Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sommore: Chandelier Fly’ On Netflix, If All Else Falls Short, At Least One Thing’s Still Good

Sommore has appeared onscreen in movies and TV shows, but for more than 30 years, she has made her name and her career as a stand-up comedian. For her seventh stand-up special and second for Netflx, Sommore has some thoughts on comedy beefs and celebrity scandals, and reveals the one documentary that potentially could have gotten her into trouble. Good thing we don’t hold everyone accountable for their actions in the 1980s, right?

SOMMORE: CHANDELIER FLY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist:  Filmed last summer at Detroit’s Garden Theater, Sommore shares her takes on Frankie Beverly, last year’s Super Bowl halftime performance by Kendrick Lamar, the importance of teaching Black History in the wake of the Trump administration’s dismissal of it, why she wants to put P. Diddy’s scandal into perspective, and the one piece of advice she gleaned from GloRilla that’s worthy of its own catchphrase.

What Comedy Special Will It Remind You Of? She’ll perhaps be forever linked with her fellow Queens of Comedy, Adele Givens and Mo’Nique.

Netflix

Memorable Jokes: If white people can turn Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” into an unofficial anthem, then Sommore has a suggestion for a cultural counterpart: “I personally think that Frankie Beverly’s song ‘Before I Let Go’ should be the new Black national anthem.” 

While she admits she didn’t catch any of the “subliminal messages” in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance last February, at least she saw right through “Trump 2.5” and his Project 2025. “He’s doing everything he said he was going to do,” she said, warning that they’re deporting so many people that “this might be y’alls last month getting a manicure pedicure.” 

And with the Trump administration diminishing and wiping out Black History, Sommore wonders where kids will learn what’s important, and whether they’ll confuse Jada Pinkett Smith with Rosa Parks (as demonstrated in the trailer).

Sommore reflected on that Katt Williams “Club Shay Shay” interview as “a sniper situation,” with Sommore only feeling bad for how Williams threw their fellow colleague Earthquake under the Reading Rainbow bus. She’s not so sorry to have learned later about Shannon Sharpe’s own scandal, which leads her into a bit about other celebrity scandals.

In her own life, her only potential pitfalls are being linked to the dollar store, and if any footage exists of her participating in Freaknik while a student at Morris Brown College in Atlanta.

Perhaps her hottest take is asking us not to take pity on P. Diddy, but to remind us how different our own childhoods were in the 1980s. Even explaining the premises to birthday games such as bobbing for apples or Pin The Tail On the Donkey don’t seem so innocent now that we know what some adults were doing to kids, does it? “It don’t sound right,” she says.

Our Take: And yet, she doesn’t go all the way there with that bit.

Considering everything in the news, she could’ve taken a bigger swipe at Oprah than merely noting hoe quickly the billionaire media titan ditched Weight Watches for Ozempic. “I thought laughter was the best medicine, all until Ozempic came out.” And Sommore’s opening five minutes offer some old-school takes on black male sexuality, wondering what to make of Usher “dressed like one of the Golden Girls.” But she doesn’t go too hard on that, either.

Perhaps because Sommore always has presented herself as a classier type of comedian; hence all of the queen and chandelier motifs.

She cops to not paying too much attention to politics until recently, but paying very close attention to Trump’s second inauguration and his lack of attention to prayer, or Melania’s lack of care for all of it. “Sometimes the shit be so bad you gotta laugh to get to the other side,” Sommore says.

And in the end, Sommore really is about lifting up spirits.

So no wonder she chooses to run with a phrase GloRilla used in an interview dismissing her haters, and saying that if all else fails, “pussy still good.” She mines those three words for comedy gold.

Our Call: Her last half-hour proves she’s still a comedy queen, whether it’s finding her own spin on a hot topic or whether it’s turning someone else’s soundbite into her new catchphrase. I just wish the first half of her special were as strong. Nevertheless: 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.