#inside-amy-schumer

The double standards of Hollywood ageism offer rich satiric fodder for any comedian, and on the season premiere of Inside Amy Schumer, the host built an entire sketch around it. Along with guest stars Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette, Schumer brilliantly skewered those double standards in a vignette titled “Last F--kable Day.” As the high-powered trio enjoyed lunch in a bucolic field, Louis-Dreyfus explains the concept to a bewildered Schumer: “In every actress’ life the media decides when you finally reach the point when you’re no longer believably f--kable anymore.” She then proceeds to celebrate by chugging a pint of ice cream and letting out a massive belch, as one would. Side note: Stay to the very end to hear the most brilliant description of what plastic surgery does to a woman’s face. 

Though Amy Schumer appears with ever-increasing glasses of wine throughout the spoof of Friday Night Lights above, we suggest you keep all beverages at bay while watching the clip, lest said liquids end up spewed at your screen or phone.

Such is the spot-on hilarity of the “Football Town Nights” short from Tuesday’s Season 3 premiere of Inside Amy Schumer, in which the comedienne plays the wife of the new Stewford Heights High football coach — played by guest star Josh Charles.

Related: Ken Tucker Review ‘Inside Amy Schumer’

The couple is excited to take over the Bronconeers football program (hence Schumer’s expanding glasses of celebratory wine), and is, at first, welcomed to town… until Coach Thompson reveals his surprisingly controversial rule to his players: No raping, no exceptions.

“Can we rape at away games? What if it’s Halloween, and she’s dressed like a sexy cat? What if my mom is the D.A. and won’t prosecute?” the players ask in hopes of exceptions, though Coach sticks by his anti-rape stance, even after his game night pep talk later reveals that his revered young athletes might be getting mixed messages from their leader.

“Some people will always be upset at even hearing the word [rape]. You might look at this scene and think we’re making light of something serious, but we really are trying to educate,” Schumer told an audience at the Tribeca Film Festival, where the sketch debuted Monday night. “We know what message we want to send, and then we also think the premise is funny, and then we go to town.”

On Inside Amy Schumer, Schumer and guest star Bill Hader mocked what basically feels like every single female celebrity interview on every single late night show. Schumer played the role of inconspicuously named “Amy Lake Blively,” a ditzy actress promoting her “starring debut in Baz Luhrman’s musical remake of Blade Runner.” Hader played “Cliffey,” a clear composite of the prototypical late night host: white, male, and seemingly desperate for the affection of a beautiful woman. With that setup, the sketch went on to mock how late night interviews have become long, contrived flirt-fests. “I have always had the biggest crush on you,” giggles Schumer’s Blively, as the audience “ooooohs” approvingly. It kind of makes you wonder how the comedian is going to top herself in the flirting department during her scheduled appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday.

For a raunchy gal who likes to drink and talk smack about sex (and, probably any day now, talk sex about smack), Amy Schumer is certainly an interesting proponent of feminist/humanist principles. The new season of Inside Amy Schumer is very funny, and, just below its surface, very thoughtful. You may already be familiar with “Milk Milk Lemonade,” the mock music video that begins the new season on Tuesday night — there have been two-million-plus views of her butt-centric production on YouTube alone. 

An even stronger piece of comedy follows it during the premiere half-hour: “Friday Town Nights,” in which Josh Charles and Schumer take over the Kyle Chandler-Connie Britton roles from Friday Night Lights. Charles’s new-coach-in-town lays down a set of new rules to his team, the most prominent of which is to forbid rape. Think it’s impossible to make a funny rape joke? Schumer not only does it, she extends the premise to offer a critique of rape culture, sports, and celebrity.

Speaking of the latter, Schumer hits another peak of pointed funniness in a sketch that finds her partying with Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette. The occasion? It’s Louis-Dreyfus’s “last f--kable day.” The idea is that in showbiz, there’s an age any woman in Hollywood reaches after which she is perceived by the industry as not being appealing in a sexual sense to the desired moviegoing demographic. It’s a concept you may have heard before, but Schumer and her impressive array of guest stars make freshly vicious fun of this kind of institutionalized male thinking.  

Video: Amy Schumer on MTV Movie Awards Hosting Gig: ‘I Don’t Get Nervous for Things I Should Get Nervous for’

Schumer has become one of the most reliable sources of inventive anarchy. Indeed, the only aspect of her comic persona that’s starting to seem a wee bit tiresome is her increasingly repetitive variations on the notion that she drinks too much. If I was to compare her over-reliance upon inebriation jokes to Chelsea Handler, you might think I’m sexist, so instead, I’ll compare her to Foster Brooks. Consider this your Refresher Class in Comedy History:

Other than this, however, Inside Amy Schumer is off to a very strong start in its new season. She and her writers and producers must work very hard to make her taped bits seem so casually complex — each sketch strives for, and often achieves, an impeccably casual tone that makes the surprise element in nearly every segment all the more funny. Schumer likes to present herself as a lazy goofball, but the quality of her work proves the opposite.

Inside Amy Schumer airs Tuesdays at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.