The comedian makes explicit something we should have always known.
, released today on Netflix, is his latest stand-up special. It covers his period in rehab, the shameful lows of his drug addiction, and what life looks like from the other side, clean and recovering. It’s funny.
Mulaney has very much still got it. But what makes this latest hour particularly interesting is how Mulaney has managed to walk the line between being entertaining and acknowledging that what we are seeing when we watch John Mulaney on stage is not John Mulaney the person; it’s John Mulaney the character.At the beginning, he notices a young boy in the audience, who turns out to be 11 years old, and addresses him directly. “If you’ve seen me do stand-up before, I have kind of a different vibe now,” he says. He does. John Mulaney the character has changed. “When I was a younger man I’d come out on stage and be like”—he starts babbling madly and jumping around—“and I wonder what caused that. Well, those days are over.” He’s calmer in his demeanor, and his material is a little edgier, more overtly unlikable. In fact, in a mock-musical number early in the show , he sings that “likability is a jail.” He talks about feeling resentful that he has to be grateful to 12 separate people for saving his life, as they were the ones at his intervention, and wondering why the six people who attended from Los Angeles via Zoom didn’t care enough to fly in. Compounding the sense that this material might not be especially relatable is the fact that this event was, by Mulaney’s own admission, a “star-studded intervention,” one whose “ ‘We Are the World’ of alternative comedians” included Seth Meyers, Nick Kroll, and Fred Armisen. Still, the material’s not edgier by much. He’s always done jokes about doing drugs and behaving badly, but before, we as an audience were able to kid ourselves that he was, mostly, joking. The only line in the teaser trailer forthat came out last week was “And, as you process and digest how obnoxious, wasteful, and unlikable that story is, just remember, that’s one I’m willing to tell you.” In the special, it comes after he tells a story about buying a Rolex to pawn it immediately, because, after telling his accountant to stop giving him money to prevent him from buying drugs, he found one credit card that still worked. The line gave me déjà vu. It reminded me of a bit from, his 2018 special. He tells a story about his father and then says, “I’ve never talked to my dad about that, but I figured I would tell all of you.”
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