The irony in Sutherland’s character telling Yo-Yo, a black woman, she’s not “expensive” like the black men around her. She’s just “a dime a dozen”. And how Fontaine and Slick talk to her at times as well. “Just a regular ol’ ho.” But she’s smart, the first one ready to protect her community/almost killed for it, and her kidnapping sparked the whole underground takeover. Kind of “the face that launched a thousand ships”-ish?
Sounds expensive, priceless even, and worth protecting.
I am looking forward to the think-pieces that put They Cloned Tyrone into conversation with Sorry to Bother You and Atlanta regarding the use of satire, the surrel, magical realism/enchantment, and the absurb.
Additionally, there's a through line from the use of satire in TCT to the parodies of films like Undercover Brother and Black Dynamite that all hinge on the very real and horrific experimentation done on Black people in the US and the larger Diaspora.
All in all, it's just the right mix of humor, satire, and mind-fuckery.