‘Bad Thoughts’ Review: Tom Segura’s Proudly Disgusting, Occasionally Amusing Netflix Comedy

In interviews, Segura has compared Bad Thoughts to Twilight Zone or a “dark, comedic version of Black Mirror.” It’d probably be more straightforwardly described as a sketch show à la I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, though one understands why a comedian wouldn’t want to evoke other comedians’ projects so directly. Each of its six installments is broken up into two or three segments, the last of which is usually the first half of a two-parter — all the better to encourage a viewer to let Netflix’s autoplay feature do its thing. The whole thing comes in at 114 minutes including credits, or less than one weekly drop of Disney+’s Andor.

It helps the time fly by that despite Segura’s description of the show as “dark,” it … isn’t, really. Inappropriate, gross, occasionally violent and frequently sexually explicit, yes. (None of which, again, are necessarily cause for complaint if that’s your cup of tea.) But dark? I suppose it depends on your definition.

You will see a man (Segura) shit his pants. You will see a different man (The Sopranos’ Robert Iler) shit into a toilet while sitting on the lap of another guy (Kirk Fox). You will watch a dude get rimmed by a senior citizen, and one having sex with a repulsive monster, and yet another getting handed an axe to chop his own penis off. (All the men in that sentence are played by Segura, though Bad Thoughts does pull in some fun guest stars like Dan Stevens, Shea Whigham and Rachel Bloom.) You will not see much that actually feels twisted enough to shock or bruise, or at least I didn’t.

The form these stories take varies from segment to segment: post-apocalyptic horror, sexy foreign film, bonus feature for some straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal atrocity. The sendups aren’t always as precise as they could be — would “A25” be the studio behind a Patch Adams-style cheesefest about a janitor who touches people both literally and metaphorically? But Segura and his co-directors, Rami Hachache and Jeremy Konner, nail the details that really matter. The James Bond-type thriller sendup that opens the series is pretty good. The exact sound of the plop when the spy drops his soiled pants on the ground is perfect.

While the genres and styles range widely, the most persistently recurring themes are obvious and bro-y. (As you’d perhaps expect from a comic known for, among other things, being a recurring guest on The Joe Rogan Experience.) One is a fixation on what people are or aren’t “allowed” to say. Bad Thoughts thankfully avoids the very smarmiest of anti-“cancel culture” posturing, but it can’t resist looking for ways to have its cake and eat it too. Sure, a racist war tale might be unacceptable for public consumption. But what if it’s coming from a little boy? What if the boy is reciting it at a school assembly, as a tribute to his beloved grandfather (Segura)? What if Segura also casts himself as the boy’s horrified father? Is it okay to laugh now?

The other, even more prominent theme is sexual humiliation. If Bad Thoughts is meant to provide a window into Segura’s most twisted ideas, he apparently cannot stop dreaming up scenarios in which a man is forced to submit to sexual situations he really, really would rather not be in — whether it’s because the lady he really wants to screw has made him promise to bone another, more repulsive woman first, or because his wife’s dying wish is to sleep with a strapping stranger, or because he’d still rather get naked with a guy he just met than face members of the public affronted by the language in his standup specials. (There’s that theme again.)