When I finished Inside for the first time, I sat in complete silence on my couch for a solid ten minutes before I could even muster a “holy shit.” I laughed. I cried. I looked up Bo Burnham’s zodiac sign (he’s a fellow Leo, and that tracks). I immediately knew I wanted to write about it, but it took three viewings and sifting through four and a half pages of notes for me to finally craft something cohesive about it. It’s not just a comedy special but a full-blown 90 minutes of biography and career introspective and documentary. Netflix categorizes it as “stand-up comedy” and “offbeat,” but those generic genres don’t even begin to give it the justice it deserves. I don’t know if I can either, but I want to try because as a huge fan of comedy, a huge fan of Bo Burnham (since the 10th grade, to be exact), and someone who has suffered from clinical depression and anxiety for as long as they can remember, Inside transcends the idea of a mere comedy special.

Before we go any further, I want to make a couple of things clear. First and foremost, I think every single person is going to take something different away from this special. Some people are going to just focus on the abundance of social commentary while others are going to take note of the comedic timing. For me, it was the relatable notes of mental illness that made me simultaneously feel uncomfortable and secure because it was so accurate. Secondly, everything I mention in this piece about mental illness is based on my personal experience; mental illness can present differently for everyone, but this goes back to my first point of how everyone will take something different away from this special. There are going to be little things I may leave out because there is so much continuity and interconnectivity, down to all of the orchestral music used in any bit being an instrumental version of another song from the special, so it’s impossible to fully cover every detail in one piece. There may be things I’m way overthinking (she said having just written a complete piece regarding the idea Ferris Buller doesn’t exist), but I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to write about a comedian I’ve followed for 14 years, especially when they’ve created something so goddamn incredible.

For those who don’t know, Inside is the first comedy special Bo Burnham has released in over five years and was not only shot in quarantine but completely shot in one room, which happens to be the same room Burnham walked out of at the end of his last special, Make Happy (l maintain Inside to be the spiritual sequel of Make Happy, but I digress). From the very beginning, it’s apparent this isn’t a straight-forward comedy special but something entirely and beautifully unique. We start with “Content” and “Comedy,” where Burnham riffs on every white savior comedian who believes their comedy can save us from racism, sexism, and “the other stuff.” We also have the disembodied laughter sounding at times that aren’t necessarily funny. It’s this brilliant juxtaposition of recorded audience laughter interjected into times that aren’t inherently funny and are usually inserted when Burnham is either crying out for help or making a serious statement. This is the onstage persona we’ve seen from Burnham before but with even more satirical bite. We’re also introduced to a completely different side of Burnham. This isn’t simply the Burnham who interweaves mentions of his current mental state into lyrics, but he addresses us and it directly. He sits in front of the mirror and is very sincere and honest in his delivery, and it becomes clear this special has been created out of necessity. It’s a lifeline. It’s the most painful thing in the world, but he knows he has to share it.

After our first two songs and full intro, we have “FaceTime with my Mom (Tonight).” This, for me, screams of when you’re in a depressive episode, and you want to reach out to someone to kill some time, and you want them to realize you aren’t well without having to blatantly tell them, but you’re left in the dark once again when they hang up the phone. It’s the feeling of wanting any distraction by any means to feel connected, even for a few minutes, and we’ll come back to this again later on with “Sexting.” It’s also the same idea we see later on in “A White Woman’s Instagram” where we can present something in the confines of a phone screen to avoid being forced to see or show the bigger picture of what may actually be happening in reality.

With “How the World Works,” we get the parody of a children’s show where an actual puppet acts as the foil to Burnham’s menacing higher authority, who becomes complacent after being threatened, only to be thrown away, despite the false safety “guaranteed” by the puppet master. I never thought I would hear the word “genocide” come out of a sock puppet, but that’s why it works so masterfully. It sounds so trite, but the basic subversion of expectations is what really bumped this to the next level for me. The truth behind the current state of affairs is so sickening and frightening, but so many people are so unwilling to educate themselves or tackle anything even slightly uncomfortable that they need Socko to illustrate for them how horrible things truly are because purposely refusing to educate or acknowledge things is absolutely juvenile, so it needs to be presented in the most childlike way possible.

