Mike Birbiglia may not be the funniest stand-up comedian working today, but few, if any, craft a special as skillfully as he does. He can be hilarious, heartfelt, and even tiptoe right up to the edge of controversy, but he always pulls it back to a central theme. He never fails to make me laugh and hit me square in the feels. He’s a storyteller first, who just happens to be incredibly good at telling jokes.
His latest Netflix special, Good Life, is no exception. It’s fantastic. The theme revolves around what exactly constitutes a “good life,” and it unfolds in segments inspired by deep, sometimes existential questions posed by his nine-year-old daughter, Oona. In it, Birbiglia explores his complicated relationship with his stoic father, a doctor who also earned a law degree “because that’s how much he didn’t want to be a dad.” After his father suffered a stroke, Birbiglia spins ten minutes of material from it that only he could deliver because, as he says, only the son is allowed to make fun of his dad’s stroke.
He talks about drugs, specifically, how he avoids them because he’s terrible at using them, and how people constantly mistake him for an undercover cop. He jokes about his father’s dream of him becoming a doctor, and how he’s sort of fulfilled it by appearing in medical textbooks as the case study for the sleepwalking disorder he discussed in his earlier special, Sleepwalk with Me. And he recounts how little his daughter cares when fans tell him he’s a great comedian: “It’s a waste of my time,” she once told her dad.
“It was the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me,” Birbiglia jokes. “And I know Bill Burr.”
He dives deep into parenting, including a hilarious bit about how much of a disappointment his daughter is at ballet given how much money he’s invested in it (trust me, it’s funny in context). He riffs on marriage and what it’s like to argue with an introverted wife. He also delivers a brilliant 15-minute story about meeting Pope Francis — “a pretty good guy, but only compared to other popes” — as part of a group of comedians, riffing on how Jesus would be appalled at what’s become of Christianity. (“It was supposed to be more of a cross between David Blaine and a food bank.”)
The whole set is outstanding, but honestly, the bit on Urban Air is so good I watched it three times — once alone, once with my kids, and once with my wife. Urban Air humor hits the entire family. In my own house, it’s a long-running joke: our kids are rarely allowed to go. Why? Because there are so many injuries that a local medical practice literally hired another doctor just to handle Urban Air-related cases. The best Indian takeout in our city happens to be next door, and at least half the time we pick up food there, there’s an ambulance parked out front.
And Birbiglia nails it. He points out how many forms parents have to sign just to get through the front door. “You have to sign a stack of documents because they know your child is about to be injured,” he says. “And they get real specific. It’s like, ‘Your daughter is about to be stuck under a rusty trampoline … she may jump so high her head gets stuck in the rafters … she may throw up on a rusty trampoline and you will have to clean it up with your own mop and bucket, which are available for purchase at the Urban Air store.’”
One clause that’s not in the paperwork? Anything stopping a comedian from roasting Urban Air in a Netflix special: “Guns don’t kill people,” Birbiglia jokes. “Urban Air kills people.”
That whole bit, including the part about his daughter’s inevitable injury, is the best ten minutes of stand-up I’ve heard in 2025. It’s so good that I’ve already memorized the timestamp (24:00) because I plan to show it to every parent who walks through my front door. It’s the kind of comedy almost any parent with kids over five can relate to. It’s stand-up perfection. And Good Life is as close to it as I’ve heard in a long while.
