Netflix's Leslie Jones: Time Machine is a title and standup special that works

Vulture

"Time Machine is a good title for Leslie Jones’s new Netflix stand-up special," says Kathryn VanArendonk. "It refers specifically to the final joke of her set, a sequence where she imagines traveling back in time to tell her younger self that she’s going to make it, and then traveling into the future to talk to herself as a 90-year-old. It’s more than just the final joke, though. It’s also a pervasive theme throughout the hour. The special keeps circling around the idea that Jones is looking back at earlier versions of herself, or is encapsulating something about the experience of being young and aging. It’s a special that works because Jones is so good at measuring the distance between where she was and where she is now. She’s especially good at pointing out the absurdity of both sides, the young and the old, without losing the underlying kernel of understanding." ALSO: Time Machine is the work of a comedy vet with nothing to prove.