TV Review: Actor/Comedian Kumail Nanjiani Tackles Anxiety and Superhero Movie Stardom in Hulu Special "Night Thoughts"

Tomorrow will see the release of the first stand-up comedy special in over ten years from actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals, Stuber, The Big Sick), entitled Night Thoughts. Laughing Place was provided with an early screener for the special, and below are my thoughts.

I first became aware of Kumail Nanjiani as a stand-up comedian roughly 15 or so years ago when I was living south of Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, just around the corner from Meltdown Comics, where Kumail and his fellow comic Jonah Ray would host their weekly show The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail at the NerdMelt comedy venue in the back of the store. So while I'm definitely aware of the performer's stand-up roots, Nanjiani absolutely wants to make sure that everyone else is, too, hilariously taking the time to remind his audience at the top of Night Thoughts that he only got into acting after paying his dues on the comedy circuit-- make no mistake: he's no newcomer to the art form.

And now, after taking a decade off from performing solo on stage, Kumail is back with a new special without really missing a beat, though he definitely gets a lot of mileage out of what's been going on in his life during the interim period. Indeed, the best chunk of this special (saved for the final 15 minutes) is a dissection of the internet's reaction to Eternals that landed-- choice of words intentional-- Nanjiani in therapy. Knowing that he grew up a huge fan of geeky stuff like The X-Files and other pop-culture properties that I also tend to enjoy, I can imagine how much he had invested in joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe and what a blow to his ego it must have been to have the movie underperform with critics and at the box office. But the upside to that particular misadventure is he got some very funny material out of it.

And if you find yourself struggling to relate to the woes of an international movie star, fear not-- Kumail has some more down-to-Earth stuff on his setlist as well, such as the difficulties of taking care of a sick cat. As a cat lover and owner, I can definitely identify with that, and the comic does a great job of getting across what makes medicating a feline friend so tough while putting his own uproarious spin on the proceedings. There are also bits about anxiety (represented by the titular Night Thoughts), the legalization of marijuana, and an amusing story in which he and his wife Emily V. Gordon (producer and subject of The Big Sick) remotely catch a young couple illicitly using their swimming pool. Yeah, I guess some of this does come across as "rich people problems" but Kumail's knowingly tongue-in-cheek method of delivering the setups and punchlines makes it all palatable and entertaining.

I wouldn't call Kumail Nanjiani my favorite comic of all time or anything, but his work on stage (and on the screen) has been reliable enough that I will continue to tune in wherever he shows up. I appreciate his perspective as an immigrant to our country, and I think I have a lot in common with him as an enthusiast of all things nerdy. I'll admit to previously having trouble getting past his newly acquired muscular physique (maybe for a while I felt like he wasn't really "one of us" anymore) but he delivers another funny bit here about why he's keeping up his workout routine, and that honestly helped me understand the reasoning behind it and empathize with his transformation quite a bit better. Personally I'm just glad he's back to doing what brought him to the entertainment industry in the first place, and I hope he keeps that up from now on as well.

Kumail Nanjiani: Night Thoughts will be released tomorrow, December 19th, exclusively via Hulu and the Disney+ with Hulu bundle.