Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval

Here we go with yet another self-serving ego massage like "Relatable", but not nearly as cringe. To be fair, there are a handful of genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Ellen is always at her best when she sticks to her tried and tested style of observational humor. But, I'm afraid she has been disconnected from reality for so long, that she's completely lost he sense of self awareness.

Imagine telling an audience that you're currently kicked out of show business while you're performing on a stand-up tour and then airing it on Netflix. That's literally the opposite of being kicked out of show business.

She addresses the abuse controversy by making excuses: She claims of being unfairly penalized for being a gay woman. What does she think happened? The country embraced her and her talk show for 20 years and then just up and decided to dump her because she's a gay woman? Zero remorse. Zero accountability. Zero self-awareness. She could have easily addressed it at the beginning of the show just by admitting she screwed up. Instead, she has the audacity to claim that it's unfair for her to be held accountable as the leader of her show just because it's her name, face and brand on it. She likens it to holding Ronald McDonald accountable for how the McDonald's Corporation is run. Except Ronald is not the product, nor is he real. He's a fictional mascot. Ellen IS the product, the brand and the one who both mistreated people and allowed others to mistreat people under her watch.

The biggest problem with Ellen's rationale behind what happened to her is that we know what happened. And she's hoping you'll forget that.

Ellen switches between observational comedy and show business comedy. Her observations are the same topics you've heard other comedians talk about before: driving annoyances, restaurant annoyances. Yawn. It plays like a poor man's Seinfeld. Her show business material is her defending herself against people calling her mean by saying she's only human. What a cop out. She constantly reminds the audience that she's gay to gain sympathy and hide her narcissism. She also drags bits out too long. We don't need 10 minutes of pigeon material. If this is her final special, she went out with a whimper. Her final message to the audience is that she doesn't care what they think. We know; she's been telling that to her staff for years. Ellen exits the stage like an old horse being put out to pasture. A sad end to a long career.

Instead of finalizing her career as a comic with something irreverent or groundbreaking, she chose a stale recounting of the last 2 year's headlines. Nothing special & no way to end your groundbreaking career. Ellen has always leaned into her dry approach to comedy but I don't think it suited her here. Yes, we know people called you mean, and if that's not true, that's terrible. One retelling would have sufficed. Ellen carved her own path & she doesn't technically need comedy like most standups, but I sure wish she had gone out with a bang since this is her last special.

It seems she needed this adoration more than she needed the laughs.

Pathetic excuse of a forced comeback, with zero accountability. After all this time she learned nothing and still thinks she's above everyone else. It's not even about being unapologetically herself, it's just another bully being proud of what they did. I'm tired of seeing people like her on the screen.

She was as unfunny in this standup as she was in the Ellen DeGeneres show. I suspect this won't be, in fact, her last stand up or show of any kind.

At this point she's just desperately trying to keep herself relevant and trending. No, DeGenerate, you do not have my approval. I actually hope this was your last.

For comedic content that lands, I'd actually give it a 7 or 8. But two things detract from that. The first is the super-annoying audience. It's obvious that the vast majority of them are her sychophant TV followers, who squeal like pigs at her every utterance and thinks she is god personified. It's unbearable the way they fill the theater with shrieks at her every utterance. They are the polar opposite of hecklers, but just as disturbing. But that's not on her, she can't help who her fans are. What she can help is how she responds to them, which is the second flaw in this special. The last 20 minutes is just sheer pandering to them, with feel-good cliches about how she has learned to love and accept herself, how she will survive. It's an icky, cringy thing to witness the way she and her cult followers get each other off (figuratively). So unless you want to feel like you're at an "Ellen" (TV talk show) reunion, watch the first 40 minutes...and then try to remember her as just one of the better comedians.