The Comfort of the End Times

David Cross films his comedy specials in standing-room music venues now, a choice that forces a specific, restless energy into the room. For “The End Of The Beginning Of The End,” he returns to the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia. The title itself is a structural joke about the collective doom trajectory of modern society. He notes that humanity used to be at the beginning of the end, but thankfully things have progressed. It is a bleak framing, yet the actual performance feels oddly buoyant. Cross has spent four decades being visibly frustrated by the world, and there is a distinct comfort in watching him settle into the pure absurdity of modern collapse.

The material bounces wildly between the existential and the fiercely mundane. A tight sequence dissecting the rollback of reproductive rights and creeping authoritarianism sits right next to a lengthy examination of the American obsession with hoarding sneakers. Cross has always excelled at finding the exact intersection of late-stage capitalism and human stupidity. The sneaker chunk culminates in an impression of a highly inappropriate rabbi attempting to squeeze into shoes that are entirely too small. It is a weird, sweaty, thoroughly ridiculous visual that works precisely because it refuses to be profound.

There is also an extended story about a Chinese massage parlor, which Cross insists is entirely factual, alongside a recounting of climbing Machu Picchu with Bob Odenkirk. The production embraces the messiness of a live rock club. The laughs echo, and the pauses are left intact. Cross seems uninterested in packaging his fury into clean, algorithm-friendly clips. The special succeeds by letting the anger breathe. It suggests that if the world is indeed ending, the least anyone can do is point out how stupid the footwear looks along the way.