Season Two of Chappelle's Show began last Wednesday night at 10:30 on Comedy Central in much the same way that it left off last fall: opinionated, offensive and funny as hell.

It's almost startling how fresh the show's writing continues to be. Nearly every sketch is laughout- loud funny. And even the ones that aren't funny get funny, because Dave Chappelle and cowriter Neal Brennan infuse each bit with layers of humor. It's not just one-joke ideas repeated ad nauseum like some other unfortunate, if popular, sketch comedy shows. Chappelle and Brennan understand that the key to comedy is variation and surprise. They never deliver the joke we're waiting for; instead they give us something new and hilarious -- and often controversial.

For example, in last week's episode, Chappelle did a mock political commercial about abstinence; we would expect an obvious, mildly humorous partisan slant to it, about the lameness of sex education classes perhaps. No one could anticipate, however, what Chappelle gave us instead: a school assembly in which the class has to watch the principal have sex with the oldest teacher in the school, while they're both coated in mayonnaise. Abstinence. Get it?

Chappelle's not afraid of the gross, as demonstrated by the above example, but he isn't obsessed with it either. The comedy of Chappelle's Show branches out in several directions in any given episode; he'll satirize Hollywood, knock politicians, highlight the comic absurdity of certain racial stereotypes and then occasionally come up with something that's just so goofy it's brilliant.

If you're not watching Chappelle's Show, you should be. If you're not watching Comedy Central at all, then nevermind. Enjoy Becker, I guess.

-- Reviewed by Nicholas Norcia