Next up is the Inside PR clip where Burnham serves as the “social brand consultant” for brands during these trying times (insert cookie cutter press release where a company talks about how hard the last year has been here). Burnham riffs on how all of these companies aren’t willing to put in the actual legwork, but we as the consumer are only interested in the words and getting any form of content. Burnham even discusses his brand and says he’s been asked what he’s going to do with his brand from the nonexistent audience, and the genius is, well, it’s this. He’s going to use his brand to create this special.

Speaking of content, “White Woman’s Instagram” is the next song up for the special. Despite being thoroughly embarrassed at the fact I own a candle holder featured in this song (it was a gift, I swear), I can’t even begin to describe how incredibly accurate this is, down to the onesie photo. The idea of the content we present in the confines of the Instagram square vs the candid message of the girl to her mother is *chef’s kiss.* It perfectly illustrates how we’re willing to perpetrate this illusion of perfection, even if it means perpetuating the same exact ideas of those around us or perpetuating ignorance; we’d rather match the content in the feed and feel like we’ve invoked change than have the gumption to actually be authentic and upset the algorithm. We fade out of this song to Burnham in a dark room, only illuminated by his laptop which is playing the final notes of “White Woman’s Instagram,” where he appears to be editing and then a shot of the now disorganized chaos of the room he’s been in to represent the headspace of a depressive episode.

We then cut to Burnham on a stool, in what appears to be a traditional stand-up comedy set up where he asks “Can any single person shut the fuck up about any single for an hour?”He is fully aware he’s speaking, but he just keeps asking the audience if anyone can just be silent, and he’s silent for one second before we’re sent into the opening notes of “Unpaid Intern.”

We get even more self-reflection in the reaction video after the brief song “Unpaid Intern,” where Burnham mocks the trademark YouTube react video, except he isn’t reacting to the content but to himself. He deconstructs his defense mechanisms and as the react videos fold into one another, he just wants to make it stop, so he screams out to make the videos stop to avoid having to spend more time analyzing himself and then cheerfully outros the video as we would come to expect from a normal YouTuber and as if there wasn’t a moment of absolute raw self-awareness before being transitioned again into another song of social commentary. (This is coming from someone who doesn’t ever want to have anything incorrect in a piece, so I had to rewatch Inside an additional two times to make sure every quote I used was correct and was providing live commentary on everything like an asshole while I was watching it with my friend because I have a really bad problem with wanting to share my analysis of every piece of pop culture I absorb with every single person around me).

“Bezos I” really got me because it’s not full of wordplay, but it’s simply the truth. It’s mostly just information about Jeff Bezos, outside of the line “fuck their wives, drink their blood,” (which I can’t confirm or deny is true). It acts as the perfect transition into the monologue Burnham gives from the floor about how we’ve completely devolved as a species that relies on technology to provide all of our wants and needs and have essentially handed the minds of children over to the big companies and “maybe, um, that’s not good.” In a trademark Burnham segue, we end with him saying “I’m...horny” and immediately transition into “Sexting.”

I love “Sexting” (I realize how that sounds, but I’m keeping it in here) because it’s another example of wanting to find a connection with someone while in the middle of a depressive episode. During the entire exchange, Burnham is overthinking every single thing, and if you pause the brick of text projected halfway through the song, it completely reads as the writings of someone in an unstable headspace, as interpreted by someone who has been there and has experienced it. There are also cuts of Burnham in all white in bed and jokingly thrusting in front of his projector spliced with cuts of him sitting in all black in a chair, showing the expectation vs the reality of how sexting will fill any internal emptiness. It’s yet again representative of this idea of trying to find some sort of connection during a pandemic and during the age of technology, where we’ve begun to completely disconnect physically from one another.

As “Sexting” ends, we’re brought to another YouTube parody where Burnham seemingly thanks all of his viewers for subscribing and telling them to continue watching, with knife in hand to give us a peek behind the curtain. Regardless of what we see or hear on social media, it’s an illusion. Like “White Woman’s Instagram,” we’re so hellbent on creating this unrealistic content, regardless of our own mental health or wellbeing, and we sometimes pay the ultimate price for it. Is this worth it? Is our entertainment as the audience worth the entire deterioration of a creator’s mental health? We’re left wondering as we cut to a personal favorite of mine, “Look Who’s Inside Again.”

