Kelsey Cook‘s first two stand-up specials debuted on YouTube and later on Hulu, so the third time must be the charm for Netflix to jump on the bandwagon, right?
The Gist: Cook’s debut special, The Hustler, has earned more than 4.4 million views on YouTube since 2023; her second, Mark Your Territory, has more than 1.6 million views in a year and a half.
No wonder Netflix wanted in on Cook, whose previous TV credits include multiple appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, After Midnight, and Comedy Central’s storytelling series, This Is Not Happening.
Cook is from Spokane, Wash., but notes at the beginning of this special that this is the first time she’s filmed in the city where she lives. Specifically, the Twin Cities in Minnesota, where she has moved in with her fiance, fellow comedian Chad Daniels. A lot of her material here comes from her new life with Daniels, from their different ways of approaching traffic interactions, deciding to quit drinking, and handling gassy business on an airplane.
What Comedy Special Will It Remind You Of? You’ll get the most mileage out of this hour if you’ve seen Chad Daniels: Empty Nester.
Memorable Jokes: So about Cook and Daniels.
While she doesn’t dish too explicitly about their sex life other than to note that her fitness ring mocks her for it, Cook does make fun of herself as well as of women who have heard her joke about a porn star shaving her molars and made that joke somehow more relatable than she’d ever imagined. “My boyfriend’s lucky if I shave above the knee,” she counters.
She does go in on Daniels, though, for having “the worst road rage of anyone I’ve ever met” (eventually turning an act-out of his behavior into her merch she sells after the show). There’s also a funny story about how he blamed her for karmically ruining his bet on the point-spread for a Vikings-Bears game, which buttresses her claim that if “crystals are the physical manifestation of a chain email,” then “men’s sports superstitions are the crystal meth of crystals.”
And then there’s the time she flew on a plane with a flight attendant who was getting all of the passengers drunk (if he wasn’t already three sheets himself), and how he made her airplane bathroom experience more awkward and embarrassing than it already was. Then again, Daniels has inadvertently embarrassed her on a flight or two, too.
She lets us know they’re both sober now, but not for the reasons you may think, although saying that only makes people ask more questions.
Our Take: So, why call it Happy Hour if there’s no drinking, and Cook eventually turns slightly serious by revealing her bouts of depression and intrusive thoughts, and then tells us about how her mom’s dementia has gotten to the point where she doesn’t recognize her own daughter?
For one thing, Cook takes comfort in hearing her mother approve of her even if when she doesn’t think Cook is her daughter.
For another, she seems comfortable in herself. She laughs at her lack of fashion sense leading her to shop for clothes on Amazon since stores only seem to cater to sexy Gen Zs or Diane Keaton, with nothing for anyone in between. She has fun with the idea of old men on Facebook hating her decision to cut her hair, or with old confused truckers showing up to her casino gig based solely on a vague billboard with her gussied-up image along the highway. “I’ve really bummed out some dusty boners,” she quips.
Good thing that’s not her job, anyhow. She’s a comedian, and a solid one at that.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Including the bit with her displaying her merch (which really is a play off of something Chad Daniels does) over the end credits is quite a flex. But it shows how just how road-tested both Daniels and Cook are. And why either of them are worth watching. Regardless of whether he gets around to proposing.
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.