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Someone You Love

Sarah Silverman

HBO · 2023 · 57 min

A decade-overdue hour of filthy punchlines and sweet acoustic songs.

Watch it free on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sarah Silverman spent much of the early 2020s hosting a podcast where she discussed politics and social justice with a newly urgent, sometimes earnest tone. Her 2023 special serves as a reminder that she is still, at her core, a comedian who loves scatological punchlines and sudden pivots into bad taste. She openly addresses this contradiction, joking about how her boyfriend called her out for demanding allyship online while simultaneously telling audiences that Jews have diarrhea. It is a self-deprecating thesis that culminates in her reading a Hawaiian hotel’s pool rule banning guests with active digestive issues, which she immediately decodes as a polite way of saying \”No Jews allowed.\”\n\nFilmed at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston, the hour is Silverman’s first HBO special since 2013’s We Are Miracles. She had spent the preceding year in a different lane, writing and staging her off-Broadway musical The Bedwetter. Here, she returns to the microphone with a loose, highly personal hour that starts with a filmed skit of children wishing her luck—culminating in a young boy dressed as an Orthodox Jew declaring she is a disgrace to her people. From there, she riffs on tone policing, aging, and the branding failure of prunes before closing the show with a deceptively sweet acoustic song about a partner’s atrocious breath. The hour was well-received by critics, winning a Writers Guild Award and pulling in nominations for both a Grammy and a Golden Globe.

The set list

7 bits

  1. Backstage opening sketch

    Silverman imagines children wishing her good luck backstage, including a young boy dressed as an Orthodox Jew who tells her she is a disgrace to her people.

  2. Jewish mother one-liner

    Takes the stage in Boston asking what a Jewish mother says to her porn-star daughter after watching her in a gang-bang.

  3. Walking with a friend with diarrhea past a Catholic school

    Recounts walking with her stricken friend, pitches a Ring camera-style solution to prevent scout and youth molestation, questions Catholic schoolgirl uniforms matching porn costumes, and shouts to kids that Hell does not exist while daring God to strike her down.

  4. Hawaiian hotel pool diarrhea policy

    Observes a resort sign prohibiting anyone who has had diarrhea in the past two weeks from entering the pool, equating it to a 'No Jews allowed' sign.

  5. Buying a German car and original vs. new Nazis

    Explains owning a German car because the original Nazis are dead, noting that modern neo-Nazis do not know how to build a car.

  6. Learning preferred pronouns

    Encourages trying to use correct pronouns by comparing the effort to attempting French in France, noting society learned to pronounce 'Galifianakis' after one movie.

  7. Original closing power ballad with choir and strings

    Takes to the piano after saying goodnight to perform an elaborate, dirty song about bodily functions and serving a poop sandwich, backed by strings and a full choir.

How it plays

Tone
Scatological, irreverent, provocative, self-deprecating, and biting.
On stage
Fearless chutzpah, blending sharp taboo-challenging wit with an unapologetically dirty mind and relaxed intimacy.
Pace
Conversational delivery moving through sharp one-liners, rambling tangents, and physical musical performance.
About
Jewish identity and culture, Antisemitism and Nazis, Diarrhea and scatological bodily functions, Catholicism, Hell, and molestation, Preferred pronouns and cultural adaptation

What the critics said

Decider recommended streaming it, praising Silverman's ability to command attention and lean into her Jewish identity and dirty mind. The Forward noted it as a winning return to form prioritizing punchlines over sanctimony, while The Jewish Chronicle gave it 2/5 stars, arguing the material felt too safe and overly reliant on recycled scatological humor.

In the room: An enthusiastic local Boston crowd with mixed reception from broader viewers, some praising her sharp intimacy while others criticized excessive toilet humor.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: hbomax.com, rottentomatoes.com, justwatch.com, tvguide.com, decider.com, forward.com, vulture.com, thejc.com, en.wikipedia.org, press.wbd.com, imdb.com.

Backstory

Followed a period of hosting Hulu's 'I Love You, America', running 'The Sarah Silverman Podcast' where she frequently addressed rising antisemitism and Jewish allyship, and mounting an off-Broadway musical adaptation of her memoir 'The Bedwetter'.

Details

Released
Taped
The Wilbur Theatre, Boston
Runtime
57 min
Where
HBO
Director
Jonathan Krisel
Topics
Before
A Speck of Dust (2017)
After
PostMortem (2025)

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