After brief banter on VOD and Amazon Prime Video, comedian Jim Gaffigan is back on Netflix for his last hour and more of stand-up, which is his sixth special available on the streaming giant. But that’s not what makes him a comedy freak. It’s just his inner voice that still laughs at him and the others. To the right?!

The essential: For Gaffigan’s return to Netflix, the comedian and stand-up actor takes the comedy club aesthetic (brick wall and piano) and blows it up on a much bigger stage in Minneapolis.

Is he going to joke about the pandemic? Yes.

Will he use his inner voice to express his self-awareness? Sure!

Will he also find some day-to-day aspects of our life, despite the pandemic, and explore their premises to tell us what makes them look silly? You know.

What comedy specials will this remind you of? : Kinder than Jerry Seinfeld but far less physical than Brian Regan, this is the path of observational comedy that Gaffigan takes.

Memorable jokes: If the pandemic means the end of the parades, what does it mean for the marching bands?

Gaffigan answers this question by drawing on the history of the marching bands from when they first marched their armies into wars to the point where he will wonder if they are going to go to war on him because of his jokes. . He’s never belittled himself, willing to laugh at himself, in this hour of all the people or even non-people that fans say look like him. He is also still a devout Catholic, but ready to joke about his faith as much as any other. There are longer asides about the nature of motorcyclists and cyclists, society’s prejudices towards attractive people, and, as always, good-humored jokes about being married and having five children.

Our opinion : There’s something about his first line, after thanking the audience for hitting a little harder this week. “Do you remember when we thought the pandemic was over? “

Many comedians make jokes about the pandemic. How can they not? Masks, regulations, various safety precautions. Gaffigan covers these areas, but also reminds us that the biggest surprise of the past two years has been realizing how many crazy people live among us. “It was like a genre reveal for insanity.” It’s one thing to befriend someone who thinks Bigfoot is real; quite another if you think Tom Hanks eats babies. Gaffigan will stick to the first and drop the second. Sorry, Q.

For a long time, too many people lumped Gaffigan into a category called “clean comedy” simply because he barely seemed to swear on stage and because he was open to his faith. Some fans didn’t realize he had an advantage until after Trump took over as president, when Gaffigan’s Twitter thread got more genuinely serious.

But he always had a little advantage. Just go back to his comparison of tabloid news and junk food in his 2012 McDonald’s routine. Mr. Universe. Or take his signature vanity from the chatty inner voice, like a ventriloquist’s dummy serving him hard truths about the jokes he just told. There has always been a lot more to him than just jokes about his laziness, his love of food or his pale skin. You just had to be careful.

The harder edges tend to emerge at this time between the longer pieces.

The hardest? Describing a family trip to Hawaii and how it stands out even among tourists, Gaffigan rejoices in the sunburns, laughs on the zipline and snorkeling, but then he has that cue to the Hawaiians too. natives telling American tourists they stole the islands, “I don’t know how to tell you, but we stole the whole land.” “

He has a slightly lighter twist on billionaires who don’t pay taxes, while continuing to get his political arguments across with a simple question: “Who is your favorite billionaire astronaut?” “

And he points out how Instagram legitimizes stalking and creepy behavior, which almost got him into trouble in real life. Fortunately, the only really scary thing about Gaffigan is his inner voice.

Our call: Stream it.

Sean L. McCarthy works the beat of comedy for his own digital newspaper, The comic strip; before that, for actual logs. Based in New York but will travel anywhere for the scoop: ice cream or the news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and half-hour podcast episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The comic book comic presents the last things first.

look Jim Gaffigan: The Comedy Monster on netflix