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Cover image credit: Thumbnail: YouTube · Michelle Wolf

The Well

Michelle Wolf

Netflix · 2025 · 60 min

A cynical stand-up hour about politics and modern motherhood.

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Michelle Wolf walks on stage with a grin, tells the audience she had a baby, waits for the cheers, and then says: “It died.” It is a fake-out, of course, but it establishes that her transition into motherhood has not softened her comedy; if anything, she is annoyed that having a kid has forced her to feel things, which gets in the way of her jokes.\n\nReleased on Netflix in October 2025 and directed by Eric Abrams, the hour features Wolf turning her dry, unsentimental gaze toward gender, politics, and the exhaustion of parenting. Rather than sweet anecdotes, she offers a defense of dead-baby jokes and a weary look at how the world isolates mothers. She also takes aim at Washington, explaining why Republicans are organized monsters while Democrats are simply well-meaning idiots who mistake hope for a plan. The centerpiece of her political material is a bizarre breakdown of the abortion debate that somehow leads to a comparison with Jurassic Park and lesbian dinosaurs.\n\nShe also spends time on the dynamics between straight women, gay men, and drag queens, arguing with a drink-in-hand cadence that gay men won their civil rights battles and immediately abandoned women. While some critics felt the parenting material occasionally fell into familiar, well-trodden territory, her blunt delivery and total lack of interest in being liked keep the set moving.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Opening joke about having a baby that died, leading into dead baby jokes and the special's title

    Wolf shocks the room by falsely stating her newborn died, before revealing the baby is fine and discussing how motherhood complicates telling dead baby jokes, noting wells are suspiciously baby-sized.

  2. Postpartum recovery and consuming a placenta smoothie

    Recounts giving birth at home in a kiddie pool and blending her placenta with berries so it tasted like fruit, utilizing the bit as a recurring callback.

  3. Critique of both major political parties over reproductive rights

    Compares Republicans' single-minded chiseling to a swastika, critiques Democrats' passive denialism as the reason people need abortions, and references Jurassic Park.

  4. Gay men, allyship, and Jeffrey Dahmer

    Argues gay men abandoned women after securing their own rights and points to backlash over Netflix categorizing the Dahmer series under LGBTQ to argue groups must claim all of their members.

How it plays

Tone
Dark, cynical, irreverent, and uncompromisingly blunt.
On stage
Sharp, unfiltered, provocative, and irreverent; delivered with her signature high-pitched voice and a willingness to be 'a piece of shit on stage.'
Pace
Deliberate, confident, and confrontational, alternating between shocking misdirections, awkward pauses, and punchy rhythms.
About
Motherhood and postpartum body changes, Dead baby jokes, White women and feminism, Abortion and American politics, LGBTQ+ alliances and serial killers, Social media superficiality

What the critics said

Critics highlighted Wolf's fearless comedic voice and sharp joke writing on dark and political topics, though some reviewers noted that the universal subject of new motherhood felt overly familiar compared to her sharpest political material.

In the room: Nervous laughter shifting into enthusiastic cheers as audiences navigated taboo topics and provocative shock-value jokes.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: rottentomatoes.com, ericabrams.tv, latestnetflix.com, decider.com, readysteadycut.com, scrapsfromtheloft.com, tvinsider.com, michelleisawolf.com, imdb.com.

Backstory

Filmed approximately nine to ten months after Wolf gave birth to her first child at age 37 following seven months away from the stage, and released after remaining unreleased for roughly two years.

Details

Released
Taped
2023, Lincoln Theatre, Washington
Runtime
60 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Eric Abrams
Honors
Top 10 most watched TV on Netflix
Topics
Before
It's Great to Be Here (2023)

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