Washington excels at playing the straight man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, toggling between simmering rage and hilarious incredulity during his many phone calls with Duke, who lists the many ways he can tell the difference between a white man and a Black man by the way they enunciate. There's no desire to humanize Klan-members here. With the exception of Grace as Duke (a role the former That 70s Show star takes on with glee — the Topher Gracessance is real), they are all shown to be bumbling idiots wielding dangerous rhetoric (and often weapons), and made all the more terrifying as a result. They are both the antagonists and the comic relief. Lee uses humor to diffuse deeply upsetting situations, a technique that also serves to hammer home the idea that sometimes the only thing protecting Flip and Ron from violent harm is a well-placed barb.