If Pete Holmes's new stand-up special comes off more like the comedian just trying out a bunch of random material instead of communicating coherent, overarching ideas, his writing is so strong that it hardly matters. You can tell Holmes is an incredibly confident performer in the way he deploys a wide range of techniques to get his jokes across: exaggerated voices, feeding off of the audience, even messing up his own jokes and rolling with the punches. But his turns of phrase are really the stars of the show here, as he gives even the most ridiculous anecdote a sense of imagination and unique visual texture. This is classic (if somewhat unsurprising) stand-up, with every idea leading into the next with ease.

The last 15 minutes or so see Holmes getting slightly more serious, talking openly about his own theistic beliefs and his opposition to homophobia—topics that you'd expect the comic to be roasted over by his fellow straight American men. But by this point in the special, Holmes has played the audience right into the palm of his hand, and he becomes capable of making a statement without sucking the air out of the room, and still building to a funny punchline. It all ends in a perfect bow, with a simple callback to an early joke, for maximum effect.