Tom Segura’s Rude, Crude Netflix Comedy Series

Within the first minutes of Netflix’s Unhealthy Ideas, creator and star Tom Segura explains what it’s like being a comic. “You already know that dumb shit you get despatched to HR for saying?” he smirks. “I receives a commission for that.”

He’s elucidating the broad theme of the episode — “jobs” — however actually, he could possibly be explaining his sequence as a complete. And his promise (or risk) will not be an idle one. Unhealthy Ideas’ complete raison d’être is pushing previous the boundaries of excellent style, in hopes of upsetting delighted horror or disgust. How profitable you assume Segura is at it, and whether or not you assume it’s a worthy objective to start with, is a matter of private sensibility. I’ll say this: You possibly can’t accuse the man of not committing to a bit.

In interviews, Segura has in contrast Unhealthy Ideas to Twilight Zone or a “darkish, comedic model of Black Mirror.” It’d most likely be extra straightforwardly described as a sketch present à la I Suppose You Ought to Depart With Tim Robinson, although one understands why a comic wouldn’t wish to evoke different comedians’ initiatives so immediately. Every of its six installments is damaged up into two or three segments, the final of which is normally the primary half of a two-parter — all the higher to encourage a viewer to let Netflix’s autoplay function do its factor. The entire thing is available in at 114 minutes together with credit, or lower than one weekly drop of Disney+’s Andor.

It helps the time fly by that regardless of Segura’s description of the present as “darkish,” it … isn’t, actually. Inappropriate, gross, often violent and incessantly sexually express, sure. (None of which, once more, are essentially trigger for criticism if that’s your cup of tea.) However darkish? I suppose it is dependent upon your definition.

You will notice a person (Segura) shit his pants. You will notice a unique man (The Sopranos’ Robert Iler) shit into a bathroom whereas sitting on the lap of one other man (Kirk Fox). You’ll watch a dude get rimmed by a senior citizen, and one having intercourse with a repulsive monster, and yet one more getting handed an axe to cut his personal penis off. (All the lads in that sentence are performed by Segura, although Unhealthy Ideas does pull in some enjoyable visitor stars like Dan Stevens, Shea Whigham and Rachel Bloom.) You’ll not see a lot that really feels twisted sufficient to shock or bruise, or not less than I didn’t.

The shape these tales take varies from phase to phase: post-apocalyptic horror, horny international movie, bonus function for some straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal atrocity. The sendups aren’t all the time as exact as they could possibly be — would “A25” be the studio behind a Patch Adams-style cheesefest a few janitor who touches folks each actually and metaphorically? However Segura and his co-directors, Rami Hachache and Jeremy Konner, nail the main points that actually matter. The James Bond-type thriller sendup that opens the sequence is fairly good. The precise sound of the plop when the spy drops his dirty pants on the bottom is ideal.

Whereas the genres and types vary extensively, probably the most persistently recurring themes are apparent and bro-y. (As you’d maybe count on from a comic book recognized for, amongst different issues, being a recurring visitor on The Joe Rogan Expertise.) One is a fixation on what individuals are or aren’t “allowed” to say. Unhealthy Ideas fortunately avoids the very smarmiest of anti-“cancel tradition” posturing, however it may possibly’t resist on the lookout for methods to have its cake and eat it too. Positive, a racist warfare story is perhaps unacceptable for public consumption. However what if it’s coming from a bit of boy? What if the boy is reciting it at a faculty meeting, as a tribute to his beloved grandfather (Segura)? What if Segura additionally casts himself because the boy’s horrified father? Is it okay to snigger now?

The opposite, much more distinguished theme is sexual humiliation. If Unhealthy Ideas is supposed to supply a window into Segura’s most twisted concepts, he apparently can not cease dreaming up eventualities wherein a person is pressured to undergo sexual conditions he actually, actually would relatively not be in — whether or not it’s as a result of the woman he actually needs to screw has made him promise to bone one other, extra repulsive girl first, or as a result of his spouse’s dying want is to sleep with a strapping stranger, or as a result of he’d nonetheless relatively get bare with a man he simply met than face members of the general public affronted by the language in his standup specials. (There’s that theme once more.)

As punchlines go, “Are you offended?” and “Ew, gross intercourse” don’t strike me as notably novel or outrageous. However Unhealthy Ideas does milk additional humor from doubling and tripling down on a few of these. The three-chapter “Cyrus” will get funnier each time the sequence returns to it not as a result of the jokes are essentially extra impressed, however as a result of Segura retains developing with ever-crazier twists to hyperlink all of them collectively. One other single-segment sketch takes the stereotypically male dream of getting a extremely massive dick after which escalates it to surreal proportions; the fun is in seeing how far he’ll take the gag after which, when he can not take it any additional, how he’ll work his means again out of it.

My hands-down favourite piece, although, is one which takes Segura’s impish humor in one other route solely. “Rex Henley” is a two-parter a few down-home nation singer who will get so wealthy and well-known he grows utterly out of contact along with his fanbase, after which goes to absurdly violent lengths to get his mojo again. I don’t know Segura, so I don’t know if it is a actual concern of his. Nevertheless it definitely seems like one which may communicate to the personal anxieties of a man profitable sufficient to have 5 Netflix specials, his personal podcasting empire and now his personal Netflix comedy sequence.

Not like with, say, an prolonged fantasy about punishing a barista for getting a quite simple drink order unsuitable, there’s nothing even plausibly relatable concerning the idea. Nor does Segura fake in any other case. He casts himself because the unhinged and unpredictable villain whereas Daniella Pineda performs the ultimate lady. But when the idea is just too hilariously particular to be as common because the strains of potty humor, filthy phrases and sexual mortification working via many of the remainder of the sequence, that’s additionally what makes it so intriguing. It’s one of many few moments in Unhealthy Ideas that really feel such as you’re peering into somebody’s private unhealthy ideas, relatively than some broadly acquainted id.