“Look Who’s Inside Again” is not only one of my favorite songs in this entire special, but it’s a very candid moment with Burnham. He’s sitting in his cluttered floor, and on the first attempt, he stops because he breathed, and he begins again and finishes the entire song. “Look Who’s Inside Again” for me is especially poignant because of the line “Well, well, look who’s inside again, went out to look for a reason to hide again.” This line has stuck with me since my first watch because it’s so honest. In my experience with mental illness, when you’re in a bad headspace, you’ll find any and every excuse to not go outside. It’s so much easier to stay inside and sleep and hide away from anyone who might be able to look through your disguise and notice you aren’t well.

When I’m in a bad headspace, I tend to not only be self-critical but hyperfocus on my work, and this ends with Burnham ending the song, and saying “one more,” even though to the audience, this sounded perfect. We fade into Burnham watching footage of himself from his YouTube days, giving us another perfect transition out of a song with the line, “when you’re a kid who is stuck in your room, you’ll do any old shit to get out of it.” Every single bit of this special is so beautifully structured and perfectly executed, so naturally, this bit is no exception as we go from Burnham watching his old videos to “Accountable.”

“Accountable” is presented as a Kevin Bacon in Footloose-esque gymnastic barn dance thirst trap where Burnham asks if we’re going to hold him accountable for what he’s done in the past. Burnham mentioned in his reaction video about wanting to get ahead of the criticism of his past, so this is a perfect continuity of this idea. Burnham is holding himself accountable while also asking if we’re going to hold him accountable for the questionable content of his past. He wants to be able to move past it and evolve, but he doesn’t know if he can do so without first facing the decisions he’s made earlier in his career. It also watches like a giant slap in the face to the disingenuous celebrity apologies we’ve become so accustomed to where, as Burnham does in the video, celebrities seem to metaphorically climb up on their crosses, which is immediately followed by another candid piece of footage of Burnham as he tests the lightings and projected background and seems to accidentally knock over the camera as we cut to black for another monologue.

The entire song for “30” as well as the monologue leading in really struck a chord for me, as someone turning 29 in two months. Burnham reveals the entire plan was to finish this special by the time he turned 30, but he’s still in the thick of it, so he’s going to spend the last remaining moments of 29 sitting and reflecting, and with a defeated “yay,” we’re into the song.

“30” is equal-parts hysterical and heartbreaking because again, as someone who can see 30 on the horizon, I understood every single word. We’ve created this big societal expectation that you have to have everything figured out by 30, but our generation is exhausted. It’s insane to wake up one day and casually realize you’re turning 30, seemingly out of nowhere. It’s become viewed as this major milestone, and it was marked as Burnham’s milestone for finishing this special. Burnham also includes a stab at all the Zoomers with the spoken lines, “Oh yeah? Well your fucking phones are poisoning your minds, okay? So when you develop a dissociative mental disorder in your late 20s, don’t come crawling back to me,” but the “me” is cut off, which again, in sheer Burnham fashion, where everything is perfectly timed and executed, alludes to the entire idea of this special and to a symptom of dissociative mental disorders, where thoughts are often disconnected, explaining many of the transitions. There may be times the transitions don’t appear to make sense on the surface, but Burnham doesn’t waste a single moment or piece of space; everything is planned, down to when candid scenes are included.

TW- If you are triggered by thoughts of s**cidal ideation, I’d go ahead and skip this paragraph, and there will be references from here on out with tws as well. When “30” ends, we get a video of Burnham attempting to tell himself why he shouldn’t kill himself while literally projecting these ideas on himself. This one was one of the most challenging bits for me to watch because it’s so authentic. When you hit a major depressive episode, you have to try to bargain with yourself on why you shouldn’t just let yourself fully submit to the dark. The PSA Burnham uses has the vague tone of a YouTuber trying to make a video about how important we all are, but this video has a catch with every inspirational thought. Burnham says that people love him, immediately followed by “...that’s not true necessarily..” Everything is a contradiction, and he even talks about how if he could kill himself for 18 months and then come back, he would immediately. As someone who has been there, I fully understand the sentiment. You battle within yourself and project this image onto yourself that it’ll all be okay, but you have major doubts, and it’s….hard. As someone who has come out on the other side, I can recognize it, and if you have as well, you can truly understand that pain, and with this, we’re brought to the Intermission and halfway point of Inside.

The Intermission screen is marked by text as well as Burnham washing the camera, complete with a squeegee, which should allow us to see more clearly now. For me, this marks a tonal shift within Inside. From here on out, the mental health references are more apparent. It gets a lot more candid. There are two scenes that made me cry the first time I watched it, and they’re still incredibly hard for me to watch because it encapsulates the hopelessness and brokenness you experience at the rock bottom of a depressive episode.

