Much like every profession in the world, the stand-up comedy scene took a pretty massive hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, because comics weren’t able to perform in front of crowds. Some of them tried to do Zoom shows because, well, they had bills to pay, but that approach wasn’t really impactful. And the rest just bided their time until the comedy clubs and stadiums were opened to the common public again. However, when they returned to the stage, there seemed to be a disconnect between how they had endured the pandemic and how their audience had survived the same. That dented the relatability factor, and it was one of the biggest reasons why I stayed off this form of entertainment for the longest while. When I decided to restart watching stand-up comedy specials, I thought that I should commence the proceedings with one of the most experienced comics in the business: Ricky Gervais. Yeah, Mortality was absolutely boring. Then I shifted gears to some young blood, Marcello Hernandez’s American Boy was extremely grating. Popular stuff like Tony Hinchcliffe’s Once Upon a Time in Texas and Mike Epps’ Delusional were pretty unenjoyable. So, my expectations from Mo Gilligan’s In the Moment were really low. How did he fare? Let’s find out.
Directed by Chris Howe, Mo Gilligan begins his stand-up comedy special, In the Moment, by talking about his trip to the ancestral home and having this weird culture clash because he and his extended family belong to the same bloodline, and yet they have been shaped by such different kinds of experiences. Gilligan turning his great-grandmother’s panicked stuttering while trying to figure out how old she is into a beat was hilarious. He transitioned into his bizarre trip through Hollywood by talking about what he witnessed at an American airport, which was undoubtedly over-the-top and yet enjoyable. And once he started narrating the tale of what happened when he finally reached California, it was absolute pandemonium. I mean, the build-up from that coffin full of champagne bottles to the resolution where his friends bought him some snacks as compensation for everything he had done was brilliant. I won’t reveal the details of the bit, because you have to listen to him unpack it all; writing about it won’t do it justice. By the way, the use of the stadium—the lights shutting off and the cloaked figure in the corner—was truly masterful. Even if you are watching this on the small screen, you’ll be wowed by that moment.
Since the entire “Dushane” segment was so good, Gilligan’s observations on romance, womanhood, and manhood do feel a little tame. But I did like it that he explicitly addressed the fact that men love to live by the “bro code” until they have to be vulnerable, while women tend to support other women, especially when someone is feeling vulnerable, regardless of whether they are in the same friend circle. It’s a timely reminder that it’s 2026 and men can’t keep expressing their feelings through alcohol and violence; they need to find a way to help each other out. If they don’t, they’ll just have to keep whining about the male loneliness epidemic and wondering how it’s going to be fixed. However, Gilligan followed up that saintly advice with his “male loneliness epidemic” starter pack bit, which just killed the mood. At this point, I have started to accept that every male comedian is contractually or spiritually obligated to do a misogynistic segment in their special. They’ll probably wither and die if they don’t partake in a bit of women-bashing right after crying about how bad they need women. However, would it hurt them to be a little creative about it? Why are these sexist observations still stuck in the 2000s? Come on, man.
With all that said, Mo Gilligan did bring In the Moment to a close on a very high note, where he broke into a full-on song-and-dance performance centered around Rastafari-fied fairy tales. I am going to be honest; I’d listen to that album even though I am clearly not the target audience. At the same time, and this is tangential to anything in Gilligan’s set, that bit made me wonder why we don’t hear any new fairy tales. Like, why are we still talking about Little Red Riding Hood, the Gingerbread Man, Goldilocks, and Jack and the Beanstalk? You can argue that comic books are the modern-day fairy tales. But are they really? Because comic books have existed since you or I were born. So shortchanging an established genre of storytelling with another doesn’t exactly sit right with me. Is there any specific reason why artists stopped writing new fairy tales? Or even if they are writing new fairy tales, why aren’t they attaining worldwide fame like the aforementioned IPs? Is there some Illuminati-esque conspiracy to kill our imagination, or is it just a sign of the times that kids aren’t enthralled by literature anymore? I think this deserves an in-depth analysis, and I credit Mo Gilligan’s Rastafari-fied fairy tales for motivating me to think about this topic.
In case it’s not clear already, allow me to state as plainly as I can… Out of all the recently-released Netflix comedy specials, Mo Gilligan: In the Moment is the first one that I actually enjoyed. I was under the impression that I wasn’t entertained by all those other comics because their stories weren’t relatable. I haven’t had a night that’s even comparable to what Gilligan and his friends went through. Yet, I was fully invested in his story because of the storytelling. The frequency at which he introduced every new bit of information, the level of detailing when it came to describing the people and the ambience that Gilligan saw, Gilligan’s cadence (the accent switching was phenomenal, by the way), the lighting, the music, and the editing—all of it came together in a really satisfying way and transported me to that day when he visited Hollywood. He was able to strike that balance between making his narratives personal and yet universal. I can’t say that that comes from experience because I’m seeing legendary comics failing at this. I don’t know if it depends on one’s background since I’ve seen down-to-earth comics falter while trying to be engaging. Well, whatever it is, “Dushane” has it, and everyone should watch his work and learn.
