4 New Comedy Specials You Should Definitely Watch (When You Have a Moment)

Thanks to more platforms paying for stand-up than ever, technological advancements that make production significantly cheaper, and social platforms that make promotion easier, we’re in the middle of a stand-up special gold rush. Depending on how you stream, you’re likely to encounter a hastily assembled 20-minute “special” next to the masterpieces of the best comedians working. With hundreds of specials being algorithmically recommended at the same time, it’s hard to make sense of the glut. That’s what this column is for. Every month, we’ll suggest anywhere from three to five specials that are worth watching. While they might not all necessarily be the “best,” they’re worth your time for being funny, ambitious, moving, or bad in a way that must be reckoned with. There is gold in them hills, and this column will share only the most choice nuggets.

Sam Jay, Live in London (YouTube)

It’s hard to say if this is a special, especially because Sam Jay makes a point to call it a documentary. But I wouldn’t even call it a docuspecial, as the 37-minute Live in London features far less documentary footage than typically seen in that genre (it’s about 85 percent stand-up). It’s included here because, whatever it is, it feels like a more cohesive piece than most stand-up specials. Live in London captures Jay’s writing process — there are offstage conversations that turn into onstage material — but it also shows Jay process in real time what is happening to the U.S. weeks before the 2024 election (during which she correctly believed that Trump would win).

In any case, it’s fascinating and compelling to watch Jay muse on a topic for several minutes as she searches for a joke. There is a moment where she wrestles with the idea of people supporting Trump. She explains it doesn’t bother her because she never had faith in America: “I’m Black. I never have.” The audience is uneasy and silent until Jay finds the twist: “The real reason is I just don’t want to go back to taking dick.” Nothing against polished material, but there is an undeniable urgency to jokes told when the subject is still fresh.

Liza Treyger, Night Owl (Netflix)

There is a thrilling tension underneath all of Liza Treyger’s stand-up: How can a person be both this messy and this self-aware? “I will do whatever to not actually feel my feelings,” one joke starts in her special Night Owl. “Like, I tried to fix a printer, and I couldn’t do it, and I went to get a butterfly tattoo.” She then points to said tattoo on her forearm and says, “This is so big for someone who is pretty casual about butterflies.” It’s befuddling and endearing to experience someone who can be so oblivious in the moment yet so clear-eyed toward her past actions.

The best example of this in the special is a section about Treyger’s compulsive relationship to scrolling on her phone. She viscerally captures how it feels to know social media is draining your attention while being incapable of quitting. At one point, she captures how dire the situation is by saying, “As a child, if someone told you your one source of joy will be watching a horse you don’t know get its hoof cleaned …” As is the case with this joke, a lot of Treyger’s punch lines trail off. The special’s delivery style and structure are loose, but it’s fitting considering her onstage persona. This might frustrate a viewer who prefers jokes to end sharply, on hard consonants, and in a way that signals to the audience when to laugh, but for the most part, Treyger’s conversational style is refreshing, and the laughs she earns roll along with a unique rhythm.

Roy Wood Jr., Lonely Flowers (Hulu, Disney+)

After releasing three excellent specials over four years with Comedy Central, it’s lovely to see Roy Wood Jr. free from the constraints of working for the network. Lonely Flowers shows one of the greatest stand-ups working today free to express himself to his full capacity. Especially in the genre of political comedy, which tends to be reactionary across all party identifications, Wood works with purpose and clear intention. Rather than delivering a special that feels like a grab bag of hot-button issues, he focuses on the idea of connection, exploring what is lost when we continue to eliminate human interaction even in places as seemingly mundane as a grocery-store checkout.

There is a form-following-function aspect to Wood’s performance as he strives to bring humanity to all of these everyday moments to get the audience to focus on the humanity lost in their everyday lives. Initially, while watching the special, I thought it featured a gratuitous use of callbacks, but then it became clear Wood was utilizing them not to show off, but to emphasize Lonely Flowers’s theme of creating moments of connection. No other living stand-up brings Wood’s level of thoughtfulness and sensitivity to political comedy. His mastery of both emotional honesty and sociopolitical truth-telling puts him in Richard Pryor territory.

Doug Stanhope, Discount Meat (YouTube)

While most stand-up comedians aspiring to be edgy these days focus their specials on the same ten supposedly untouchable topics, Doug Stanhope is genuinely transgressive. In Discount Meat, released on December 31, this manifests in material that is really out there in terms of appropriateness, like a 13-minute section comparing 9/11 to COVID or a shockingly thorough exploration of whether pedophiles go into having kids with the intention of molesting them one day. But beyond touching on edgy subjects, Stanhope’s work pushes back on orthodoxies. And Discount Meat focuses on the orthodoxies he’s seen among so-called political independents. In doing so, he offers a trenchant critique of a version of libertarianism that he used to be associated with that many in comedy have since embraced: “I’ve noticed a lot of anti-government people have become very pro-government in their efforts to get the government to get government out of our lives.”

The downside to the special’s unrelenting nature is that it can, at times, feel exhausting. Its watchability is also affected by its unusual presentation: Instead of showing Stanhope performing onstage, the camera focuses on a room filled with Stanhope-related paraphernalia and multiple old TVs playing his performance. It feels like you are in Stanhope’s bunker, watching specials on a pirated feed. It’s bizarre and might not be for everyone sitting down for some casual stand-up comedy after a long day at work, but for those ready to engage, Discount Meat’s unsettling style adds another layer of intrigue to the experience.

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