“Don’t Wanna Know” is another favorite of mine from this special because it was another prime example of how the mind works within mental illness. When you have anxiety and depression, and you’re in a bad episode, you want to ask so many questions, but you don’t know if you can emotionally/mentally handle the answers. Burnham asks a variety of rhetorical questions including if we’re watching, if this special is something we’re popped on just for noise, what we think of the special, and the line that got me: “Is there anyone out there? Or am I all alone? It wouldn’t make a difference, but I don’t want to know.” To me, it not only registers as a version of the old trope comedians are known for when things aren’t landing (“is this thing on?”) but as wanting to know if there is anyone out there and being scared of the answer while being self-aware enough to realize, in this moment, it might not be enough. Yet again, in true Burnham fashion, the last line about wanting to know the ending is cut off to signify that he’s not spoiling the ending for us, and we transition into the live play through.

The live playthrough for Inside (brought to you by SSRI Interactive) acts as a parody of game playthroughs but also embodies the spirit of this special. You control Burnham by making him cry, having him shine a flashlight around, attempt to open the door, and play songs, and this represents the making of Inside. Burnham is trying to escape, be it physically or mentally, he did everything for his special, including all of the lighting effects, he’s clearly in a rapidly deteriorating mental state, and he’s playing songs that make him momentarily happy, or at the very least, he pretends they do. As we reach the end of the playthrough, we see the message “another night approaches…,” and it cuts to Burnham with a spotlight on his bed, and we go into “Shit.”

“Shit” hits way too close to home for me, as it talks about depressive sleeping, not showering for days, not doing laundry, the repercussions of something as simple as spilling your coffee, and the harsh words you use to describe yourself. I sincerely said “boy howdy” aloud during this song. “Staring at the ceiling, and waiting for this feeling to go away, but it won’t go away” sums it up perfectly. You don’t want to be in this state of my mind, and you desperately want it to subside, but it just...doesn’t. You can’t convince yourself to shower or move or do anything, so you start to take it out on yourself, and it’s extremely hard to get out of this mindset once you’re fully immersed in it. When “Shit” ends, we get a shot of the blinds drawn tight to keep the outside world out, and we dissolve into Burnham for another monologue where he talks about his mental health is getting close to an ATL, “All time low, not Atlanta.” The thing that really stood out here to me was the leg jiggle, and when I rewatched this with a friend the third time, they mentioned the same thing. It’s a big tell for me that he is rapidly declining because the leg jiggle is so synonymous with when I have an anxiety attack. The monologue was, of course, flawless, and the brief musical explanation where Burnham describes how he feels when he’s awake set to upbeat pop is incredible, but for me, the small detail of the nonstop leg jiggle really established his mental state.

“Welcome to the Internet” is my favorite song in this special for several reasons. It’s meant to represent the information overload we receive from the internet and how carefully calculated our descent into a fully technological age was conceived. It’s the equivalent of those old drug PSAs but instead of drugs, this is your brain on the Internet, and it exposes how absolutely putrid we all are with what we search as well as how disgusting it is that we have all of this information readily available at our fingertips. It’s also an amazing callback to the monologue he delivered from the floor earlier and the dissociative disorder he mentioned back in “30,” showing once again how intricately connected every single little thing is within this special.

After “Welcome to the Internet,” we have another quick monologue from Burnham about how he doesn’t fully want to finish this special; when it’s done, he has to go back to reality, so he thinks he simply doesn’t want to finish. He’s worked so hard on this special, and it’s given him something to do outside of dwelling on his diminished mental state. Once you finish something and put it out into the world, you no longer have that distraction to hide behind any longer; you have to go back to the world as it was before this piece was finished. Sure, you shared it with the world, expressed the feelings you need to, and people can consume it, but it’s not the same as when you’re working on it, especially when it’s something as obviously raw as this special.

“Bezos II” is brief, but it still packs a punch. It’s a celebratory song to Bezos because he did it. The pandemic led to us all to be stuck at home with only business like Amazon as resources, so he was successful. Technology and big companies like Amazon won. We’re completely dependent upon the internet and the convenience of corporations like Amazon. The pandemic solidified this victory, so Bezos, “you did it!”

