Season Two of Louie premiered two weeks ago. Sean Rubio will catch you up on everything you’ve missed.
Similar to Men of a Certain Age and Franklin and Bash, here we’ll take a look at FX’s Louie. The sitcom is directed, produced, written, and edited by Louis C.K., who also stars as the eponymous character. The show airs weekly on Thursday nights at 10:30 pm ET. Working quickly to catch up, this article will cover the first two episodes of the show’s second season, and will appear once a week thereafter through the season.
For those of you that need catching up, Louie is the work of comedian Louis C.K. The show is loosely based around C.K.’s life, as he plays a single dad who works as a comedian (of which he is both). Every episode is a combination of two parallel narratives: one follows Louie’s life as he finds new reasons to loathe humanity, and the other is him doing stand-up with material that stands up next to the goings-on in the show. For further reference, the entire first season of Louie is available on Netflix instant video service.
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Episode 1: Pregnant
“I like momma’s [house] better. I like momma’s better because she makes good food. And I love her more, so I like being there more. … I like being here too, its just…. momma’s is better.”
And so begins season two of Louie.
After the opening credits, Louie’s first stand-up scene is about his kids, setting the tone for the season. Despite its dark comedy, Louie does have some poignant observations on fatherhood. Talking about finding activities that both of his girls (ages five and nine) can enjoy, Louie’s assertion that five-year-olds are shitty at pretty much everything is one that most can agree with, though some may differ with the word choice.
The scene ends as he explains how easy it would be to kill his daughter, to uproarious laughter. In regards to the content, herein lies the tension within the show. Here is a comedian, and from all accounts a model father (as much as one can be), but the show is peppered with off-color jokes about his kids. There’s no denying that it takes a certain type of person to be able to appreciate this humor. This isn’t lost on Louis C.K., who has recently come under fire for defending Tracy Morgan. The subject of children has long been a centerpiece to C.K.’s comedic repertoire, and for better or worse, he sees no problem with finding the public’s line of acceptance and taking a dump all over it.
The aforementioned stand-up routine is followed by a montage of a supremely domesticated Louie procuring an immaculate dinner for him and his children. The scene ends with Louie giving a mango pop to Lilly, the elder of the two sisters. This leads to a brilliant exchange with the younger Jane, who maintains that “its not fair” that Lilly got a mango pop, but she didn’t get a mango pop.
The subject of “power” is one that can both define and be a major stumbling block in a parental relationship. Louis tries to enforce himself as in charge of the situation with the help of the camera “looking up” to him, while “looking down” on Jane. When his strong-arm tactics fall on deaf ears, he gets down on a knee, so he’s eye level with Jane, immediately relinquishing his power. He offers a jumbled metaphor about neighbors’ bowls that draws a blank stare, and suffers defeat by giving Jane a calcium chocolate in substitution for the missing mango pop. Advantage: Jane.
Apart from fatherhood, the other striking element of the episode is friendship, something that is shown as severely lacking in Louie’s life based on the first season. Louie’s neighbors offer an unsolicited helping hand in an emergency, and by the end of the episode, Louie’s face showed a renewed (if only temporary) faith in humanity. The conversation between Louie and his neighbor-cum-new-friend (played by Yul Vasquez) is the closest thing that the show will ever get to a touching moment, which is the subject of the episode’s finale, in his last stand-up scene:
“I have a new friend. Which is weird. I’m 43. I’m a father and I’m divorced, and I have a new friend. And it makes me a little sick to my stomach. Young people make new friends easy because you’re young, and everything’s fabulous. But I’m 43, and when I’m starting to make a friend, its creepy.”
Louie’s hesitancy to make a new friend is understandable, as his life, apart from some incredibly awkward sex scenes, is bereft of adult relationships outside of family.
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Episode 2: Bummer/Blueberries
This show is sick. Not “how could you say that?!” shock-and-awe sick or “how could you show that?!” horror film sick. This show is sick because there is an entire episode (21+ minutes) that revolves around two equally hilarious moments: 1) the effects of describing an event in which a man was run over by a car and decapitated and 2) when we find out a woman has severe sexual psychological issues and she is sobbing hysterically while prone on a bed. These are not supposed to be funny moments. At some point during season one, I learned that if you are going to watch this show on a weekly basis and appreciate the humor, you have to give up any moral high ground and not feel bad about laughing at anything. If you can do these two things, you’re just about set.
Part of the allure of Louie is that you never know when you’re in on the joke, or whether there’s any joke at all. A bum charging like a bull, screaming at someone, stumbling into the street, and getting absolutely waxed by a dump truck could, depending on the way it’s played out, either be hilarious or incredibly sorrowful. The haggard walk and garbled words made the bum look like an extra from The Walking Dead. Combined with the decapitation (a common zombie-killing technique), and you start to get the feeling that there’s a common thread.
Regardless, the event moves Louie at a very profound level, and he decides to go on an existential diatribe, as he’s prone to do. Even as he’s making declarations about how good “we” (upper-middle class, white, male, all of the above? I don’t know exactly) have it compared to “them” (Africa and Afghanistan, amongst others), the sequence is capped with an overly-dramatic kiss in which the camera circles the two people at least 83 times with four-part harmony and everything else. Again, we are at a point where there has to be a decision: is the sentiment genuine, or is Louie putting his middle finger up to everyone who is buying into the drama? Inevitably, the scene ends with the woman being disillusioned upon founding out about the zombie hobo, and leaves with Louie trying to pick up the pieces.
The second half of the episode centers on a parent of Louie’s child’s classmate (Maria Dizzia), who matter-of-factly asks him if he’d like to have intercourse. Louie obliges, but finds himself increasingly uncomfortable with the woman’s needs (“Go get some condoms with no spermicide, no lubricant, and get some lubricant separately”). The sequence ends with her asking Louie to spank her, which he begins to do, much to her pleasure.
At the height of her excitement, she immediately starts crying hysterically, leaving Louie to sit on the bed and think about what he has (apparently) done. The worst part (best part) about the scene is that I started howling with laughter as she switched from arousal to tears. I’m not here to say that the moment itself is or isn’t funny, but the ability to craft that moment, or sequence of moments, of really dark material into something funny is what gives this show its allure. I completely understand that there’s a large portion of the masses that would see absolutely no humor in the sequence, and that’s fine.
It’s clear Louie has issues with playing the role of the “dominant male” in his reluctance at spanking Dolores, but he quickly begins to enjoy it as she asks for more. Of course, he was right the first time, as the rug gets pulled out from under him, leaving him with a seemingly broken woman due to his actions, not completely unlike the decapitated zombie hobo.
That’s how we bring things full circle. Until next time.
—Photo via ScreenJunkies.com
Gotta love Louie: uproariously funny and keenly poignant