Nate Bargatze

Nate Bargatze’s comedy works because he never pretends to be sharper than the situation he finds himself in. When he gets discount Lasik surgery in Manhattan and ends up temporarily blind on the sidewalk, he does not get angry; he presses his hand flat against an exterior wall, calls his wife, and tells her to expand her search radius around the block until she spots him.

That deliberate blend of passivity and mild confusion carries the half hour. Bargatze avoids aggression entirely, finding punchlines by letting retail workers, snake handlers, and his own inertia dictate terms. Rather than work out, he admits to telling strangers he used to weigh 300 pounds because claiming he got tired of being tired earns instant respect without cardio. He also refuses whole apples, reasoning that he is not a horse and expects the apple factory to do some work.

The set was filmed at the Cicada Restaurant and Club in Los Angeles as the lead installment of Netflix’s showcase series The Standups, released in July 2017. Troy Miller directed the six-comic run, which gave performers thirty-minute stages before the streaming service handed out solo specials.

At the time, Bargatze was opening arena dates on Chris Rock’s Total Blackout Tour and working clubs off the strength of appearances with Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon. The Netflix set proved to be his mainstream breakthrough, sparking a sudden surge in ticket sales that quickly pulled him into larger venues.

The centerpiece traces an order for iced coffee with milk at Starbucks that spirals into him sipping a cup of cold milk over ice because he is too timid to correct the barista. He closes by recounting an afternoon at North Carolina’s Cape Fear Serpentarium, lingering on open urinals and the unnerving casualness of a proprietor surrounded by lethal reptiles.