Mae Martin: SAP

Mae has such a charming stage presence. It takes a while to get used to the fact that she's incoherent. She's scattershot. I enjoy the sparkly bits and shimmering shadows she throws out. However, I found myself shifting into the mindset of being her therapist.

That's a weird sensation for me to have while watching a comedy special, but I have felt it before. Like in Jerrod Carmichael's Rothaniel, in shows by the brilliant Hannah Gadsby, in multiple specials by Mike Birbiglia. I am a psychiatrist-psychotherapist.(big mouthful that, I know) so it's my job and my passion and my vocation to listen to people who have learned how to free associate.

Bottom Line: I Love Mae Martin. Her appearance, her whole personality, her storytelling style.... I'm eatin' it up.

I love Mae, they have a unique nervous energy about them. Also they are great with deadpan humor so might be not everyone gets when they are joking. This special is full of that energy and some personal stories, not all of them happy or sappy. And some people may not share all their believes which I suspect is the real reason some people claim this show wasn't funny at all.

Because it was, I laughed aloud many times and I bet it was a joy to see live. I hope they get to too many more specials and polish their style even more.

I hope this review if finally ok to post because I think this is my fourth time writing and trying to submit it.

Based on some of the other reviews I've read, I think that perhaps this special isnt for everyone, and thats okay. Personally, I laughed a ton throughout, *like* to the point of having coughing fits because im still recovering from a cold.

I found it to be intellectually stimulating while providing good laughs. Mae Martin is incredibly introspective, perhaps to their detriment sometimes. It creates the stage for unique jokes, which landed for me, though I could understand if others don't appreciate it. If you're looking for cheap, hacky laughs or those based on vulgarity, you will not find it here. If you enjoy thought-provoking comedy and enjoyed Feel Good, you may just find this to be as brilliantly written as I did.

I'll give this two stars because my wife laughed once throughout the special. I didn't laugh at all. Im sure some people hate this simply because it's an LGBTQIA+ comedian. I don't give a damn about that. I just didn't find it funny at all. It starts with a years old joke Mae has told many times before. From there it devolves in to, at times, incoherent rambling. Mae will often stop mid joke and go on a tangent about something completely different. The word "like" is used in almost every sentence. I'm, like, such and such, like, XYZ. I wish Mae all the best in the future, but this type of manic incoherent comedy isn't for me. Mae is all over the place and, in my opinion, makes for an almost unwatchable hour.

Mae arrives on Netflix with a characteristically understated live special, with only a sort of semi-meta bit of bumpering with the great Phil Burgers (also in Feel Good) as adornment. I think the direction was similarly bare bones but the material was solid and Mae is so effortlessly charismatic, with their slightly-overwhelmed-to-even-be-speaking-in-public vibe. The comedy is a niche sort of vibe tonally and strikes a strange place between introspective tangents of tremendous earnestness and stabs of surreal bluntitude. Whether they nail "the big message" or not is neither here nor there, this is them fairly unvarnished and I can dig it.