After “Bezos II,” we’re have a brief moment of Burnham hearing laughter from previously recorded specials and almost robotically conjuring up a smile before we cut to another monologue with a very similar setup to the stand-up monologue at the beginning, except this time, the outdoors is projected onto the inside walls, and Burnham is in his underwear. He’s completely changed his message and fully endorses staying inside as well as the lack of in-person communication within society. He also mentions how we can all “get together and laugh at these crazy times,” which completely contradicts the entire message of “should I be joking at a time like this?” from earlier. He’s completely broken and vulnerable and seems to have assimilated into the ideas of the masses. He tells a joke about pirate maps that is met with continued and complete silence. We’re left with the dead air of Burnham’s “joke” about pirate maps, and we cut to “That Funny Feeling.”

TW - If you are triggered by s**cidal ideation, go ahead and skip to the paragraph “All Eyes On Me.” “That Funny Feeling” could easily be mistaken for an indie folk song if you aren’t listening close enough. It’s chock full of lyrics about how absolutely tragic our society is as a whole, and the phrase “the funny feeling” works on two levels, the first obviously being Burnham as a comedian and referring to the literal “funny feeling,”, but overall, it’s referring to depression and darkness creeping in. It’s the idea of finally reaching out to get help, and it’s not even brought to you by another human being. He also mentions the idea of derealization, and he’s performing to a genuinely non-existent audience. “The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all” is a not so subtle hint of Burnham’s suicidal ideation. At this point, you’re clearly hearing Burnham, but are you really listening? Have you been listening during this special at all? I think the next scene really challenges the audience because if you have been listening, these raw pieces of footage should be absolutely heartbreaking, but they shouldn’t be surprising.

These following few minutes had me in tears because it’s so hard to watch, but we need to see it. Burnham sets down to try to do a monologue, and he’s clearly been crying. The leg twitch is back. He can only get out a couple of words at a time. He can’t sit still. He’s agitated with himself. He’s clearly in so much mental pain it’s become unbearable, and he has to get up and walk away. This is immediately followed by a close up of him simply stating, “I am not, um, well” before he begins to sob uncontrollably. For me, this is the moment where you can’t fake it anymore. You can’t keep saying “I’m fine.” You can’t keep pretending you think it’s going to all be okay. You can’t cope anymore, and you admit you aren’t okay. It was extremely hard to watch, but again, we all need to see it because it’s real. There’s no musical interlude to distract us. Burnham is clearly struggling, and this special is both helping and harming him, but he knows he has to release it. We need to see this. It’s like the painting or piece you’ve written that is going to absolutely pain you to send out into the world, but you know you have to anyway. We need to see this because Inside is ultimately for our consumption and our entertainment but at what cost? As we zoom in on the camera, the same camera sitting next to Burnham as he introduces Inside from the mirror and acts as a reflection of our own broken nature, we get a voiceover of Burnham as well as prerecorded audience cheers, and we’re brought into “All Eyes on Me,” our penultimate song of the special.

“All Eyes on Me” is nothing short of incredible, and I don’t even really know where to start. “All Eyes on Me” very much serves as a continuation of “Can’t Handle This (Kanye Rant)” from Burnham’s last special, Make Happy. Make Happy is obviously shot in the way of a more traditional special, but there are so many parallels between it and Inside, with, in my opinion, this being the greatest. “Can’t Handle This (Kanye Rant)” starts out as Burnham spoofing Kanye West’s famous rants from the Yeezus tour, but it devolves into the status of Burnham’s mental health with the lyrics, “ ‘Come watch the skinny kid with a steadily declining mental health and laugh as attempts to give you what he cannot give himself.’ ” Burnham hasn’t been well for a long time, and whether we’ve accidentally or deliberately ignored it, we can’t anymore. It’s not just self-depreciative humor. It’s not just comedy anymore. He even addresses why he stopped performing; he was having massive panic attacks during shows. When he was finally ready to come back into the world, it was January 2020, and we know what came next. Burnham left the door open for comedy at the end of Make Happy, and Inside begins with Burnham re-entering the headspace and physical space from the end of its predecessor. He needs us, and we seemingly need him, but it’s unclear whether or not this is a symbiotic or parasitic relationship. Are we helping him while he gives us content, or is he turning for us for help, and we’re just laughing?

