John Mulaney Proves He Can Do Everybody’s Live Blindfolded

For all of its sins, Netflix gave us Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney, for which we can all be thankful.

John Mulaney is one of the most original comic minds working, and Netflix has now provided him with three series (I’m still eagerly awaiting a Sack Lunch Bunch return) to essentially f*ck around, to uniformly brilliant, ambitious results. Mulaney the writer and now talk show ringmaster is a prankish, restlessly inventive comedian who’s used Netflix’s cash and mostly hands-off beneficence to bring together comics who share his slyly bananas sensibility to send up the late-night chat format while paying homage to its most original pioneers.

This week’s episode, innocently titled “Why Can’t I Sleep?, did address its organizing premise, to a point. There was a startlingly handsome actual brain expert (Dr. Rahul Jandial) on hand to pointedly and responsibly refuse to give actual on-air medical advice while fielding legitimate sleep-related questions from Mulaney and his panel (Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt, with musical guest Alanis Morissette and a martini-sipping, bathrobe-clad Steve Guttenberg), and the usual roster of call-ins. (One poor lady hasn’t slept in three days—godspeed, madam.)

It’s not that Everybody’s Live isn’t actually invested in its theme, it’s more that the mundane topics serve as fuel for whatever comedy cookout recipe Mulaney and his writers have dreamed up that week. As a departure from the traditional talk show blend of celebrity interviews, scripted bits, and a monologue dressing, having a baseline premise upon which to improvise and elaborate functions to ground the ensuing forays into absurdism, conceptual sketches, and pain old silliness.

For an example of the first, second, and third elements, Mulaney did Wednesday night’s show blind. Literally, as he’s led to his monologue mark by an Everybody’s Live crew member named Jeremy, an obliging fellow whose gentle forbearance for his blindfolded boss’ tendencies to both drift away from the camera and chide his right-hand guy should win some sort of special Emmy. Now why is Mulaney blindfolded, a conceit that he never drops throughout the episode and which appears to be a completely legit visual blackout? Hmm, that’s a delightful puzzler.

David Letterman (name-dropped by Guttenberg in an eye-opening remembrance of the apparently real time a stalker threatened to kill him on Letterman’s show) used to play around with the talk show format with similarly silly show-long conceits. (The 4 a.m. live show remains a personal favorite.) Same goes for another Everybody’s Live guest this season in Conan O’Brien. (Thinking of the Late Night claymation episode, among others.) But Mulaney’s blindfold is its own deconstruction of even those deconstructionist late-night shows, Mulaney’s matter-of-factness about the whole idea adding another level of absurdity.

Mulaney never draws any parallels to the night’s topic, although he does explain how he and wife Olivia Munn have engaged a sort of blackout protocol for their young son at bedtime. (Mulaney claiming it’s something he read on Instagram once.) Nope, it’s merely a funny idea, and one Mulaney never overplays for any sort of payoff other than to see (or sense) just how much absurdity his audience will acclimate to. There are no pratfalls and if Mulaney’s stated disappointment that he does not develop Daredevil senses in recompense is a funny line, for the most part he and his guests all proceed as if the host were not happily sporting a blindfold.

As evidence of the joke not ruling the show, this was a jam-packed episode of non-stop inspiration. The panel helped, naturally, with stand-up royalty Oswalt and Silverman taking turns enlivening each digression and discussion with expected nimbleness. Silverman’s own go-to-sleep ritual (involving weed, flossing, and word games with “lover” Rory Albanese) vies with Oswalt’s harrowing tale of witnessing just what in-flight Ambien can do to fellow fliers, the comics’ dedication to staying on-topic providing a fortifying energy that some other, more unfocused panelists have lacked. Everybody’s Live is always loaded with Mulaney’s comedian pals, but some of them have proven more in sync with the show’s vibe, and Oswalt and Silverman ride the unpredictable waves with aplomb.

But man, does this episode hit on sketch after outrageous sketch. The show’s on-set tutor (because that’s a thing on an all-adult series) concernedly brings some of sidekick Richard Kind’s disturbing drawings to Mulaney’s attention. He can’t see them, but a helpfully tactile quarter for comparison helps bring home just how small Kind sees himself with relation to the show (Mulaney’s Daredevil senses at least partially engaged for the bit), leading to an offer for Kind to finally do his “Rappin’ Hobo” sketch. “The guy who jerks me off backstage said it was dicey,” is the grateful Kind’s no thank you.

