Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hannah Berner: We Ride At Dawn’ On Netflix: Giggly Squad, Assemble!

Hannah Berner isn’t just a “reality TV” star. She’s a Bravolebrity. Which means her pivot to stand-up comedy brings a ready-made fan base of viewers who got to know her by watching Berner on three seasons of Summer House and a full year of co-hosting Bravo’s Chat Room. How will Berner fare when she makes the leap to a much bigger audience on Netflix?

HANNAH BERNER: WE RIDE AT DAWN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Berner broke through on Bravo in 2019 when she joined the cast of Summer House for season three.

She since co-hosted Bravo’s Chat Room, as well as the popular podcast Giggly Squad with her former Summer House castmate, Paige DeSorbo. Their podcast regularly ranks in the Top 50 overall on Spotify (and in the Top 20 for comedy), and Berner has racked up 2.6 million followers on TikTok and another 1.2 million on Instagram.

For her debut comedy hour, Berner, 32, jokes about marrying an older man (48-year-old stand-up comedian Des Bishop), the lack of realism in movie sex scenes, and how depression, romance and politics hit differently for women of her age these days.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Her frank talk about sex and bodily functions puts her in a league with Nikki Glaser.

Memorable Jokes: Berner ingratiates herself with us with a bit of self-deprecation while mocking the beauty industry for making women feel bad about themselves if they’re not doing the most to maintain their looks by the age of 30. What’s the worst that could happen? She imagines the threat of looking like Joe Biden, but before you get it twisted, she tags it with the reminder that “women can’t be president.”

So no, she’s not inherently political onstage. As she jokes: “Regardless what you believe in, we all can agree it’s been a little messy…the last 200 years.” And her most political stance involves suggesting that only women should be allowed to own and carry guns (which also is the bit that inspires her battle cry that became the title for this special). Why? “Guns don’t kill people. men kill people,” she jokes, later citing statistics about killers. “The 2 percent who were women had a very legitimate reason for what we did.”

Berner does have a hard stance on beverages, coming out staunchly anti-Diet Coke and pro-espresso martini. She’ll make her case, too, that bachelorette parties are mini cults.

She also blames Disney’s line of animated princes for her own bad taste in men. Except for perhaps the beast in Beauty and the Beast, explaining that at his core, he has everything a woman could possibly want, including a mansion, fashion sense and a passing resemblance to Travis Kelce? “I’m a Beast apologist,” she says.

And then there are her views on sex. If you’d never heard the word “queef” before now, then Berner makes sure you’ve heard her loud and clear. So to speak.

Our Take: So yeah, Berner gets a lot of comedic mileage not just out of talking about the act of queefing and who/what might really to be blame for the sound to begin with, but also by acting out various sexual situations, both from her own experience as well as the unrealistic depictions she has seen in movies. The way she demonstrates it, even the act of spooning a loved one in bed is fraught with danger. “The whole relationship is on the line!” Berner argues, somewhat convincingly.

But what shines through most in this debut hour is how much of a fan base Berner already has cultivated through her TV appearances, her podcast, and her social media presence.

No wonder Variety named her to their “10 Comics To Watch” list last year.

Berner engages in plenty of crowd work, but she’d likely have to interact with them anyhow. Her crowds, such as the one in Philly where she filmed this hour, are just that boisterous, shouting out answers to her rhetorical questions and shrieking approval even when Berner declares something that on its face isn’t the slightest bit funny. “I suffer from depression.” WEEEEEEEEEE?!? It’s almost irrelevant to her fans what she says. They’re just happy to be in her presence. But does a good time for them make for good comedy for the rest of us?

So it’s even more beneficial to watch her in a more neutral setting, such as earlier this week when Berner made her late-night TV debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon telling some of the jokes from her special. Without the rabid fan base, her jokes have to stand on their own. You can see and hear in real time how she has to win this studio audience over. But you also get to witness her skills as she covers for a flubbed line and wrings laughs out of it.

Our Call: As mentioned above, Berner has a built-in fan base who’ll love and adore her no matter what. And as she told Variety: “If I didn’t do reality TV, I don’t know if I would have gotten into stand-up.” And look, Berner isn’t blazing a completely new trail in comedy just yet, but for her young fans, she may just be the spark they need to seek out other more established voices in comedy. And if she keeps going, she may be able to build upon this solid debut. STREAM 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.