John Mulaney: Baby J

The reason Mulaney has to work extra hard at convincing us of this is that he remains, even in this grimmer show, an incredibly winning and relatable figure onstage.

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 (it’s a stand-up special, so there have to be jokes) 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.

Baby J is as controlled as Mulaney says he wasn’t during the lowest points of his addiction. Its confession is confident, calculated, creating distance between performer and audience even as it invites us to listen.

One is tempted to say this is his most personal work, but that isn’t quite right. That first shot tips us off to a theme: You can be invisible in front of a crowd. Mulaney’s comedy, however, has become spikier, pricklier, sometimes slower while remaining as funny as ever, like he’s a pitcher who learned to mix up speeds.

The 80-minute special contains some of his darkest and most compelling material to date. The laughs may come ever-so-slightly fewer and farther between than in his previous work, but Mulaney’s willingness to peel back the curtain on his inner turmoil in a way he’s never done before adds a new depth that, by the end, only makes the special funnier.

When it comes to subjects like substance abuse, we’ve been trained to expect raw, unguarded vulnerability, or at least the pretense of it. “Baby J” refuses to flatter those illusions. This is comedy, not memoir, in which a story about Mulaney’s stint in detox is largely a setup for a killer Al Pacino impression. Mulaney doesn’t alter his delivery for this new set of themes, and he often cushions their impact by returning to more familiar ground.

At moments, or from a slight remove, Baby J appears to be an excoriating act of self-disclosure full of details and scenes of abject emotional lows that invite descriptions like brutal and honest. Up close, though, it looks like a comedy special that cannot help but rebuild every single wall it wants to break down.

I could listen to this man and his crazy stories for a long time. Great stuff!

Johnny Boy. Fresh outta rehab, this man shooting back with some of his best stand-up yet. As someone who has had troubles with drugs and alcohol in the past, I can tell you that this is some of the funniest **** Love it man. Glad to see he's doing better.

Baby J is a nice comeback focused almost entirely on his stint in rehab. It's nice to see his new comedic voice shine.