It’s not an exaggeration to say that the world in which “Inside Amy Schumer” once existed no longer exists. Premiering in 2013 right as TV criticism and chatter was finding its internet foothold (for better and for worse), Schumer’s sardonic sketch series took pleasure in twisting second-wave #feminist rhetoric into a pretzel, pushing the bounds of “good taste,” and wryly skewering the comedian at its center as a hopelessly “unfuckable” woman who, depending on the day, either cared too much or couldn’t give less of a damn. At its most pointed, “Inside Amy Schumer” rooted around in the detritus of society’s standards with enviable precision; at its dullest, it gave in to lampooning the same stereotypes that comedy’s been hammering for decades under the guise of Schumer playing a caricature of herself.Ending in June 2016, however, also meant that the show narrowly escaped the waves of liberal white women’s anger following Donald Trump’s electoral victory, at which point it might’ve become something else completely.
In the meantime, Schumer’s gone on to produce more personal works about herself (“Amy Schumer Learns to Cook,” “Life and Beth”) and her new, growing family (“Expecting Amy”). So it was reasonable to assume that a fifth season of “Inside Amy Schumer” might look somewhat different than the one that premiered almost a decade ago, when Schumer was barely in her thirties versus a 41-year-old in a much different place both personally and professionally. That version of the show opened with Schumer auditioning to be in the disgusting 2007 viral video “2 Girls, 1 Cup”; it went on tackle so-called “rape culture” and beauty standards, flip “12 Angry Men” on its head by having a table of men debate whether or not Schumer was “hot enough” to be on TV, and eventually ended its runwith a “Real Housewives” style clip show that devolved into chaos.
Rewatching these episodes before diving into the upcoming fifth season was a reminder of all that worked — and didn’t— about “Inside Amy Schumer,” which got me even more interested in what her returning to this format might yield with another decade’s worth of life and work experience. And yet: the most surprising thing about Season 5’sfirst two episodes (both premiering Oct. 20 on Paramount+) is that even without the original’s sporadic detours into Schumer’s standup sets and on-the-street interviews, they feel strikingly similar to ones that aired in the show’s initial run.
Maybe it’s more on Society than on the show that sketches about rich women preaching faux-enlightenment and “The Bachelor” remain somewhat relevant, but it’s still a letdown when they don’t go beyond the basics and end up feeling more at home in 2014 than 2022. (“Home Spanx” could’ve easily been “Home Skims,” at the very least!) One of the premiere’s most pointed segments has a college RA teach her increasingly terrified women charges how to avoid assault at all costs, but then distracts from itself by cutting to Schumer talking about pitching the idea to her youngest Gen Z writer — aka Sascha Seinfeld, daughter of Jerry. (Larry David’s daughter Cazzie also shows up later, as if to complete some second-generation comedy writer bingo board.)Timelier sketches like a brief horror trailer for a movie about “trans girls in bathrooms,” and atravel ad for Colorado that not-so-subtly advertise the state as an abortion safe haven, grab a bit more attention, but end up meandering to their immediately obvious points. Others are more purely for fun, as is the case with the very deliberately silly “Fart Park” — a classic case of a punchyidea that obviously killed in the writers’ room, but doesn’t especially translate onscreen to bring the rest of us in on the joke.
The best sketches, then, are the ones that take an even slightly unexpected wayto what seems like a straightforward punchline. In fact, the premiere’s very first one does exactly that, with Schumer playing a mother with psoriasis who tries a new medication and gains arguably way too much confidence once it works. Her ensuing meltdown over her husband’s refusal to love her objectively terrible pottery lets Schumer both act her signature part of an unaware woman only barely keeping her shit together and evolve it in a way that’s different from the version she played several years ago. If “Inside Amy Schumer” were returning to do more of that, it would be genuinely exciting; otherwise, it seems content to mostly go where it’s already gone before, give or take a fart park.
“Inside Amy Schumer” premieres with two episodes Thursday, Oct. 20 on Paramount+.
