Taylor Tomlinson, ‘Prodigal Daughter’
Taylor Tomlinson’s latest special begins with awe-struck shots of a gothic cathedral, stained glass and a pulpit. Then we see the comic alone backstage, dramatically turning her head as if she heard a sign from the heavens and adjusting her black-leather coat as the sound of a choir rises. It’s a more dramatic open, not to mention location, than her previous Netflix specials, but this more focused and mature hour (which leans into the sex and religion themes of late ’80s Madonna) is not a departure so much as a culmination.
God has always hovered around the edges of her comedy, which in the past decade has produced a body of work that rivals that of any comic. In taut hours that periodically poke fun at her religious upbringing, Tomlinson, who began in standup by performing in churches, has compared the deity to a bad boyfriend, a pervert and a Taylor Swift-like singer. In one special, she said she could come up with something positive about her faith but then chose not to. Now she’s ready.
This is not a celebration or jeremiad so much as a completed thought, in joke form. She takes her shots. “Every time I see a pastor on a book tour,” she says, “I’m like, Hey man, weren’t you already promoting a book?”
But Tomlinson makes her most deeply felt points through confessional jokes, not takes. A comic who favors concision, she expands her palette here, offering an elaborate theatrical spoof of a Christian comedian but also digging deep into Bible stories, finding a fresh comic take on the absolute bleakness of Noah’s ark. She does not condescend to people of faith, saying she has believed in stupider things, like tall men. There are some great premises, like one about the story of Christmas being so much worse than that of Easter: Her argument hits harder because it begins by empathetically imagining the difficulty of a pastor in coming up with something new to say about either holiday.
The central incongruity in her act is the bubbly way she jokes about subjects likes the death of her mother or her own bipolar diagnosis. But the light and dark elements are more integrated here. This special, packed with jokes, act-outs and even a costume change, keeps you relentlessly laughing, but every now and then Tomlinson says something that makes you stop, like: “I spent a lot of my life being scared of death when not actively yearning for it.”
She is a minimalist at heart and doesn’t allow herself to get emotionally or formally messy. When she was a precocious new comic, this polish was a nice match for stories of crises or struggle. Now she carries herself with more sureness. She’s processed her issues and speaks about them from a position of confidence.
Occasionally, I wished she had dug deeper and risked losing the crowd by getting a little more vulnerable or verbose. But perhaps that’s asking her to be something other than herself. She did come up with an hour that shows growth and also reveals the biggest reason she’s grateful for religion: that church brought her to standup. That’s her faith now.
The fact that her most overtly religious special is also her most queer (she comes out as bisexual) is a comedian’s move. So is making a flurry of bawdy can’t-miss punchlines like, “I’ve never faked an orgasm because I think our generation got enough participation trophies.”
Kevin Nealon, ‘Loose in the Crotch’
Confession: Even though he’s been a successful comic for four decades, I did not realize how funny Kevin Nealon was until I heard him on Conan O’Brien’s podcast. Every one of their episodes is a master class in comic riffing. But this superb special shows an even more off-kilter side to the blandly affable former host of “S.N.L.”’s Weekend Update. There’s a hint of Mitch Hedberg in one-liners like “This is the irony of life: My wife got pregnant on a pullout couch.” Or when he quizzes audience members, asking them to name the most stressful job. “Air traffic controller,” he answers authoritatively, before pausing. “But not if you don’t take it seriously.”
Nealon is a terrific joke writer, alert to paradox, statements of the obvious and the silliness of language. And his casual and patient delivery finds laughs in the sneakiest places. In a bit that comes off as something from early alt comedy, he says less than a few seconds into his set that he’s “got to wrap it up.” Like the word-drunk comedians David Letterman or Norm Macdonald, Nealon delights in throat-clearing transitional phrases (“Get this,” “Got a minute?”) and finds more comedy in mocking clichés than in finding clever takes on unusual subjects. He digs into well-worn territory like self-checkout or pets, but invariably detours into pure nonsense. “When my grandmother died, it totally shocked us,” he says quietly. “She’d never done that before.”
Chris Spencer, ‘GOAT Adjacent’
In the middle of this well-made 50-minute special with the feel of a confidently hosted Hollywood dinner party, Chris Spencer interrupts a joke to look down at a man in the front row and offer a note. “I’m going to need you to laugh sometime today,” he says firmly. The camera cuts to young man in a bow tie and hat who is suddenly cackling. Spencer points out that this man was a director before imitating him remarking on the show from a distance: “Interesting choices.”
He makes many in this writerly special, weaving together callbacks and strategic breaks of the fourth wall. His dapper poise is nicely juxtaposed with his self-deprecation, describing a career of being outpaced by peers.
Until now Spencer has been a mostly behind-the-scenes figure, a writer and producer who helped create “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” the fake reality show featuring Kevin Hart, among others. His best bit is a description of an expensive dinner with Hart where everyone is suddenly startled when the star doesn’t pay the check. Spencer slows down the story, turning it into a melodrama, describing everything from the sound of a $20 bill flying through the air to the attempt to get Hart to reconsider by flattering him. This is what happens when you spend a lot of time with wealthy friends. Quipping about their relationship, Spencer says: “Kevin Hart is my African American Express.”
‘Isabel Hagen at the Bitter End’
Isabel Hagen tells dirty jokes in between playing the viola, which is more than enough novelty for one act. And yet, what makes her charmingly funny debut special something altogether different is not that she’s a Juilliard-trained artist who uses classical music to set up punchlines. Or that she gets laughs from melancholy premises like a persuasive defense of regret. Hagen is not the first comic to deliver deadpan one-liners with “resting sad face,” as she puts it. At first the viola music merely helps match the respectable with the raunchy. What becomes clear is that Hagen has something more ambitious in mind. She wants to introduce Bach to comedy fans, to build to a place where she can play her instrument and have that stand by itself, independently of jokes. Smuggling a classical music concert into a standup show is the innovation. Comedy is the misdirection, high art the punchline.
Jackie Kashian, ‘Alter-Kashian’
“I am an adult human woman in the United States of America,” Jackie Kashian says in her cheerfully pointed new hour. “I am entirely made of rage right now.” Anger is a theme, along with guns, positive mother-in-law jokes and older-person sex. She describes the last decade in public life as a horror movie in which the killer with the knife has been approaching so long that it has become tedious, even banal.
This is political comedy that is articulately expressing a feeling more than trying to make a point. When getting into the specifics of I.C.E., she sputters, seemingly too mad to use her words. Kashian is the kind of comic who turns fury into eloquent goofiness. What’s a better description of being apoplectic over politics than “I am made of bees”? Kashian dreams of owning a gun but knows it’s a terrible idea. Still, she allows herself the thought: “I want a gun because I think I can clean everything up. Is there a more American statement?”
Jason Zinoman is a critic at large for the Culture section of The Times and writes a column about comedy.
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