Sam Morril’s “Positive Influence” is a compact, joke-dense hour built on the quiet misery of being “a decent person” in public while staying petty in private. The mood is dry, controlled, and mildly contemptuous: modern dating, social anxiety, tiny lies, and everyday hypocrisy get treated like normal weather—annoying, inevitable, and somehow still everyone’s fault.
The strongest idea running through the set: moral posturing is just another hobby, and people mainly do it for the same reason they pretend to be fine—so nobody asks follow‑up questions. Morril’s delivery stays unflappable while he turns small irritations into quick, cynical pivots, never begging for warmth and never pretending the world deserves it.
Outside this hour, Morril is a New York comic who was named one of Comedy Central’s “Comics to Watch” (2011) and later released this very special as “Amy Schumer Presents: Sam Morril: Positive Influence” (2018). He also co-hosts the podcast “We Might Be Drunk” with Mark Normand—useful context for a comedian whose default setting is calm skepticism with a professional tolerance for human nonsense.
