Don't Be Gay

Jerrod Carmichael returns to the stage with a title that targets the cardinal rule of his southern upbringing. Taped at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater in New York City, this fourth HBO hour marks a shift back to more traditional stand-up structures following the hushed, therapy-adjacent tone of his Emmy-winning Rothaniel and the intense exposure of his subsequent reality series. Carmichael plays with the friction between his public identity as a gay man and the lingering anxieties of trying to look straight, trying to fit in, and trying to manage a career as a multimillionaire provider for a family that still struggles to fully accept him.\n\nHe spends a significant portion of the set detailing his open relationship—so much so that he banned his boyfriend from attending the taping. He riffs on how his family depends on him so much they should hang his photo by the front door like a patron saint, and touches on unexpected subjects like children’s funerals and the cultural resonance of the singer D’Angelo. Directed by Ari Katcher, the set divided critics, with some weary of his hyper-specific self-scrutiny and others welcoming a return to structured joke-writing.