Burnham was ready to come back to the world, but the world as he knew it completely evolved and changed. He couldn’t come back because we couldn’t come back. He had worked on his mental health, and he was finally well enough to come back to comedy, and his hope crumbled in the form of the pandemic. We all had to stay inside, so Burnham went back inside, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

After “All Eyes on Me,” we cut to Burnham as he performs his daily routine. He brushes his teeth, he works on editing and mechanics, and he finally says, “I think I’m done.” As the audience, we’re left to wonder what he means. Is he done with Inside? Is he done with being trapped inside his own mind? Is he done with comedy? We’re left with so many questions as we finally bleed into the final song of the special “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye” starts with Burnham recording a draft of what would become “Goodbye” when the filming of Inside started and transitions into Burnham at its conclusion. It serves as a melody of sorts, but more importantly, it’s an introspective. We get a behind the scenes look at how the various aspects of the special were filmed as well as commentary on the special as a whole. At one point Burnham says, “Hey, here’s a fun idea. How ‘bout I sit on the couch and watch you next time?” Burnham just shared his soul with us while we consumed it in the form of an 87 minute piece of content, and we get to seemingly laugh and walk away while Burnham is left to deal with this alone; there’s no reciprocity. He needs us as shown in “All Eyes on Me,” but when the credits roll, we’re done, and we don't have to outwardly examine the dark and dirty pieces of ourselves if we don’t choose to. We’re served content on a silver platter, and we don’t care about what it takes to get it, just so long as it’s streaming for our convenience, for us to consume how we want to. We don’t truly care about the content, as long as we have something to watch, even if it’s just to drown out the silence while we consume more content on our phones or laptops. We get to go back to our Netflix catalog and keep browsing. We can go over to YouTube and watch whatever is trending. Burnham doesn’t get that luxury. When you’re in a depressive episode, people get to leave once they feel they’ve helped, and they don’t have to live within the confines of your mental space.

This is moreso proven when it cuts to Burnham being lit by a spotlight as he is completely naked and a variation of “Look Who’s Inside Again” plays. Burnham finally gathers the courage to step outside, only to be met with disembodied applause and laughter as well as another spotlight directly in his face. He panics and tries to go back inside, as the laughter and applause swell, only to release, once he’s put himself out here, he can’t go back inside. He’s put all of his content out into the world, including this very personal and tragically funny piece of art, and once he’s been vulnerable and exposed, he can’t go back inside himself. The camera pans out, and we realize Burnham is watching the video of himself trapped outside, and we end as Burnham begins to smile, and “Any Day Now” starts to play over the credits.

The more I rewatch Inside, the more I’m torn on what this smile means. The greedy audience in me wants more. I want this to signal Burnham’s return to comedy. I want Daddy to make me more content. I want this to mean he “finally” gave himself what he hoped he gave us (a la the mentioned line from “Can’t Handle This (Kanye Rant).” He could have been this entire time. Having a creative mind constantly leaves you both simultaneously satisfied and unfulfilled, and Burnham could just be expressing this struggle, meaning his smile is indicative of his approval of his performance, and he’s absolutely happy with how far he’s come, and this is indeed his foray back into the comedy world. However, that’s obviously not the only meaning. He is sitting there consuming his own content and smiling with a laughing audience, and this smile could mean he’s assimilated with us. I still can’t fully subscribe to either of them because it’s so fully left up to interpretation, and I think your opinion will also fluctuate with the headspace you’re in while watching.

If you haven’t figured it out, I love Inside. I think it’s one of the most important pieces of art I’ve seen in a very long time. We go through this literal song and dance with Burnham that represents the idea we all present content to the world meant to distract from the anxiety and depression we’re actively battling but don’t feel like is accessible to those around us. For me, however, it made the content even more accessible. I do think there will be hardcore Bo Burnham fans who don’t enjoy this, and I think there will be Bo Burnham haters who do enjoy this. It’s somehow exactly aligned with what we’ve come to know with Bo Burnham, but at the same time, it’s nothing like what we’ve seen from Bo Burnham before. It’s painful and depressing and funny and heartbreaking, but we needed to see this. Everyone will take something different away from this, but one thing should be clear: In order to truly understand this special, you’re going to have to look Inside.

P.S. If you think humor isn’t used to a device to deflect from your true emotions, I only have one thing to say: Bo Burnham, if you ever see this, I forgot I once DM’d you on Instagram about how good of a movie Eighth Grade was after too many whiskey sours, and that was so weird because I just really liked the movie and respect you as an artist and comedian, and I apologize.

Inside is now streaming on Netflix.

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