Two years removed from his fifth Netflix stand-up special, Tom Segura returned with another new hour, premiering on Christmas Eve. Whether this feels like an extra-special present for you this holiday, or whether it feels like a lump of coal, may entirely depend upon your previous disposition toward Segura and his humor. And by may, I mean most definitely.
The Gist: Segura is one of the comedians who shot to fame in the early years of Netflix comedy specials, and continues to be one of the streaming giant’s bigger beneficiaries. They ordered a spin-off series of sketches from him, Bad Thoughts, which debuted in May and received a second-season renewal come June. And for the Christmas Eve release of this special, his sixth, Netflix boosted his profile by having him on the football field during the platform’s live Christmas Day NFL broadcasts.
In this hour, Segura shares with us some of the trappings of his fame, recounting a flight with the Blue Angels. But he’s also still grappling with life as a father and a husband, and looking back on some of the past moments from his life and career that he may regret (or be extra grateful for) in retrospect.
What Comedy Special Will It Remind You Of? What if Louis CK but “happily” married and not outed for any indecencies that Segura hasn’t already fulled disclosed imagining fully himself.
Memorable Jokes: After flying with the Blue Angels, Segura realized that while “it was the most thrilling 45 minutes of my entire life,” the existence of the Blue Angels as promotional entertainment is something only America could pull off.
Soiling his pants, on the other hand, may be sadly more relatable.
Segura also wants us to know what it’s really like for the U.S. Marines standing guard at Gitmo, and it turns out it’s a lot like him raising his 6-year-old son. “Yeah, that’s called an A-1 setup. That’s why I’m a big-time comedian.” We learn about some of the ways his son tortures him, and yet the most worrisome to Segura is that for the past three years, his son has refused to go by Julian, instead responding only to the name Teacher.
Segura also offers a bunch of seemingly unrelated observations, from the exclusive golf club in Georgia that hosts The Masters, to Netflix documentaries he has watched. The doc on Johnny Manziel certainly put Segura’s own youthful indiscretions in perspective. But he reminds us that he learned in school that shame thrives in secret. So perhaps Segura’s pivot to comedy was and is his solution: “I feel shame and I know what to do: Tell someone.”
Our Take: His choices to open the hour are questionable, at best.
Segura recalls a gig where a fight supposedly broke out in the front row, but it’s all a misdirect to mock an elderly woman for her looks and her lack of value as a sex object. He wants us to know, too, that he loves Italy so much that he’ll ride Vespas there. But not here. Oh no. Here, riding a Vespa is “gay.”
These could be excused, I suppose, as more of his “bad thoughts” that he’d spin off for his Netflix series. The thing is, however, that Segura doesn’t seem to have enough new thoughts or experiences worth developing into another new hour. You can get away with trifling material on tour. On a special, not so much.
All of which is brought home even more so when he uses his gratitude for filming this sixth hour to reflect on times in his younger comedy days when “I didn’t really think this was in the cards for me.” He could choose from all sorts of ups and downs from his lengthy comedy career. Of all of them, he chose to talk about how he had booked a nationwide ad campaign for Subway, in which he starred as Jared’s “derelict brother,” back before we discovered Jared was the problem in real life. What’s weird about this story is that’s not a new tale. Segura shared this on on TV with Stephen Colbert way back in 2018.
This also is not the first time he has joked about killing his wife. Segura previously joked about her falling down the stairs. This time he’s openly sharing with us about how he has shared with his wife, fellow stand-up and podcast partner Christina P., his thoughts about pushing her off of a cliff or a train platform.
During one bit about how his Peruvian relatives sometimes make literal translations that sound funny in English, Segura dishes about how it’s a bummer that he cannot speak in a funny Asian accent. When he says he attempted learning Mandarin to tell a joke in Hong Kong, he said the bit bombed. But why is he sharing all of this, and going through the motions rehashing this kind of material all these years later, when he promised all of us and Netflix a Spanish speaking special five years ago? Where is that hour to showcase Segura’s versatility as a comedian?
Our Call: This isn’t his best work. But before you decide to SKIP IT entirely, I’d encourage you to STREAM this nine-minute short filmed behind-the-scenes where you can see Segura work through his process and make the call for yourself.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.