John Mulaney is at the top of his craft with his new special, Baby J

16:35John Mulaney addresses the horse in the hospital with Baby J

On the surface, John Mulaney is a clean-cut guy with a knack for observational comedy.

But with his new Netflix special, Baby J, audiences are seeing a different side of the beloved comedian following a publicly rocky couple of years.

In his first Netflix special since going to rehab for cocaine and prescription drug addiction in 2020, Mulaney's act takes on a markedly darker tone and sees him leaning into his edginess in a whole new way.

Culture writers Carrie Battan of The New Yorker and Izzy Ampil of The Daily Beast join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to consider whether it's possible for Mulaney to come clean about his addictions while retaining this wholesome, all-American appeal.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Carrie, let's start with going into 2020 before his rehab stint. How would you describe John Mulaney's status [and] his reputation in the world of comedy before 2020?

Carrie: I think that was a period when he'd released three wildly successful Netflix specials, and then Netflix had given him the green light to do this project that he was promoting in late 2019 called The Sack Lunch Bunch, which was kind of a kids variety special…. So, he immediately went from producing this show that was sort of geared towards children, to going to rehab. It was kind of like he was at his most successful and his most wholesome before everything sort of came crashing down.

Elamin: John Mulaney [has] often mentioned this idea of dealing with alcoholism in his 20s, Izzy, and then when we heard that he was entering rehab in 2020, it kind of weirdly still came as a bit of a shock. Why do you think that was?

Izzy: I think when he talked about addiction and alcoholism in his early specials — New in Town, The Comeback Kid — it was always something that was firmly in the past, something that he had this sense of control over. I think for fans, when he relapsed in 2020 and he went back to rehab, there was almost a sense of betrayal or of anxiety of, "This thing that he's talked about as though it's totally in control and a cordoned off part of his past existence, is something that still has the capacity to threaten his personal life and his professional life." And I think that was honestly quite scary to some of his fans.

After he went to rehab, he got a divorce from Anna Marie Tendler, who is featured in some of his earlier [specials], and he got together with Olivia Munn, who I think has long been a fixture of cultural fascination in the romantic and sexual sphere. And so it was accompanied by this more salacious gossip.… This is kind of the first tumultuous public period in which he's navigating this challenging part of his personal life, and people really got up close and personal.

Elamin: I'm glad you brought that up because I do think that, Carrie, one of the big things that have changed from the beginning of John Mulaney's career to 2020-ish is that he himself became a celebrity. I don't think that he would have been seen as a celebrity — he was an SNL writer, he's been in the comedy spheres for a long time — but something changed in the late 2010s where John Mulaney himself became a household name even before his personal life became fodder for tabloids. How do you think he did that?

Carrie: I think a big part of it, honestly, was his role in the comedy ecosystem over the course of Trump's presidency. Comedy was so politically polarized, and it was so heavily political. I think he was sort of seen as an oasis from that, even if that wasn't people's explicit interest in him.… The most he would really talk about politics in his 2018 special is he referred to Donald Trump as a horse in a hospital — which is kind of a mild way to characterize the former president during that period…. Also, I think he did a good kind of self-marketing act by branding himself as this guy who was wearing a suit, and he always performed in these grand regal halls and was looking kind of theatrical and family-friendly, and he made comedy that everybody could enjoy together.

WATCH | There's a Horse In The Hospital from John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City:

Elamin: Izzy, what did you make of Mulaney's approach to talking about his substance abuse problems in the [new] special?

Izzy: He just came right out addressing the elephant in the room, and I think that is very much the smart way to do things as a comedian. I mean, Chris Rock's recent special was his first sort of public return since the slap. And everyone is like, "Alright, are you going to talk about the slap?" And he saved it for the last eight minutes; that was frustrating…. And so I think in general in comedy, the best way to do things is to just be like, "Alright, you're thinking it. I'm thinking it. Let's just start here."

Elamin: Right off the top.

Izzy: Exactly. It's a little bit uncomfortable, but you're going to say it anyway. I think that was really smart. I mean, Carrie, you wrote about how this is John Mulaney at the top of his really honed and finely-workshopped craft — and I think that is really apparent here.… He's been really ready to come back into the public eye, it feels like, for a long time, and so there's this polish and there's this bitterness that feels really honest … and I think that's what keeps it fresh throughout the entire special: his ability to not just be like, "OK, this was a really dark period," but to be like, "Ah, and the whole time I was trying to get up to some mischief!"

WATCH | Not Getting Recognized in Rehab from John Mulaney: Baby J:

Elamin: Carrie, he alludes to this idea that he feels a bit trapped by the image that he's created for himself. But watching this special and also just thinking about Mulaney over the last couple of years, do you get the sense that his career was ever in real danger?

Carrie: No, I don't think it was in real danger. In fact, I think when that news came out, the reaction that I was seeing most commonly online was sort of … a rallying cry of support behind this person who had taken on heroic proportions over his comedy career. When you're a performer, when you're a creator … in some ways it's perverse, but there's nothing better in your career than having new material — and what is this turn in his life but new material? And so you have to imagine that in some ways, he always knew that it was going to be fodder for his career. And it was, ultimately. I think maybe his health, his personal life, maybe even his life was in danger, but his career wasn't.

Elamin: Izzy, I would say on the scale of celebrity comebacks from scandals, this went relatively well for John Mulaney, who kind of came out and admitted to lots of the things that have been happening in his personal life…. That sort of easy forgiveness has not been afforded to every celebrity, right? What sort of double standards do you see playing out here?

Izzy: As Carrie was saying, his career wasn't necessarily ever really in danger. He kept a low profile for a few months, got back on tour, the tour culminated in the Netflix special … That was probably hard for him personally, but pretty easy in the span of a celebrity lifetime. I was just thinking about the women who have publicly struggled with mental health and substance use who have not really been welcomed back into the public eye quite so easily. I've thought especially about young women who kind of came up as child stars and have had public rehab stints — like Amanda Bynes, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, and I think to a lesser extent Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato.… These women, I think their careers have become, if not synonymous with these rough patches in their lives, that has become a really dominant focus.

WATCH | Official teaser trailer for John Mulaney: Baby J:

With John Mulaney, the reaction to his relapse was, "I really am glad that he's getting the help that he needs." And I think with these women, their public struggles have been a really cruel spectacle. It just feels like especially with young women, we are really down to see them in these vulnerable positions.... It's not an exact parallel — Britney Spears and Amanda Bynes in particular had these years-long public histories of erratic behavior. But I just kept thinking, John Mulaney is this Georgetown-educated, clean cut-looking, Midwestern, upper middle class white guy and the person that we're most likely to afford public forgiveness and trust to. We're really comfortable seeing him back in the saddle. We're far more comfortable seeing young women out of control and in need of protection.

Elamin: I think what's always really deeply compelling about the special is that I think he knows that too, and he seems to be, at least as far as I can tell, a little bit uncomfortable with the idea that his comeback road is always going to be way smoother than other people.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.