Urzila Carlson: Overqualified Loser review – this comedian is incredibly self-aware

By Daniel Hart
Published: July 14, 2020 (Last updated: February 7, 2024)
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Netflix stand-up Urzila Carlson: Overqualified Loser
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Summary

The momentum in Urzila Carlson: Overqualified Loser does not sizzle out. It helps that the comedian enjoys her own jokes.

Netflix special stand-up Urzila Carlson: Overqualified Loser was released on the platform on July 14, 2020.


This was my first experience of Urzila Carlson. You know you are in good hands when you are laughing from the first joke, which is particularly unusual. She has a head start before she gets to her core material.

Maybe it’s the Australian twang but Urzila Carlson’s self-awareness is absolutely on peak in Overqualified Loser. For a vast majority of her material, the stand-up comedian presents her analytic mind, in situations that are oddly relatable.

In one of her jokes, Urzila describes how she arrives at a party early just so she can help prepare and get to the food early; her description of secretly lifting out the guacamole with chips without getting caught is hilarious, even more so when the comedian sets out the events of what happens when one of the chips breaks in the mix.

It’s very likely that one of the scenarios that Urzila lays out has happened to you once in your life, making everyone an overqualified loser. But that’s the whole point of the stand-up. Urzila’s message is that the circumstances in which we judge ourselves does not make you a “loser”, it makes you normal.

Urzila Carlson: Overqualified Loser also delves into the comedian’s weight — she amusingly commentates that she wants to lose just enough weight so that she can eat a pie in public. The comedian doesn’t skirt around the subject, instead, she accepts it in her materials, slyly discussing the time she had a smear exam and the doctor ironically said she had the most petite vagina she’s ever seen.

The momentum in Urzila Carlson: Overqualified Loser does not sizzle out. It helps that the comedian enjoys her own jokes, often struggling to contain herself as she hits the punchlines. Urzila enjoys herself so the audience does.

Netflix, TV Reviews