Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Chad Daniels: Empty Nester’ On Netflix, A Comedian Ready To Soar On The Streamer

At first, this special looks and sounds a lot like Chad Daniels’ earlier comedy specials, which he has released on YouTube, but still managed to crack my Top 10 list for 2021 , as well as scoring honorable mentions for best-of lists for both 2022 and 2023 . Will his jump from YouTube to Netflix this year pay dividends for Daniels? How much material does he have to unleash a great fourth hour of stand-up in four years?

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The Gist: Daniels, a 49-year-old Minnesota native, filmed this hour in St. Paul, and he is the titular Empty Nester, as his two kids (a son, 24, and daughter, 20) have left. He jokes at one point about dropping off his daughter at college in Southern California, and wondering what life would be like when he returned to an empty home in Minnesota. Turns out, not all that bad?! Especially since he has a new-ish girlfriend (comedian Kelsey Cook) who has moved in with him, and brought all sorts of new comedic situations to explore.

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What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: As a well-respected stand-up who has grinded out a career full of strong observational material but somehow not yet earned the wider fame (or big streaming special) he deserves, Daniels shares that in common with Kyle Kinane . At least until now.

Memorable Jokes: Daniels endears himself to his hometown crowd right from the jump with a routine about Minnesotans share at least one thing in common with New Yorkers, in that telling strangers you’re from there elicits immediate accent mockery from them. “You don’t get that other places,” he explains, making his case by demonstrating how weirder it’d be if we acted like this toward Americans from other cities or states. One experience you might not share elsewhere, though, Daniels acts out an awkward encounter with a seemingly-handicapped woman in a NYC crosswalk who nevertheless beats him across the street.

Seeing an interaction between a boy and his father on an escalator prompts Daniels to ponder how parents answer sometimes unknowable questions from their kids. Is it better to say you don’t know than to ascribe the meaning of things to God? Daniels certainly believes so. Otherwise, he jokes: “Your kids are going to go to school full Waterboy .”

Which leads him to conclude: “I think you only have to be better than your dad, to be a good dad. That’s a rule I made up to make myself feel better.” Which makes perfect sense once you hear him reveal what his father did to set back his progress as a teen. But of course, the special is titled Empty Nester , so we’re going to hear how Daniels himself reacted once he dropped off his youngest child at college, what he did upon returning to his empty Minnesota house, and what it’s like now that his girlfriend (comedian Kelsey Cook) has moved in with him.

That leads to some new humorous situations, not only because he claims she’s allergic to everything, but also because he has seemingly ensured there shouldn’t be any pregnancy scares after having undergone a vasectomy. Shouldn’t be, being the operative term. After all, Daniels already has a son in his mid-20s getting married, and he couldn’t imagine having another child now who’s potentially the same age or younger than a prospective grandchild.

Our Take: All the while, Daniels proves he’s a comedian in command of his audience.

After his opening routine, he declares: “I’ve got some shaking heads and some shaking shoulders. Whatever, I don’t care. I’ll take either one.”

Then he launches into a bit based on seeing two adult siblings kissing each other on the lips, which he uses to contrast with his own kids, how he’s never even kissed his own sister on the cheek despite her desperately needing the affection at times, compares American attitudes to morality, honor and shame with Japanese traditions, and then begins interrogating the women sitting near the front of the stage to see how they’d react if their brothers attempted to kiss them on the lips. By the end, he’s not only fully fleshed out the observation, but also settled any tension with the audience by declaring, “Everyone can relax. That ends the question portion for the front row.” Unlike many comedians who use crowd work as a means to the end of setting up their set-ups, Daniels only asks for interaction once he already has established his point of view and proven what’s funny about it. That’s the mark of a confident, experienced stand-up.

He demonstrates his confidence even more clearly when at one point he flubs a story-opening line about visiting an airport Starbucks, accidentally starting to say Subway instead. But instead of editing it out, he leans into his error by riffing a new joke that lands. “Well, shit, maybe that should be the joke, I don’t know?” Certainly, that could’ve been a trick he plays on us to make it feel like we’re experiencing a true moment that’s only for us. But almost to prove he’s not bluffing, Daniels then starts the entire bit over, as if to allow for an edit in post-production, to tell his intended bit about the airport Starbucks encounter.

Either way, he clearly relishes his ability to provoke varied reactions without having to pander to any particular crowd. Daniels claims he worried that in this political climate, he’d have to write two completely different hours of jokes to appeal to different crowds depending upon the gig, but expresses his gratitude that he can stand his ground. Which is where, exactly? “i’m on the left, the line’s right by my foot.”

Could he wade into politically thorny issues, though? Of course. And he has answers at the ready, too, even if they’re not what you might have expected. Try to pin him down on trans athletes, for example, and Daniels will come back with opinions that make you wonder why you even made a big deal about it in the first place. And as with any great comedian, he also knows how to tie his opinions neatly in a bow with callbacks to his previous punchlines and metaphors that also call into question your thoughts on other potentially divisive subjects.

As he jokes about our more extreme neighbors: “The far left, they update more than Apple products. The problem with far right, they haven’t updated one time, ever.”

To paraphrase from that classic hit by Stealers Wheel, clowns to the left of him, jokers to the right, here Daniels is, stuck in the middle with us.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If for whatever reason you haven’t seen or heard Chad Daniels before, then this is a great hour to get to know him. No matter your politics.

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Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First .

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