Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sommore: Queen Chandelier’ On Netflix, Dispensing New Rules For Life After Quarantine

The comedian introducing Sommore to the stage in Boca Raton, Fla., lets us know this is her sixth self-produced stand-up special (fifth solo). But it’s her first premiering under the Netflix banner. And before she gets started onstage, she provides us with a minute of inspirational pep talk via voiceover. We’ve all been through it. Now what?

SOMMORE: QUEEN CHANDELIER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT

The Gist: Sommore loves her branding, as each of her comedy specials have referenced royalty and/or chandeliers in their titles.

The 56-year-old from Trenton, N.J., came into her reign, so to speak, thanks to participating in The Queens of Comedy, a spin-off of The Original Kings of Comedy which produced its own tour and concert film, premiering on Showtime in 2001. Most of Sommore’s subsequent solo specials also have debuted on Showtime, but perhaps the timing is not too surprising that she’d make the leap to Netflix now, just as one of her fellow “Queens,” Mo’Nique, has announced an April date for her own Netflix special.

As for her ongoing Chandelier Status (the title of her 2013 special), Sommore has said that if you can do you and be your best self, then you can shine like a chandelier. For this hour-plus, she shines her light on life after quarantine, where she has come up with some proposed new rules and regulations for anyone who wants to wear bonnets, UGG shoes, fake lashes, baby hair, or undergo plastic surgery.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Though Sommore calls herself the true Queen of comedy, it’s quite notable that she devotes a chunk of this set to Mo’Nique, shouting her out for a 2021 Instagram post that inspires her observations on the subject of it, as well as on her fellow comedy Queen.

Memorable Jokes: That post, btw? When Mo’Nique shared a photograph of a woman wearing a hair bonnet at the airport in June 2021, and declared no more bonnets, pajama pants or bedroom slippers allowed as airplane travel clothing. Sommore also has seen women in bonnets during her travels, and imagines what would happen if one of these women saw Mo’Nique in real life. “This is the movie I want to see.” Why? Because “Mo’Nique ain’t no punk bitch.” Who else could call out both Oprah and Tyler Perry and get away with it?

Sommore’s targets aren’t quite as high-profile. But she jokes she’s willing to stare down anyone at the airport who she catches looking at her, regardless of whether or not they recognize her. “I’m undefeated in the airport,” she claims. Sommore also gets a huge response from her live audience for a bit about how the Miami airport employs four different types of dogs to sniff out suspicious passengers for weed, cocaine, bombs or COVID. Can you guess which one pounces on Sommore? Can you guess why, tho?

An act out describing why she’s opposed to free stuff is a literal scream.

And she also gets the crowd roaring for her closer, which wraps up a chunk about getting older and making the most of your latter years with a sly suggestion that plastic surgery is acceptable to keep looking sexy, but only if, at a certain point, you also trade your sexy speaking voice for that of the late Maya Angelou. No need to imagine how that might play out, as Sommore is more than willing to demonstrate.

Our Take: Of course, the pandemic has forced many of us to confront our own mortality. Or not, as she jokingly suggests that Americans now treat the pandemic much like a relationship where both sides have ghosted the other. “We don’t know if we’re still in the pandemic. Is this s— over? Or did they just stop talking about it?”

But she also has had come to terms with getting older because her father died in early 2020, just before quarantine began.

She’s at once grateful that she reconnected with him and mended their relationship for his final years, but also happy to see trends such as #girldad emphasizing how today’s parents are more open with and to their children’s wants and needs.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Sommore seems the type to Netflix and chill, and not necessarily more so now because she’s on the streaming platform. Her attitude toward the vaccines, or politics in general, is to not try to sink too deep in the weeds. In an age where Google can give us all the knowledge we could ever seek, Sommore prefers to acquire wisdom. And thankfully share it.

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.