Religion, Sex and a Few Things in Between

Rory Scovel has spent much of his stand-up career building a reputation as a loose, chaotic improviser who would rather riff with a crowd than deliver a polished hour. With Religion, Sex and a Few Things in Between, produced under Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco banner and filmed at the Goodale Theater in Minneapolis, Scovel channels that weirdness into his most focused, punchy set yet. He does not abandon his chaotic energy, but he directs it toward actual punchlines, taking on everything from the social etiquette of a gangbang to the biological reality of whale semen.

The title does not overpromise. Scovel dives straight into his South Carolina Bible Belt upbringing, analyzing the bizarre theatre of Christianity before shifting into the everyday absurdity of parenting an eight-year-old and living with a wife who has gone full-witch with low-hanging crystals. He slips into accents and occasionally breaks character to call timeouts on his own jokes, keeping the meta-commentary alive without letting it derail the momentum.

At this point in 2024, Scovel was more recognizable to mainstream audiences through acting roles in Apple’s Physical and Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. For anyone used to his completely unscripted live chaos, this hour feels surprisingly traditional, but the physical commitment to obscene premises proves he has quietly sharpened his writing.