The TV Room: Jen Kirkman: I’m Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine), by David Bax

There’s a lot of taboo-breaking in comedy, obviously. Upending expectations is one of the tenets of making people laugh. Years of comedians testing limits, however, has left the ground picked pretty clean in terms of what can upset people. So it’s surprising how easily Jen Kirkman can upset norms just by being a forty-year-old woman who is single, childless and proudly content with her life. Her new Netflix special never strays too far from that premise, which gives it the feel of a considered and well-wrought object, as opposed to most such specials, which ricochet from topic to topic. And by being well over an hour and hilarious throughout, it proves just how much there is to mine from the simple basis that a person can be happy while being “alone,” according to societal standards. What it also proves is that we’ll never run out of great comedy as long as people like Kirkman are doing it so personally and boldly.