It is easier than ever to see the kind of risqué comedy that was once the province of the big-city club. Today you can say all of the curses in George Carlin’s famously brilliant seven words you can never say on television on the Internet and several of them on cable TV.

The cantankerous debates online today can be seen as moral pushback and a reminder that those dastardly censors at the network were standing in for audiences with strong opinions about what is offensive. Since these squabbles now begin online, comedians are more likely to be harshly criticized in public, but this presents a new foil for comedy that depends on violating social or ethical norms, a broad tradition that includes everything from National Lampoon to Sarah Silverman. While many try to give high-minded explanations for button-pushing jokes, anyone who sees enough stand-up knows the truth: Transgression gets laughs.

The real consequence of the proliferation of joke controversies is that the realm of the taboo has appeared to expand. There are more lines to cross, more things you’re not supposed to say. Artistically, this is good news for Mr. Jeselnik, whose trademark aesthetic is succinctly crafted setups punctuated by misdirection and a shock. “I lost my grandfather,” begins one joke on the new special, before a sober pause. “I lost my grandfather in the Holocaust museum.” In this joke, there are two twists in a dozen words, the second one lasts less than a second, right before he says “museum.” Then he caps the joke by ratcheting up the absurdity and nastiness: “It was the Holocaust museum of modern art, which is just like a normal Holocaust museum, except you walk around all day thinking, ‘I should have thought of that.’ ”

His jokes have the rhythm of a magic trick and the concision of a bubble-gum-pop lyric: Not a word wasted. Mr. Jeselnik, who has the smug smile and good looks of a Neil LaBute villain, has always been a spectacular joke writer in search of a good subject. He’s such a formalist that he can indulge in some truly lame puns. “I ran over a deer,” he says on the special. “Dear, dear friend.”

The special not only keeps current on taboos (mass shooting jokes), but he turns them into the subject of his show, filmed in San Francisco, because, as he says, people think it’s the most politically correct city in the world. He makes a show of a tense relationship with audience members, needling them, anticipating and insulting their reactions. It’s the rare special in which the cutaway shots are to people not laughing. What makes “Thoughts and Prayers” a departure for Mr. Jeselnik is that two-thirds of the way into the special, he says he’s finished with his jokes, which he explains were all fiction. The rest of the show, he says, will be honest. He begins with something that sounds like a mission statement.