Louie: Season 1

I'm going to try something different here. Louie is a very unique show, and even in only a thirteen-episode first season it managed to be a whole lot of different things both tonally and thematically. Rather than try to summarize the season with one long-winded and wavering paragraph, I want to go through it episode by episode as I re-watch it on Blu-ray so I can touch upon not just the season in general but how the different pieces (episodes) add up and leave us with a very distinct show that does a lot of things well, but still may have taken a while to really "find itself." My goal isn't to recap episodes or highlight specific jokes or gags, but to spend however long is necessary on each episode to discuss the way it helps lend definition to the show as a whole. I'll be using the present tense as if I'm seeing each episode for the first time, but with the understanding that I have full knowledge of what comes later on in the series. (I've now seen two full seasons' worth, after all.) This may be a terrible idea, but I'm willing to try it. I hope you find it informative or at the very least readable and somewhat interesting.

1. "Pilot" - Like so many other inaugural comedy series episodes, this one sort of sets the structural course for episodes to come. Two "skits" come in between three snippets of stand up comedy. Both were rooted in reality, but with slightly absurd and surreal elements, essentially providing an actualization of a stand-up joke filled with exaggerations and awkward moments. It turns out Louie doesn't really have much in the way of continuity or an extensive cast of characters, but the show's main (and really only) character, Louie, gets a fitting introduction here; he's a single middle-aged man splitting custody of his young daughters with his ex-wife, and like so many other people, lives a relatively mundane life just trying to get by from day to day. Clearly there's a lot of potential here, especially given the open-ended format.

2. "Poker/Divorce" - This episode begins with a group of comics (many of Louie's real life friends, I'm sure) playing poker around a table and discussing homophobic jokes, and specifically, the history of the word "faggot." The brief conversational skit seemed way too staged to me to feel organic or improvised but was too heavy-handed to be funny. The rest of the episode (the "Divorce" half?) focused on Louie looking up an old high school flame on Facebook and, in the wake of his recent divorce, seeing if a spark still existed between the two of them. The episode featured extensive and effective use of tone-setting flashbacks to Louie's youth. The episode ultimately felt like a step back from the previous one. It wasn't "bad" by any means, but the first half was extremely brief and pointless, which made the episode from start to finish feel less substantial - same runtime, but less plot and fewer laughs.

3. "Dr. Ben/Nick" - Once again, a very brief and not-so-great skit kicks off the episode. Ricky Gervais guest stars as the titular "Dr. Ben" and plays what may be his most immature character yet, a doctor who acts unprofessionally around patients (or at least Louie). He continuously mocks Louie's aging body and misdiagnoses him with cancer and AIDS a whole bunch of times for fun, and although I know the joke stems from Louie's own self-deprecation over his physical appearance, it was just as cloying as it was humorous. The second segment focused on Nick DiPaolo, a real life comedian and friend of Louie's, after his anti-Obama jokes bomb at a comedy club. Louie and Nick get into a scuff over their political beliefs before ultimately making up. It feels very honest, but it isn't very funny, and at this point in time the show hasn't "earned" the right to be honest instead of funny, if that makes sense. Especially since DiPaulo was featured in the last episode's poker game where he was being almost cartoonishly homophobic. At this point in Louie's run, each episode has been worse than the previous one and each has had more Nick DiPaolo than the last. I remember being ready to call it quits a year and a half ago at this point. Fortunately, this is Louie's all-time low. With the benefit of foresight (thanks to hindsight?) this episode didn't bother me quite so much the second time around.

4. "So Old/Playdate" - This was a noticeable improvement. The first segment is just as brief as the poker game and physical from the last two episodes, but with a light-hearted and genuinely funny concept at its center - Louie meets and sexes up a younger woman with an "old man" fetish - it works. It just works, plain and simple. The latter parts revolve around Louie meeting another single parent at a PDA meeting and arranging a playdate between her son and his daughters so that he can spend some time with her. They have a genuine connection and although her opinion of him seems to be sarcastic and platonic, it's clear he's at least slightly infatuated by her. The woman is played by Pamela Adlon, and fittingly, is named "Pamela." Pamela Adlon plays a recurring role in Season 2 as Louie's friend and potential lover, but I'm not sure whether or not that "Pamela" is supposed to be the same character as this "Pamela." Louie plays fast and loose with continuity, and the Pamela of Season 2 seems to have a much deeper and longer-tenured friendship with Louie than this Pamela that he's just met could possibly have a year later. But I guess it doesn't matter whether or not this Pamela and that Pamela are one and the same. What is either "Pamela" but a flawed woman for whom Louie feels affection and a deeper bond? In this show, all characters are auxiliary to Louie; Louie is the simple bewildered constant, anchoring the other characters and circumstances that provide the humor.

5. "Travel Day/South" - "Travel Day" is easily the funniest Louie skit yet, and plays out like one long stand-up anecdote. Louie catches a cab, gets his boarding pass, goes through security, boards the plane, and rides to his destination. But cabbies fight for his patronage, his original flight gets canceled when its plane crashes, a bottle of lube is found in his carry-on, he spends the flight with a 400-pound man sitting halfway on his lap, and the plane goes into a terrible nosedive causing massive panic and a sense of inevitable immediate doom. The description does it no justice, but at least points out all of the absurdities that occur within a ten-minute plot about a typically mundane experience. One thing Louie does very well is the actualization of some very stand-up-like stories, and this was no exception. Unfortunately, the second half of the episode - in which Louie does a set in the South and meets some odd people - feels uninspired and tacked on.

