Comedian John Mulaney has always been one to avoid telling jokes hitting at other people. However, his new Netflix comedy special, Baby J, is centered entirely around one person in particular, the John Mulaney of 2020-2021.
Though having the same name and soul, the Mulaney of 2020-2021 was an entirely different person – a drug addict, a rehab patient, and overall a “feral” New Yorker. Making his comeback this year, Mulaney is not ashamed of his recent past. He understands that if his personal decisions change the public’s image of him, he is okay with it; because according to him, “likeability is a jail”.
Mulaney has always poked fun at himself in his comedy, but this special is more raw. It can be likened to a personal diary of his hectic and rough past few years. While he doesn’t glorify his rocky experience, he also doesn’t try to teach the audience some big life lesson from his stories. After all, he is still on the journey to full recovery, and that is what puts the viewer in a slightly uncomfortable position. Throughout the special, viewers wonder if they should be laughing or not, being that his stories are from just two years prior. Instead of offering life lessons, Mulaney teases himself and the funny details of his experiences. Whether it’s about his shock at the lack of star-struck fellow rehab patients, or the strange doctor he used to get pills from, Mulaney puts an emphasis on the fact that it was all simply weird at its core.
Mulaney details his star-studded intervention with some of the world’s most famous comedians, all together to help him. He speaks about how he resented his friends for the intervention, hating them for trying to pull him out of his drugged world. It is clear that the show is displaying him in a reflective position as his sober self, looking at his recent past and being okay with laughing at it. He laughs at his experience of trying to steal money from himself, going as far as pawning a brand new Rolex watch for drug money.
Mulaney notably leaves out jokes about his rough relationship status over the past few years. He had an emotional and sudden divorce with artist Anna Marie Tendler, quickly starting a new relationship with actress Olivia Munn, and soon having a son with her. Mulaney is wise in this decision to avoid these topics, as they were the reasons he was in gossip columns for the first time in his career.
All in all, John Mulaney’s new special Baby J is entertaining yet sad at times, charming but raw, but is proof that everyone deserves to laugh.