Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Rachel Feinstein: Big Guy’ On Netflix, Joking About The Pleasures And Plight Of Being A Firefighter’s Wife

What’s a nice Jewish comedian like Rachel Feinstein doing with a big ol’ lug of an Irish Catholic firefighter? That’s what Feinstein’s mother wonders, too, but it’s much funnier to hear it straight from Feinstein herself in her first solo hour for Netflix.

RACHEL FEINSTEIN: BIG GUY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Feinstein recorded her first album and first stand-up special for Comedy Central in the 2010s, but hadn’t released a special since 2018, when her half-hour debuted as part of season two of Netflix’s The Standups. She got married later that year, with Amy Schumer serving as her Maid of Honor.

In the meantime, you most likely may have seen her in one of Schumer’s movies or TV series, including Trainwreck, I Feel Pretty, Inside Amy Schumer, and Life & Beth. Feinstein also portrayed Anne Frank in an episode of Netflix’s Historical Roasts.

She also became a mother, so much of this hour focuses on Feinstein’s new realities raising a daughter while also sometimes feeling like she’s also raising her husband. Who’s the big guy now?

She previewed her special recently on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Feinstein has shared much of her adult personal and professional life with Schumer, so there’s plenty of common ground there, but Feinstein’s expertise mimicking her closest family members also allows her to exist in a Venn diagram between Schumer and Maria Bamford.

Memorable Jokes: So, yes, Feinstein is the titular “Big Guy” in question, and she has her hubby to thank and blame for that. He insists it’s a great nickname for his wife, while she claims “that’s what you call like a union trucker.”

Their daughter has a more simplistic view of her parents, describing them to her preschool this way: “My daddy’s a hero and my mommy’s sarcastic.”

Feinstein’s mother, meanwhile, is so “aggressively liberal” that marrying an Irish Catholic isn’t diverse enough for her.

What really has thrown her for a loop, though, is learning that marrying a firefighter means she has married into the firefighting family. Whether it’s trying to counter all of the dumb information her husband’s co-workers are feeding him on their “sleepovers” in the firehouse, attending dinner dances on Staten Island with a sea of Ginas, or trying to navigate the Catholic communion, Feinstein is quick with a quip.

And that’s even before she found out that a lot of her husband’s coworkers have second jobs as DJs. “That’s like being a hand model and an astronaut,” she jokes, or perhaps worse, it’s like having the most respected and least respected jobs at the same time. Not that her husband’s side hustle is that much better.

Our Take: Feinstein has feasted in the past on the wisdom and advice from her mother and grandmother, impersonating their elder voices to great effect, even if her mom wishes none of her foolish notions wound up in Feinstein’s “talent show.”

But there’s something uncanny about how she imitates her husband’s aloofness or oafishness, unpacking his voice in a way that lets us know she really does only roast the ones she loves.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Feinstein jokes that she was set up with her future husband by him answering yes to this query: “How’d you like to meet a semi-famous Jewish jokester?” That might seem like a more politically charged question to ask today in 2024, but you should still answer in the affirmative when it leads you to hearing what Feinstein has to say, and how she says it.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.