6. "Heckler/Cop Movie" - Interesting start to this one, as Louie's standard opening stand-up segment segued into the entire "Heckler" skit when a woman in the audience began to talk over Louie's bit. I'm sure the entire thing was fairly scripted, but it felt very organic, and I'd like to imagine that it was inspired by one or several real life heckling incidents Louie has had to deal with. After his show, Louie confronted the woman about how shitty it is to interrupt a comedian's performance, and it didn't even feel the least bit preachy. Well done. "Cop Movie" was a lighthearted bit about Louie's agent setting him up with an acting gig in an a movie, which is the last thing Louie, a terrible actor, wants. (Louis C.K., it turns out, is actually a fairly decent actor. Perhaps he's just being humble here.)

7. "Double Date/Mom" - This episode was all about Louie's family. First his brother asks him to have a threesome with him and his love interest, then Louie's mom shows up unannounced to declare that she's a lesbian. Finally, the three of them sit down together for an awkward meal at a restaurant in which everyone feels jealous and betrayed. I should note that I don't think this is intended to be a portrayal - or even a caricature - of the real "C.K." brood. In fact, we'll later see a very different portrayal of Louie's mother, played by a different actor and everything. At this point, Louie has done four straight "skit-based" episodes, and the show has benefitted greatly from it. With all due respect to Nick DiPaolo, he really kind of made every segment less funny by being in it.

8. "Dogpound" - This is the first episode of Louie not to be split into two separate segments, as is reflected by the lack of a slash in the title. And because of this, it's light on stand-up. This means thee's more time for actual plot and storytelling and from a creative standpoint, it's the strongest episode yet. Louie spends a weekend without his girls and decides to live it up a little by making some rash decisions such as getting a dog from the pound and eating ice cream and pizza all weekend. The episode peaks, though, when Louie gets high with his neighbor. The situation begins to play out like a confusing and chaotic trip, but in a believable and very real-looking way; no CGI was needed for these hallucinations. And the morning after hangover? Perfect. Just perfectly conveyed. Louie is really hitting a stride at this point.

9. "Bully" - Here's a second straight "single plot" episode. Insubstantial time is spent, at first, on a flashback to the time Louie's father gave him "the talk," which turned out to be a series of sex move suggestions. From there, we segue to a date Louie is on. It's going pretty well, when suddenly some asshole high school bullies show up and harass him, ruining his date's desire to have sex with him. Distraught and annoyed, Louie stalks the ringleader all the way to his house to settle the score... by telling his parents on him. There's a moment of morality from Louie in what's otherwise a fairly light but still enjoyable episode.

10. "Dentist/Tarese" - Back to the split-story format for this one. Part one is just one long and surreal oral rape joke. Describing it would do it no justice, but it's Louie's easiest and yet most ambitious joke to this point in the series. Part two involves Louie asking out the checkout girl at a grocery store, a plan that goes about as well as we can expect after watching this show for ten episodes. One thing I'm noticing of late in these recent episodes is much less time spent on Louie's stand-up routine. Kind of like how Seinfeld slowly phased that out, too.

11. "God" - Here's the episode where Louie stops being just a funny one-man sketch show and really becomes something much more multi-dimensional and surreal. The majority of this one is spent in flashback mode as Louie recalls, in a very frightened fashion, some of the time he spent at Sunday school being brought up Catholic. The details of the crucifixion of Jesus are laid out in horrifying detail to a group of children. No comedy here, not even from shock value. A shellshocked Louie has nightmares, then has a heart-to-heart with his mother (a much kinder and gentler version, played by a different actress and clearly meant to be a different character than the mom we met a few episodes ago). It's an honest and personal look at Catholic guilt and maternal love and advice, topics you just don't see getting explored in run-of-the-mill comedy series.

12. "Gym" - Hmm, a cold open this time. Don't think we've seen that before. The pre-credit segment features Louie drifting in and out of sleep while watching the news and fantasizing about the attractive anchorwoman. Bizarre yet relatable. Hey, Pamela Adlon is back. Looks like I was wrong about her only being in one episode this season, and also about her playing different roles, as this is clearly the same "Pamela" Louie crushes on so hard next season. It takes until more than halfway through the episode before we arrive to the gym the episode is named for. And five minutes later, having passed out, Louie is in a hosptial. Looks like Ricky Gervais is back as the over-the-top obnoxious doctor. Wow, was there even a tangible narrative thread in this episode? It seems very loosely stitched together, even for Louie. But at this point, Louie has earned this. Even the third Nick DiPaolo appearance of the season didn't bother me, which should say a lot about how far the show has come over the course of its first season.

13. "Night Out" - And here we are at the season finale, the last episode of what turned into a very impressive run of episodes after a few early question marks. It's the second straight rather aimless episode with several very small bits instead of one or two lengthier stories. In a nutshell, as is aptly described by the episode's title, Louie goes out for a night on the town. His aimless wandering brings him to a number of different locations in New York. One of them is the comedy cellar he frequently performs at during cut-aways, where he steps in and tries a few new jokes in an organic-to-the-episode type of way that helps blur the line between "TV character Louie" and "real life comedian Louis C.K." The episode is very light on laughs, but it feels deeply personal, especially because of that improv comedy. It's not Louie's funniest stuff, but you can tell it's this form of catharsis for the guy. This is a middle-aged sad sack getting by with the help of his two daughters and a sense of humor.

So that was Louie. It started out quirky and aimless, fell apart quickly, and then rebounded with plenty of episodes that went beyond "funny" toward "heartfelt" and "touching." It's not the best show on television, but it may be one of the most original. As for this "live-blogging" idea? Blech. Never again. I'll do what Louie does, form now on, and just stick to what I know how to do. If you read this far, thank you and I'm sorry.