Inside Amy Schumer debuts tonight on Comedy Central at 10:30 p.m. Eastern.
Amy Schumer has built a deservedly great reputation as a stand-up over the past few years, gaining some notice on Last Comic Standing and then breaking out in a bigger way on her own. Schumer’s frequently dirty jokes culminated in a fantastic 2012 Comedy Central special called Mostly Sex Stuff, which is a pretty apt description of her act: Her favorite topics include the morning-after pill and various fluids. She loves to play the carefree, only slightly ashamed hussy, and she does it in a way that’s both biting and funny.
The next stop was either movies or a Comedy Central show (though she made a brief detour as the co-host of Mark Hoppus’ Fuse TV show), and Schumer ended up with a half-hour on the cable net. Inside Amy Schumer takes its biggest cues from Chappelle’s Show, which isn’t a bad thing to emulate. It mixes Schumer’s stand-up routines with sketches in which Schumer generally plays an over-the-top version of herself (or at least someone with whom she shares a name). In general it works, though nearly every sketch wears out its welcome at least a bit.
That’s not really true of the show’s tone-setting cold open, in which Schumer sits on a casting couch and listens to a description of the video she’s auditioning for—the infamous “2 Girls 1 Cup.” While the reference itself is pretty damn dated, the tone the piece takes is smart: It’s all about Schumer’s only slightly incredulous reaction to what she’s being asked to do. (In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s about the most vile-sounding scat-porn imaginable.) She tries to reason with herself that it’s art (“Is this going to be in MoMA?”) or that at least her face will be blurred. But no, it’s pretty much all bad.