The challenge with this kind of review is whether to review the comic or to review the material or just throw in the towel and do both.
A one of a kind comic. So real it hurts. The first thing you notice is that she is a natural beauty, even when she is not trying. This somewhat distracts from the material, but she knows, and she works it. So it is part of the act.
The next thing you notice is that her material so deep, so experimental, so I-don't-care-if-u-laugh that you are compelled to listen that much more carefully, to try to capture the experience not just the joke.
Like most comics operating in the rarefied air she prefers, she could do easier (and funnier) material, but she would probably sooner have a root canal. Or whatever the "painful female equivalent" of a root canal is.
A few years back, a brave film-maker did a documentary on the one "forbidden" joke that comics only ever told to each other, but never to the public. Not kidding. A real joke involving a lot of ad-libbing which every comic had a variation of, but the public had never heard of.
The film-maker then went to a dozen or so top comics and had them do their version of the joke on camera. Some of the best comics in the world participated. But Silverman was generally considered to have been the funniest in the film, not merely because she told the joke but because she managed to do a segue where the joke (supposedly) triggered a suppressed memory. "My agent raped me," she said deadpan to the camera, halfway through the joke. "I just remembered that my agent raped me." Now, that does not SOUND funny but, in context, it was drop dead funny.
And so it is with this special. If you get into the context and pay attention more to the artist than the material (which is not always the way comedy works) it is quite a treat.
Carlin was like that at the end of his life. He could do "funny" but did not want to. He had things he wanted to say and if you paid for a concert, you were ^%^**^ well going to hear them.
Same here.
