Former “Nightly Show” host Larry Wilmore will appear on Monday’s episode of Nat Geo’s “Explorer,” which will grapple with death.
In a new preview of the episode (above), Wilmore sits on a panel alongside writer Chuck Klosterman and undertaker Amy Cunningham to discuss the topic with host Richard Bacon.
“Every second of a black funeral is highly emotional,” the comedian jokes in the clip, mimicking the sounds of a bereaved funeral-goer. “Many people [at the funeral] aren’t in the family and don’t know the deceased. They just act like they do.”
But Cunningham points out that 2016 is the first year that more people will be cremated than buried. “With the rise of cremation, we’ve lost something. I feel like the funeral is going by too quickly. And we’ve lost ritual, which is important,” she says.
The episode will also include a segment about a town in Indonesia where people keep their dead at home until they can afford a proper funeral; a segment on the Hanford Nuclear Reactor, where workers have been cleaning up nuclear waste for 72 years and counting; an interview with environmental activist Erin Brockovich; and piece about a librarian in Timbuktu who moved books and artifacts to protect them from al-Qaida.
Monday’s episode serves as a relaunch for the franchise as an hourlong weekly talk show hosted by Bacon. The show will mix hosted segments, panel discussions and in-depth reporting by Nat Geo’s field correspondents.
Future episodes of “Explorer” will take on topics ranging from the ongoing battle with ISIS to climate change and the aftermath of natural disasters.
Watch the video above.