Is this Michelle Wolf’s big break?
The comedian’s pilot episode of new series ‘The Break’ prophesies a brief period of growing pains in pursuit of an individual identity, and grand dividends once it’s complete
Michelle Wolf knows you’re tired. She’s tired, too. She conceived her new series The Break, a half-hour shot live in front of a studio audience and uploaded to Netflix each Sunday instead of in a binge-friendly lump sum, as a reprieve from all of the week’s exhausting rubbish.
As she reassures her crowd in the opening monologue, “I’m not gonna try to teach you anything, or discuss political policy with you.” She promises that there will be all manner of jokes and that everyone is a possible target, from her best friend Sarah Sanders to Oprah to Michelle Wolf. In an expertly deployed selfown, she reveals that a clown costume during her childhood did not require use of a silly wig.
She’s not quite Elon Musk boldly repio- neering the concept of the subway, but Wolf’s preamble still suggests a different approach to... what, exactly? The show appears to be figuring that out itself, as a production team with a lot of promise presumably carries out some executive’s vague order for a cross between The Daily Show (where Wolf cut her teeth as a writer) and Inside Amy Schumer. From the former, they take the desk-set segment format and the upper-left graphic that goes with it, and from the latter, the stand-up/sketch comedy combo with a feminist bent. While not a disagreeable way to wind down for the evening, Wolf’s pilot episode prophesies a brief period of growing pains in pursuit of an individual identity, and grand dividends once it’s complete.
All of these parts function properly on their own, but coexist a touch awkwardly when bound together by this pro-
gramme. The Schumer-esque material makes good on Wolf’s vow to ditch the political stuff, offering up some inspired
absurdity; a faux-trailer for Featuring A Strong Female Lead: The Movie may attain the viral traction it is angling for, and a series of commercials advertising an Amazon Echo that aggressively demands lunchmeat are dementedly brilliant.
The contrast is all the harsher, then, when the more classically latenight material goes right into the issues of the day. Wolf takes on the NFL, unloads on Mario Batali with a vitriol that probably wouldn’t have flown on basic cable, and dresses down Sanders over a cynical appropriation of pro-woman ethics.
These two discrete halves reach a satisfying dovetail with the final portion, a couch-casual interview with Seth Meyers staff writer Amber Ruffin. What initially appears to be a standard backand-forth reveals itself to be scripted schtick undergirded by the easy rapport between the two women. This bit in particular posits an exciting path for the show to take, one that could blaze what little fresh territory there’s left to map for late-night cartographers: a deconstruction of the variety talk show schematic more moderate than Eric Andre and more outre than Wolf’s previous gig.
It is telling that the segment lending the episode a wisp of cohesion hinges on Wolf’s natural, free-flowing hilarity. Regardless of whether the architecture around her is under construction for the time being, Wolf has arrived to the stage ready for the platform she’s been granted.
If Netflix’s unsettling mission to dominate every avenue of modern entertainment results in a talent as singular as Wolf getting a handsomely budgeted playpen to indulge her weirder comedic urges, that’s by no means the worst thing in the world. Months after Netflix announced their deal and weeks before her first recording, Wolf demonstrated that she can whip up and control a national controversy with her lacerating speech at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, a moment that catapulted her to an unanticipated echelon of national fame. She makes what could have been a victory lap into an dash out of the gate.