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Jeong Park / Searchlight The Bittersweet Silliness of Hulu’s Fire Island
The smart new rom-com understands that vacation is not liberation.
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HBO Max What Hacks Understands About the Myth of Self-Betterment
The HBO Max show’s second season is refreshingly free of easy epiphanies and life lessons.
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Henny Garfunkel / Redux Gilbert Gottfried Was More Than Just a Funny Voice
The late comedian helped move stand-up beyond the realm of the merely observational and create space for the absurd.
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Clifton Prescod / Netflix A Comedy Special About Wanting to Cheat on Your Husband
Ali Wong’s latest show is hilarious, filthy, and accessible despite its potentially alienating subject matter.
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Will Heath / NBC ‘The Timeline You’re All Living in Is About to Collapse’
SNL’s inaugural episode of 2022 turned to dark, and often awkward, absurdity to explain our exasperating moment.
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Will Heath / NBC When Saturday Night Live Tried to Keep the Lights On
The show just aired one of its strangest and bleakest episodes, courtesy of the Omicron variant.
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Will Heath / NBCU / Getty Saturday Night Live Turns the Big Lie Into a Big Farce
On the show, at least, Donald Trump is back.
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Tim Mosenfelder / Getty Norm Macdonald Wanted Laughter, Not Applause
The late comic’s best work exemplified his resistance to cheap, easy material, but also his utter unpretentiousness.
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Getty; Paul Spella / The Atlantic How 9/11 Changed What Americans Laugh At
The attacks altered the course of modern comedy, fueling the rise of political satire as a form of mainstream entertainment.
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Will Heath / NBC Saturday Night Live Is Over It
The show’s first episode back after a chaotic six weeks in American politics was the equivalent of a giant shrug.
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@crayzrah / @trejokes / @_therealnesha_ / TikTok / … Forget SNL. The Best Election Satire Is on TikTok.
The app’s young creators are outshining mainstream political comedy—and tapping into a longer tradition of Black American humor.
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Will Heath / NBC Dave Chappelle Doesn’t Think America Is Saved
After four years, the comedian returned to host Saturday Night Live. In 16 minutes, he explained why a new president alone won’t fix the country.
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Amazon Studios The New Borat Movie Is Less a Satire Than an Exposé
The bumbling provocateur who stormed the United States in 2006 has now become an unlikely voice of reason.
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HBO Max The Radical Exposure of Amy Schumer
The miniseries Expecting Amy captures the comedian’s complicated pregnancy with extreme honesty.
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Hulu Palm Springs Is the Comedy of the Summer
The new Hulu movie is about feeling endlessly trapped—and finding happiness anyway.
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Getty / The Atlantic One of America’s Fiercest Media Critics Is Back With a Warning
Jon Stewart on his new satirical film, Irresistible, and the simplistic narratives that fuel the U.S. political system
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Merie W. Wallace / HBO Insecure Is Finally Growing Up
Four seasons in, Issa Rae’s HBO show is becoming the friendship study it was always trying to be.
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Paul Spella / The Atlantic The King of Comedy Is Okay With Not Being Funny
Judd Apatow on making a dramatic movie that feels fitting for the current moment: “It’s about trauma, first responders, how families deal with loss.”
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Everett Collection The Sitcom Dad Who Made Grouchiness Into an Art Form
The actor Jerry Stiller, who died yesterday at age 92, was unforgettable as the irascible Frank Costanza on Seinfeld.
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Mindy Tucker Sarah Cooper Has Mastered the Trump Joke
The comedian had used TikTok only a handful of times before her impersonation of the president garnered 15 million views. Now it’s making her rethink her routine.
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