Which leads to Mulaney’s big announcement that in-house snack robot Saymo is going to Evel Knievel jump over Mulaney’s Mini Cooper in the parking lot. Is it a dead cert that the battery-powered drinks drone will fail to clear even Mulaney’s economy-sized sedan? Sure. But the bit, stretched over two separate segments, features an escalation of silliness that would make Letterman and O’Brien proud.

From the supposed charity element (an organization that helps kid actors learn their lines for a change), to the aborted jump (Saymo’s girlfriend forbids it, only for him to eventually break up with her and plow ahead), to Mulaney’s pal Fred Armisen showing up to do the climactic drumroll, to even Saymo’s little gold cape are just a collective giggle-fit of writers room invention, culminating in a truly shocking outcome that had the sightless Mulaney exclaiming in shock (once the breathless stunt emcee explains what happened.) And no, I’m not spoiling anything, except to reassure Saymo fans that the li’l guy (or at least one of his many identical clones) is okay.

Some weeks, that sort of two-part, elaborate goof would take over the non-talk part of the show, but not here. Mulaney at one point introduced a concept the show will present sight-unseen (figuratively and literally), crediting writer Langston Kerman with a sketch that turns out to be built around one of the Nation of Islam’s most out-there beliefs, that a big-headed figure named Yakub tinkered with humanity until he created white people. (Hey, if Scientology and Mormonism want to downplay the space alien stuff for PR purposes, then no infamously litigious religion is off-limits for comedy. And don’t get Mulaney started on his former Catholic faith.)

Cue Lamorne Morris in a bulbous Conehead-style headpiece, crooning Yakub’s tribute to his melanin-deprived creations, with lyrics defending his actions (“Would a piece of sh*t be responsible for Josh Gad?”), and slinging a little mud on his artificial offspring. (“You defund schools, and fake the news, and still you teach propriety?,” sure takes the wind out of the sails of white people mocking Yakub’s big-headed absurdity.) When Morris’ Yakub introduces yet another surprise guest in Paula Pell‘s “Jean Dumb” (like Hacks‘ Jean Smart, but… you get it), it’s like an old Conan character took over the show to throw to another one, leaving the blindfolded Mulaney and his delightedly baffled guests doubled over in helpless laughter. (Paula Pell is a treasure enriching us all.)

What does this all have to do with insomnia? Or Saymo’s dare-deviltry? Or Mulaney’s show-long blindness? Richard Kind’s identity crisis? How handsome Dr. Jandial is? A fake ad for the Everybody’s Live magazine (where a letter writer named “Richard K” laments various humiliating life events)? Or even a late filmed interview with fast-rap pioneer turned ventriloquist Twista? (Twista apparently does love puppets of all kinds, and even does a creditable portrait of the eye of his edgy vent figure Tiny before Tiny asks Mulaney if he want to “hang out and eat ass?”) That Mulaney’s interview continues silently picture-in-picture during the update just piles on the deadpan hilarity.

Essentially, if there’s a sneaky thematic resonance I’m not picking up on, it’s all still a delirious deadpan stew of deceptively controlled comic chaos.

(Not to mention an introduction to another one of the 14-year-olds Mulaney will—seemingly legitimately—be physically fighting in the season finale. This time, the beefy teen sporting a WWE belt and a bad attitude appears to have even the cheeky Mulaney a little concerned.)

There’s simply nothing that doesn’t work in this episode, a late-season apotheosis of Mulaney’s vision for his latest, Netflix-funded vanity project. Everybody’s Live occasionally gets lost in its own freeform comic profligacy. With no limits apart from his and his writers own desire to amuse themselves, Everybody’s Live can wander too far into self-impressed, deliberately offputting cleverness at times. (And that’s me saying this.)

But this is Everybody’s Live operating with a loopy ease and confidence that proves Netflix’s (sometimes queasy) trust in Mulaney is, if not for everybody, most certainly a wise investment in comic brilliance

Two more episodes to go til the season finale and that Mulaney-on-three-fourteen year-olds fight. See you next week.