Perfect

Nikki Glaser picks apart the specific indignities of turning 31 while still feeling like a teenager. Her comedy relies on a matter-of-fact directness, focusing on sexual anxieties, dirty habits, and the creeping realization that adulthood is mandatory. Rather than presenting herself as a fully formed grown-up, she highlights the tension of being suspended between youth and maturity; she notes that she is active on Snapchat but searches Google for bunion surgeries every single day.

Filmed at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater in New York City, this 2016 special caught Glaser at a major inflection point in her career. It was recorded shortly before her series Not Safe with Nikki Glaser debuted on Comedy Central, and she was already a familiar presence from her appearances on Inside Amy Schumer. The crowd here watches a comic who has fully committed to a style of graphic, sex-positive observation, delivering her material with the clean precision of a seasoned club pro.

The set features specific premises that showcase her cynical logic. She argues that teenagers should actually be the ones having babies since they have much more free time, and she compares surrogacy to ordering a pizza. In one of the show’s standout bits, she targets the custom of women changing their last names after marriage, noting that a maiden name is ultimately reduced to nothing more than a security answer for a grown son’s forgotten bank account.