Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Inside Amy Schumer’ Season 5 On Paramount+, What A Difference Six Years Makes For This Approach To Feminist Sketch Comedy

Six years ago, Amy Schumer said there’d be a fifth season of her sketch comedy series on Comedy Central. And now, season five of Inside Amy Schumer has arrived, just not on Comedy Central, as her corporate overlords at Paramount have decided to revive whatever popular old IP they could and stream it instead on Paramount+. So, worth the wait? 

INSIDE AMY SCHUMER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “I have psoriasis,” we hear Schumer saying in a voiceover as she’s standing in a kitchen, placing bowls of cereal in front of a man and a young girl.
The Gist: It’s a fake ad for Flatuda, a prescription medication for psoriasis…but it’s really about this woman’s backstory, and how she loves pottery, even if the coffee mug she makes is misshapen, even if she had a career as a judge. And even if she yells the f-word in front of her husband and young daughter. The kicker? “Warning: Flatuda may cause overconfidence in women.”
After the opening title sequence, we catch up with Schumer as herself, holding and explaining the prop mug we just saw in the previous sketch. “It sort of looks like if vomit got run over by a car,” she says.
The next sketch finds Schumer and three other women (Bridget Everett, Olivia Munn and…Cazzie David?) holding regular coffee mugs in cozy chairs and cozy clothes, sharing their gratitude. Except they’re suspicious of how Munn’s character looks now. What did she have done? Oh, nothing really. Sort of. Which prompts revelations from Schumer and Everett about what lengths they’re going to to feel good about their bodies and self-image. But David’s simple meditation practice has the ladies shook momentarily.
Cut to Yamaneika Saunders (billed as writer, performer) in an interstitial, explaining: “Yeah, Amy wanted me in that scene but I told her, ‘Black women ain’t that stupid.'”

There’s a Hallmark Christmas movie spoof starring Ellie Kemper as a big-city workaholic goaded into returning to her small hometown by big sis Schumer, about to get swept up in the cliches of it all until she’s reminded why she fled in the first place. Which leads to an interstitial with the male star of the sketch, Kevin Kane (Schumer’s longtime producing/acting partner), claiming his “all lives matter” character was even worse than the “many pieces of shit” he has played on the show before.
Another on-the-nose political sketch follows as a fake tourism ad for Colorado, because, well, women need a safe place to go for abortions.

That’s followed by a reminder that college campuses aren’t safe for young women in an orientation sketch, which Schumer explains she “is a huge bummer. I pitched (the sketch) to Sascha, who’s still in college, so it must be an even bigger bummer to her.” Who’s Sascha? Sascha Seinfeld. Writer on this season. Daughter of Jerry.
The final sketch features writer/performer Ron Weiner, who apparently wrote an episode of 30 Rock that was supposed to feature Schumer but left her cut out of it. But Schumer let him showcase a song he wrote about very real food products from yesteryear. A song that sounds like They Might Be Giants, but isn’t.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of?: If you’d forgotten all about Inside Amy Schumer, then this may remind you of A Black Lady Sketch Show, only much whiter.

Our Take: The first four seasons of this show aired from 2013-2016, during the second Obama administration, which feels like a completely different era because it was.
Before Trump, before #MeToo, before Schumer got married and became a mother. Back then, the show captured a rising comedy star, who in turn tried to capture how the entertainment industry and audiences felt about her and women in general — through lens of sexism. Think the “Last F**kable Day” sketch where Schumer learned life lessons Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tina Fey, or the 12 Angry Men parody episode where men debated Schumer’s own sex appeal. The early run of the show also featured stand-up bits from Schumer (echoes of Seinfeld), person-on-the-street interviews, and more pointed one-on-one interview segments that trafficked in the intersection between feminism and fun.
In 2022, her new iteration of the show exists in whatever wave of feminism gives Saunders less screen time than the daughters of both Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. I suppose proving white women can take advantage of nepotism for people who don’t need it, either?! Good for them???
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Outtakes from the episode, where Schumer is cutting everyone up, ending with the daughter from the opening sketch making a chirping squeal.

Our Call: SKIP the first episode, go to episode two and STREAM IT instead before you make your decision to commit to the rest of the season. The sketches in the season premiere don’t really heighten effectively past their premises, while at least the second episode, also available now, goes a bit harder with Michael Ian Black pitching “Home Spanx,” Jesse Williams welcoming Schumer to a NYC Fart Park, Schumer caught in an embarrassing audio-looping session for a reality dating show, a spoof on what really scares Texas politicians, and Jon Glaser as the boss of a workplace that’s literally toxic.

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 Inside Amy Schumer on Paramount+