Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Alyssa Limperis: No Bad Days’ On Peacock, Lessons The Comedian Inherited From Her Late Father

In her debut solo special for Peacock, Alyssa Limperis guides us through her stages of grief as she grapples with the death of her father for almost seven years. But it’s not all sad. In fact, Limperis aims for uplifting! This is a comedy special, after all.

ALYSSA LIMPERIS: NO BAD DAYS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Limperis has played a major role in the second season of Showtime’s Flatbush Misdemeanors, and last year starred in the indie horror comedy, Too Late. You may recognize her more easily, though, from her numerous TV commercials over the past couple of years, from Nissan to Hertz and AT&T. Decider readers might recall that I introduced Limperis to you some three-and-a-half-years ago as the next coming of Gilda Radner.
Radner died young from cancer. Limperis is vitally alive, but her show is about cancer, too; her opening salvo informs us that her father, once healthy and vibrant, received a terminal diagnosis of brain cancer and died a year later. How did he deal with the time he had left? How will Alyssa deal with life without him? That’s essentially what this show is about.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Laurie Kilmartin released a comedy special, 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad, back in 2016. But Kilmartin’s special opted for a blend of stand-up and documentary, while Limperis went with a one-person show treatment.
Memorable Jokes: Limperis puts her father’s life and death in perspective by making fun of how she was living in her early 20s before she first got the call about his cancer diagnosis. That life included housemates with lax hygiene, and bad sushi from the convenience store. “I don’t remember how it tasted. I remember how it felt. Warm.”

She would want to seek revenge for being left out of a brunch invite, despite being left in on the group chat about it. Her attitude toward birth control was hysterical.
And as the embodiment of her Greek and Italian heritage she quipped: “If I shave and go to the beach, you better take that picture fast.”
On the plus side of having Greek relatives, discovering the Pfizer CEO is Greek during the pandemic resulted in some bragging rights. Which she previously made viral videos about at the time of the vaccine rollout:

Our Take: How do you make a dead dad funny?
By remembering and reminding the audience of how energetic and fun-loving he was before he got sick, and how he’d try to embarrass her at track meets. By front-loading the special with about 15 minutes of jokes aimed squarely at herself instead.
She literally changes pace while describing her dad’s deterioration, beginning by jogging in circles around the stage, eventually slowing to a stagger, and then lying down onstage to represent his falling into a coma for the final week of his life. When it gets awfully quiet afterward, Limperis breaks the tension with some purposeful audience interaction. The most intentional interaction comes when she invites an older man onstage for a quiz show she calls “Who Wants To Be My Dad.”
Limperis illustrates onscreen the five stages of grief and how she applied them, but she wonders what’ll happen if she reaches acceptance. Once she lets go of her father, then what is she left with? Self-parenting? Nah! Hence the onstage game show.
Of course, she knows she’s not unique. “Everyone’s grieving.” Maybe not everyone is sad about their dad, but everyone has lost a loved one.
And Limperis recognizes that she has become an entirely different person more than six years after her father’s death. Someone he might not even recognize. But she also reckons that, having started performing this show only three months after his funeral, she must move on with the show by ending the show. Which means embracing her new reality, one “which I love, but he’s not in.”
So let’s celebrate life. Even if it still means leaving you crying at the very end of the hour.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Limperis has become an optimist just like her father, seizing the day and the stage with gusto. The only thing infectious about her is her likability.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Alyssa Limperis: No Bad Days on Peacock