Brow Beat

Watch Full Frontal’s Staff Relax Postelection With a Board Game About the Expulsion of the Jews From Spain

The election threw everyone for a loop, but the staff of Full Frontal With Samantha Bee took things especially hard, and for good reason. After coming out strong for Hillary Clinton throughout the campaign—unlike milquetoasts like Saturday Night Live—Bee and her staff were thrown for a loop by the election results. Fortunately, as Bee reports, they have a group bonding ritual to deal with exactly this kind of stress: game night. Unfortunately, the game this week is Expulsion: Jewish Life in Spain From the Golden Age to 1492, which, the video insists, is “a 100 percent real board game,” though it doesn’t seem to have much of an internet presence.*

You don’t have to know much about the Alhambra Decree to know that Expulsion is a uniquely depressing game to play as Steve Bannon approaches the White House. In no time, the writers are playing “Daily Life” cards about Jewish books being burned and a “Nefesh” card called “The Invisible Woman,” which reads:

This card is dedicated to the thousands of people whose names and deeds went largely unrecorded because they were women. Some were poets and teachers. Many were martyrs.

Once the books start burning, the blood libel isn’t far behind, and what began as an attempt to relax turns out making everyone sadder than ever. And so, as so often seems to happen in the dawning age of Trump, an attempt to look on the bright side and make the best of things ends with existential despair and a bottle of scotch. L’Chaim!

Update, Nov. 30, 2016: Expulsion is, indeed, a real game and can be purchased on Etsy.