Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval

Ellen switches between observational comedy and show business comedy. Her observations are the same topics you've heard other comedians talk about before: driving annoyances, restaurant annoyances. Yawn. It plays like a poor man's Seinfeld. Her show business material is her defending herself against people calling her mean by saying she's only human. What a cop out. She constantly reminds the audience that she's gay to gain sympathy and hide her narcissism. She also drags bits out too long. We don't need 10 minutes of pigeon material. If this is her final special, she went out with a whimper. Her final message to the audience is that she doesn't care what they think. We know; she's been telling that to her staff for years. Ellen exits the stage like an old horse being put out to pasture. A sad end to a long career.

Here we go with yet another self-serving ego massage like "Relatable", but not nearly as cringe. To be fair, there are a handful of genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Ellen is always at her best when she sticks to her tried and tested style of observational humor. But, I'm afraid she has been disconnected from reality for so long, that she's completely lost he sense of self awareness.

Imagine telling an audience that you're currently kicked out of show business while you're performing on a stand-up tour and then airing it on Netflix. That's literally the opposite of being kicked out of show business.

She addresses the abuse controversy by making excuses: She claims of being unfairly penalized for being a gay woman. What does she think happened? The country embraced her and her talk show for 20 years and then just up and decided to dump her because she's a gay woman? Zero remorse. Zero accountability. Zero self-awareness. She could have easily addressed it at the beginning of the show just by admitting she screwed up. Instead, she has the audacity to claim that it's unfair for her to be held accountable as the leader of her show just because it's her name, face and brand on it. She likens it to holding Ronald McDonald accountable for how the McDonald's Corporation is run. Except Ronald is not the product, nor is he real. He's a fictional mascot. Ellen IS the product, the brand and the one who both mistreated people and allowed others to mistreat people under her watch.

The biggest problem with Ellen's rationale behind what happened to her is that we know what happened. And she's hoping you'll forget that.

She is generally quite funny. I Always had a soft spot for Ellen. But she has lost any meaningful content or insightful observation. She became extremely boring and monotone through the years, losing touch with the world. In this totally pointless show, she Talks about irrelevant things like parking a car in front of a restaurant. The only fun joke I can remember is about pigeons. "I am disappointed in you piegeons!" ... The rest is not that it is unrelatable, is Ellen that doesn't relate to anything outside her narrow, very boring and uninspiring (by the sound of it) millionaire life. She does the same character she know well to do, but without any life or wit. Perhaps it is good that this was goodbye.

Yes, the show was entertaining but it was not much of a stand up comedy show. It was more like a humorous TED Talk. I actually stopped it and checked to see if it WAS a TED Talk.

I did find that the audience responded more with cheers and clapping than they did with laughter. It almost seemed like they were wanting to encourage her and make her feel better. Thankfully you are able to skip past the long winded standing ovations because, as others have commented, it did get to be pretty annoying.

That being said...I didn't mind her stories and I was able to do other things while I was listening to her talk.

There are far too many applause breaks for moments that aren't particularly funny or noteworthy. The narrative about being 'kicked out of' show business doesn't land when she's literally here on Netflix with a multi-million dollar deal. Clearly, despite the controversy, companies still willing to pay for her work, it's ultimately within her power to remain in or step away from show business.

I was hoping to hear her side of the controversy, or at least how she would weave it into her routine, but instead, she skims over the issue without offering much insight or depth. The constant jumping from topic to topic with no clear link makes the special feel disjointed and unfocused. It lacks the depth or insight that I expected, leaving the entire show feeling more like a ramble than a cohesive stand-up performance.