Year in ReView: Vanyaland’s favorite stand-up comedy specials of 2018

Dave Chappelle, Equanimity

There’s no point in trying and argue that Dave Chappelle is as close to the GOAT as this generation will ever see, since Carlin and Pryor are no longer around. He just is, and he knows it. He doesn’t even have to try and make something gold, because he could yodel for an hour, and it would become an instant classic. But with Equanimity, he pushes harder than the rest of the three specials he’s released for Netflix combined. Barely moving from a small riser at the front of a huge stage, Chappelle strategically places well-crafted punchlines mixed with a plethora of social commentary, like his controversial jokes that have enraged the transgender community, and the deathbed confession of Carolyn Bryant, the Mississippi woman who falsely accused Emmett Till of making advances towards her in 1955. Almost bordering a TED Talk on how to be an effective and genius comedian, Chappelle took jabs at topics that, even though they were recorded in 2017 and released on the last calendar day of last year, remain relevant almost exactly a year later.