Michelle Wolf: The Well Review 2025 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
So yes, much of Wolf’s new hour focuses on her initial observations about becoming a mother in her late 30s, and how it reframes her previous thoughts on white women, sexism, misogyny, and everything else the world is throwing at us in 2025.
This is her first hour special since the pandemic, considering her major contributions she committed to broadcast in 2023 included a short set in a Bill Burr showcase for the Netflix Is A Joke festival, her own three-part series of shorter sets, It’s Great to Be Here, for Netflix, and a guest-hosting stint on The Daily Show.
Wolf likes jokes that have both shock value and a social message. Her bit about drinking a “placenta smoothie” after childbirth accomplishes both of those goals, as well as setting up a recurring callback.
And after an initial gambit exploring the whys behind dead baby jokes, she zings both of America’s major political parties over their stances on a woman’s right to choose. Of Republicans, she observes: “They see a problem, and they will chisel away at it until it’s a swastika,” while the “Democrats strategy is the same reason you need an abortion.” If you’re wondering how the two parties would fare or even approach running an actual Jurassic Park, then you’ll find out. Wolf also takes the GOP to task for claiming to be pro-life while opposing all of the other policies that might support healthy children and adults. It’s not a novel take, to be fair, although Wolf kicks things up a notch and then some by observing: “It’s kind of like if a pedophile called themselves pro-child. It’s technically true. Super pro-child.”
After a beat, she adds: “I’m going to let you guys sit in that.”
Wolf’s wave of feminism digs in on details as simple yet small as the lack of pockets in women’s fashion, then zooms out to a broader problem in lacking true female role models. Martha Stewart should count as one, although as the comedian points out, her audience seems to want to applaud Stewart for the more superficial aspects of her own success. Perhaps that’s just a sign of the times, as Wolf suspects social media and TikTok contribute to the superficiality. “People undersell talent and hard work these days,” Wolf argues.
Of course, Wolf made her mark initially through her sharp joke-writing, which propelled her to her own Netflix sketch series, and then the keynote speech at the 2018 White House Correspondents Dinner during the first Trump administration, where the pushback to her performance was so overblown and over-the-top.
She’s not going back in time to address any of that now; at least not explicitly. She does have a section in this hour, though, where she urges everyone to “just hate your body and be free!” And she includes herself in that suggestion. “Like, do you think I leave the house every day and think my hair looks great? Listen, my hair’s doing the best it can,” she jokes.
Her issues with drag queens and the LGBTQ+ community aren’t the ones conservatives (or some of her stand-up peers) trot out as talking points, either.
The title for this hour comes her string of dead baby jokes, which she realizes aren’t going to be a winner with everyone: “And I know most of you weren’t going to like dead baby jokes to begin with. They weren’t for you.” Wolf brings them up (including the premise that wells are suspiciously baby-sized) to make a point that while motherhood immediately changes everything the mom thinks and feels about humanity and the world, it doesn’t necessarily remove the woman she was before, and she must reconcile those two wolves inside of her. So to speak.
A lot of Wolf’s comedy has forced audiences, particularly the male viewers and listeners, to confront how their sexism and misogyny might melt if they as men had to deal with the same societal or physical or emotional issues facing almost all women. In this hour, she wonders why men seem to love gross-out humor or shocking displays in movies and video games, but get the ick when it comes to witnessing childbirth or even basic feminine hygiene.
Ultimately, Wolf brings it all back to her place in comedy, and in life. She believes part of her success professionally came from putting off having a baby until her late 30s. “Everyone should decide or have a baby in your young 20s,” she thinks, before conceding: “I was 37 and successful.” Because of that, she could afford to hire nannies or helpers to travel with her and her newborn when she returned to stand-up. That she got to have a career she enjoyed to come back in itself makes her “very lucky.” Most women don’t get sufficient maternity leaves or health care or jobs that they want to have before or afterward.
