A lot has changed since John Mulaney was on stage for the last time in a Netflix stand-up special. The comedian has been through a high-profile pandemic roller coaster – drug relapse, recovery, divorce, a new romance and the birth of his first child – and emerged, after two years working on that epic trajectory, with a new character.
“I kind of have a different vibe now,” Mulaney told the audience at Baby J, the Netflix special that debuted on Tuesday, as it hails the recent dramatic end to its “nice guy” era. Over 80 minutes, Mulaney walks a tightrope of self-mockery – describing himself in the depths of his addiction as a drug-driven con man who robbed himself, contacted New York’s sleaziest doctors to obtain prescriptions and showed up late for his own procedure. But it does so with punch lines and delivery so crisp that the material doesn’t feel oppressive and dark.
After polishing his new comedy while on tour, Mulaney reunited with the Tony-winning Broadway director Alex Wood (Bloody bloody Andrew Jackson, beetle juice, And Red Mill! Musical comedy) to create a Netflix special that would introduce Mulaney 2.0 to mass audiences. Timbers, whom Mulaney called the Pit to his Liza Minelli, previously directed Mulaney in his 2016 stage show with Nick Kroll, Oh hi, and Mulaney’s 2018 Netflix special, Gorgeous kid in Radio City. This Netflix special opened with an elaborate sequence that found Mulaney backstage at the famous New York theater, following the comedian as he walked on stage and was greeted by applause from over 6,000 people. in his audience.
This time around, to accommodate Mulaney’s more intimate material and new “vibe”, Mulaney chose a smaller venue, Boston’s beautiful Symphony Hall, which seats around 2,600 spectators. Beneath coffered ceilings and a towering wall of Greek and Roman statues, the stage is closer to the audience – an intimacy than Timbers and his DP cameron barnet amplified for home viewers using on-stage steadicams to capture Mulaney at a much closer distance than captured in Gorgeous child.
Mulaney also opted to forgo a traditional opener. Instead, the special begins with a black screen as the comedian is heard telling the audience, “For the past two years, I’ve been working on myself a lot.” Baby J cuts to a close shot of the Symphony Hall stage, and Mulaney comes back into frame as he continues, “I realized it’s gonna be fine, as long as I get a lot of attention.” The camera then pans to show Mulaney’s point of view, staring at the audience and grabbing attention.
“John wanted to get right into the material,” Timbers explains in a phone call with VF. “Because there’s such urgency and intimacy, it felt like diving straight into the show was the right choice.”
The special was selected from footage taken at three sold-out stand-up shows presented over two days in Boston last February. In the end, Timbers says, he and the comedian rearranged the show in the editing room so Mulaney started. Baby J with softer material, about wanting a child’s attention so badly that he secretly hoped a grandparent—”one of the unimportant”—would die. (Although dark, the track is a throwback to Mulaney’s earlier comedy about his childhood.)
Onstage, Mulaney acknowledges, “I apologize for starting the show on such a dark note. But I didn’t want to start out too optimistic. He then launches into a wacky song and dance, imagining what this upbeat version of the opening would have been like: “We all went to rehab, and we all got divorced, and now our reputations are different.”
A brightening of the mood in the opening minutes was unexpected – Mulaney spotted an 11-year-old fifth grader named Henry on the balcony of one of his performances. After a playful back and forth about what Mulaney was about to discuss, he told Henry, “Don’t.” It takes 10 minutes before Mulaney finally finishes discussing his intervention, teasing, “Here’s what happened.” Baby J then cut to the opening credits before the special returns to Mulaney onstage, beginning the centerpiece of the special.
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