Anxiety King

Marc Maron is the comedian for the nightmare of now.

- KATHRYN VANARENDONK

THROUGH A COMBINATION of luck, years of comedic development, and a coincidence of historical timing, Marc Maron has become a peak comedian of the end-times during a period of American life when the inescapable cultural background noise is apocalyptic doomsaying. It’s depressing, sure, but there’s a beautiful kismet to it. There’s collapse around every corner, and here’s Maron, an impeccable chronicler of overwhelming anxiety. Sometimes his specials have been the result of pure prescience, like End Times Fun, a record of sweeping global paranoia that happened to be released on March 10, 2020. From Bleak to Dark, released three years later, was a more intimate, small-scale take on the end of all things, encompassing Maron’s grief after the death of his partner and his attempts to grapple with his father’s dementia.

Maron’s new special, Panicked, is a synthesis of those two modes. He’s waving his arms about fires and Hitler and fascism and Theo Von’s podcast; he’s stooped on a stool, trying to get at the pain of his childhood. All of it is excellent. Maron’s too good at his job to let it be otherwise. But amid the nightmare of now, there’s an almost uncanny sense of watching a comedian who is just the right guy for this exact moment. Everyone is freaked out? Well, guess what? Maron has been training for this for years.