesitates before answering, “Kiss my ass” – echoing Texas senator Ted Cruz’s words from July.
You can watch the full segment from “The Daily Show” in the video above.