The Best Comedy Specials to Stream This Month (Critic’s Picks)

That’s Too $hort’s “Blow The Whistle” playing under the closing credits of Jones’ third special, and like Short Dog, Jones is an underrated expert practitioner of a sacred verbal art. They’re also both filthy as hell.

Calling this special raw is to underestimate the number of times Jones uses her fluid physicality to anthropomorphize a penis, at least one of which is flaccid due to depression. (Everyone, Jones says, should see a therapist — but especially men, who’d rather walk into traffic than admit they’re sad: “The gym is not therapy. You’re just getting stronger to kill us faster.”)

A bit about how millennials and Gen Z-ers are weak because they didn’t grow up with playgrounds designed to kill them is awfully threadbare. But at its best, Life Part 2 mixes personal revelation with punchlines that are both screamingly funny and screamed (over the top is Jones’ default mode), as when she pulls out a list of her soulmates for an unexpurgated tour of the way love, sex, and need can become hopelessly tangled. (“The good d–k and the good man never come in the same package.”)

Never once does Jones let up — the joke count is high, and so is her confidence and commitment. She leaves it all on the stage.

Watch on Peacock

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: it’s a documentary, but really it’s not, about a performance that’s not going well. (Hello Guffman! And how do you do, Curb Your Enthusiasm pilot?)

That’s part of the idea here: behind-the-scenes for an evening of cover songs strung together with stories and jokes (what used to be called cabaret in the days when Barry Manilow was Bette Midler’s piano player), except — d’oh! — most of the songs don’t clear licensing. And the stories may or may not be true.

You may recognize Pally as the bearded sitcom oddball on Happy Endings and The Mindy Project. Or you may not — one throwaway joke relies on how easy it is to confuse him with Jake Johnson, the bearded sitcom oddball on New Girl.

That throwaway, though, is at the heart of what’s fascinating about An Intimate Evening: a performer’s way of making something they’ve said countless times before seem off the dome. In other words: the ability to tell a lie and make it seem not just true, but alive in the moment.

Were Pally’s parents actually lounge singers? Is his mother dead? Does he really not know how a guitar strap works? I have no idea, which is exactly how Pally wants it. But even when the irony is laid on thicker than a cream-cheese schmear, I certainly enjoyed him telling me all about it.

Watch on HBO

Quiñones told the Los Angeles Times that this special came together while opening for Ali Wong, who’d reached out to him and asked a simple question: “Yo, you want to get serious about this?”

Indeed, one of the many miracles of Damn That’s Crazy (which Wong directed) is how Quiñones balances the serious with the lighthearted. In an hour laced with joy and pain, he tells his life story: growing up with a Mexican American father and a Native American mother, he started doing characters to escape from the “crazy s–t” he went through as a kid.

Quiñones blew up on YouTube when his CholoFit Workout videos went viral in 2017 (his vato fitness instructor was based on his dad); and the TV work he got as a result (check out This Fool, the excellent Hulu sitcom set in South Central Los Angeles) finally made him good enough money to purchase his own apartment, a duplex.

Quiñones’ worldview — as well as his ease with translating his Mexican American identity into mainstream comedy — can be summed up in three words: positive vibes, homie! And while that may sound simple, this special makes clear how hard won it is. “Thanks for letting me get vulnerable with you,” he says towards the end.

The story he’s telling is how he ended up in rehab during the pandemic, which he spent in that new duplex doing cocaine to kill the COVID virus and browsing for sex toys on Amazon: “Everyone has a different rock bottom, but the bottom I hit was silicone.” The healing that comes next is both funny and stunning.

Watch on Hulu

Is life different for Wolf after having a child? “Lot harder to tell dead baby jokes,” she cracks about 30 seconds in, signalling that — on at least one level — nothing has changed, and nothing is off the table.

Maintaining her right to be “a piece of shit on stage who tells dead baby jokes” while also being a loving, caring, good example for daughter is Wolf’s idea of a healthy work-life balance. Or, as she explains: “You’re a mom now,” she says. “But who you were before is still in there. And you’ve gotta get it out somewhere, or you’re gonna put it in the baby.”

Motherhood is a focus here, but it’s also a lens for material on gender, sexism, and politics. On Republicans working for decades to take away abortion rights: “You’ve got to admit, those guys are planners. They see a problem, and they will chisel away at it until it’s a swastika.” On having her first child at 37: “I’m a young dad, but I’m an old mom.” On resuming her stage work after seven months maternity leave: “In Sweden, they would call that, ‘Five months too early, you idiot.’ But in America, they say, ‘It’s six months too long, you whore.’”

As always, Wolf is most comfortable making you uncomfortable, as in a bit directed at the women who are grossed out that she drank her placenta after giving birth for its health benefits: “You’ve swallowed cum. And what’d that help you recover from?” There’s a cum callback that’s even better, and to prove that Wolf has none of her edge, it involves breastfeeding her daughter.

Watch on Netflix