Stream It Or Skip It?

There’s matching calamity with serenity, and then there’s what comedian Marc Maron has pulled off, which is taking a lifetime of anxiety and utilizing it to its maximum comedic effect.

The Gist: Maron met the moment both personally and politically in his first HBO special, From Bleak to Dark. For his follow-up, he expands on some of the themes he has been joking about since the first Trump administration in End Times Fun, allowing us to laugh at seemingly hopeless or tragic circumstances while also mocking those in comedy who have capitulated to power instead of speaking truth to it.

And he’s finding an even larger audience now than perhaps ever, thanks not only to his long-running hit podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, but also to a string of mainstream roles onscreen in projects from GLOW to Joker, and most recently this year in Apple TV+’s golf comedy, Stick, and the animated big-screen sequel, The Bad Guys 2.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: I previously called Maron this generation’s George Carlin, and while nobody would accuse the late great Carlin of being an anxiety-ridden Jew, there’s no denying that there are few high-profile stand-up comedians willing to actually point the finger at themselves and their profession quite like Maron right now. Although Bill Burr is also rising to this particular moment. In that respect, Maron’s 2025 hour shares some commonalities with Burr’s newest special.

Memorable Jokes: Maron wastes no time going after the current political powers in Washington, D.C., calling Trump a “sociopathic huckster clown king,” Elon Musk an “autistic billionaire technofascist,” and “somehow managed to find an actual Jewish Nazi for deputy chief of staff” in Stephen Miller. “I had no idea just how great it was going to be?” he opens sarcastically about the MAGA movement, and saying Trump has “really got an eye for talent” “his supporters…army of shills and stooges, and grifters, collaborators, unf—able hate nerds, white nationalists, crypto dorks, wack job christian fascists,” and then “there’s about 50 million people who decided I just like the guy!”  

To the comedians with perhaps even larger podcast platforms who decided they wanted to platform Trump and his minions, Maron looks upon them with disdain, suggesting their defense of free speech really amounted to nothing less than the fact that “they wanted to say the r word with impunity.” And these podcast bros didn’t care or think to care about the larger consequences of Project 2025. Which he nails them with a callback that he knows he’ll get some grief about: “Was it worth it, you fucking retard?”

Maron’s hour isn’t all about the powers that be, however.

He also digs into his own psyche for a deeper examination of his intrusive catastrophic thinking, wondering: “I don’t know if that’s where all my creativity comes from…mining for gold in a river of panic.” 

So instead he offers an alternative: “Marc, why don’t you just be entertaining?”

His idea of entertaining, of course, involves finding sitcom scenarios amid great tragedy, such as what to do about his housepainter showing up in the height of January’s fires spreading across Los Angeles? How does Maron evacuate his three cats when he lacks the proper cages for them all?

He gets really animated impersonating another comedian, Theo Von, imagining how Von might’ve approached an interview with Hitler. And Maron gets even more into character for a surprising characterization of a male babysitter in Alaska who looked over Marc and his brother when they were little boys. The babysitter may or may not have abused them, but in Maron’s head, that guy grew up to be an “anti-woke” stand-up himself. “It takes everything I have not to do a full one-man show as that guy,” Maron jokes during the extended act-out.

And just for a real surprise, he finds a way to tangle up his grief and his mortality on a hike when he finally decides to find out what all the kids find so alluring about Taylor Swift’s music catalog. 

Our Take: This isn’t the first time nor the last that Maron will hold his comedy peers’ feet to the fire. In this moment, he happily takes them down a peg or two by declaring that they’re using their substantial podcasting influence “speaking power to truth … now that truth can no longer defend itself.”

Which is the opposite of what a true comedian should do.

Not that Maron has all the answers. He even cops to it, saying: “And look, I don’t know what to do.” And yet, he is rising to the occasion, anyhow. He may also rankle some progressive feathers by claiming that the left has “annoyed the average American fascism,” but he’s really talking more about classical liberals or neoliberals than he is actual progressives here.

He also has enough self-awareness to tell us: “I’m not totally delusional. I know there’s no joke that I’m going to do that’s going to go viral and just make all these new young Nazis just be like oh man, I’m just mad at my dad, I think.”

And yet, he might be more right than he realizes when he imagines them further admitting “that Jew’s joke really f—ed with my head.” The more Maron speaks out, the more the message can spread. And it’s a message that needs to be heard now more than ever. 

Our Call: STREAM IT. Maron’s at the top of his game, and we’re all the better for it.

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.