Why Am I Like This?

Chris Redd is trying to figure out why he can’t just be normal. His first hour-long special has the former sketch star stepping out from behind the ensemble characters to deliver a highly animated, deeply personal inventory of his own self-sabotage, childhood delusions, and the realities of therapy. Backed by a loose, improvisational energy, he spends as much time riffing with the front row as he does delivering written material, showing off a level of comfort with off-the-cuff crowd work that rarely makes it into highly polished televised hours.

Released on HBO Max in late 2022, Why Am I Like This? arrived during a transitional pivot for Redd. It premiered shortly after he announced his departure from Saturday Night Live following a five-season run, and in the wake of co-creating the Peacock comedy series Bust Down. Filmed at The Grandel in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, the special was directed by Richie Keen and executive-produced by Conan O’Brien’s Conaco.

The performance leans heavily into Redd’s animated physicality. He mimics the specific cadence of an airline pilot announcing a delay, physicalizes a chaotic orgy, and acts out a moment of emotional crisis where he found himself crying on a boat while a woman twerked right next to him. A recurring thread involves his childhood ambitions of becoming an NBA player, which were cut short both by his lack of basketball skills and his permanent 5-foot-6 height. He also gets candid about starting therapy during the pandemic, dealing with his brief teenage stint as an amateur drug dealer, and the surreal realization that succeeding on SNL meant he was ultimately living white people’s dreams rather than his own.

Critics generally highlighted Redd’s easy charm and physical prowess, though they split on the special’s loose construction. Some reviewers, like those at Paste Magazine, praised his willingness to ditch the script for spontaneous crowd work and named it one of the best specials of the year. Others, including The Guardian, felt the set played more like an unstructured, extended club set than a cohesive hour.