Jenny Slate Is Bigger and Better Than Ever in Seasoned Professional

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A lot has happened to Jenny Slate in the nearly five years since her debut hour Stage Fright: she’s written and produced the Oscar-nominated film Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, gotten married, had a baby, and survived a pandemic. All that to say, she has plenty of fodder for her new Prime comedy special Seasoned Professional, and boy does Slate deliver.

Slate’s latest hour is much more streamlined and effective than Stage Fright (which was entertaining in its own right), without losing her endearing silliness. While Stage Fright cuts back and forth to interviews with her family and home videos, on Seasoned Professional we’re just hearing from Slate herself, and the special is the better for it. Between her enthusiasm and director Gillian Robespierre’s (a frequent Slate collaborator who also directed Obvious Child and Stage Fright) dynamic eye, we don’t need anything else interrupting the show.

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Most of Seasoned Professional is loosely structured around the birth of Slate’s daughter, which is used as a jumping off point for tangents about meeting her now-husband, disastrous diarrhea from years past (truly a side-splitting bit), and a cross-country pandemic road trip. Slate fully commits to her signature more-is-more style throughout the special, and it works because she underpins her over-the-top demeanor with a sensitivity and keen awareness about herself and the world around her. Her vocals go on a wild roller coaster ride, yo-yoing between a whisper and a boisterous yell, leaving us in no doubt of why she’s so in demand as a voice actor. In fact, Slate herself is like a cartoon character brought to life. She impersonates a walrus guzzling mackerel, her own semi-dried urine, and perverts enjoying their lascivious nighttime pleasures with unparalleled gusto. Her prowess as a physical comedian feels so natural, too; Slate is a born performer.

And yet that self-deprecation is still there, keeping Slate’s schtick from ever growing grating. When she starts off the special with a goof about not liking plays, she then jokes that these sound like the bitter complaints of an actor who hasn’t been asked to be in one. Slate is her own worst critic, and she’ll often turn her own frenetic energy inward, with uproarious results. Nonetheless, she has a love and tenderness for herself (and others) that keep her jokes from teetering into self-loathing.

The special’s climax comes when Slate confronts her own trust issues while visiting her then-boyfriend, now-husband in Amsterdam. It’s a truly excellent moment that drives home Slate’s stamina as a performer. She caps off Seasoned Professional by discussing her love for her therapist Pamela and shares an elaborately imagined scenario about stalking Pamela’s daughter. The bit is so hilariously unhinged and she delivers it impeccably. Between her use of repetition, physically precise performance, and colorful writing, Slate transports us to her awkward bathroom encounter with Pamela’s daughter. We’re undoubtedly witnessing a seasoned professional here.

Clare Martin is a cemetery enthusiast and Paste’s assistant comedy editor. Go harass her on Twitter @theclaremartin.