Review -- Louie

Louie
Pilot
FX Tuesdays 11 p.m.

And now for the second show that will be a part of my ongoing summer TV coverage, the new FX comedy, Louie, which is currently two episodes in to it's initial first season order of 13. I've seen comedian Louis C.K. on The Daily Show a couple times and maybe on Letterman once, but this is my first experience with his TV work (he previously had an HBO sitcom called Lucky Louie that was canceled after one season). I had heard a lot of promising things about the new show, and was eager to see if Louie could provide some laughs during the summer doldrums.

One thing is clear after watching the pilot - Louie is not your average comedy. It brings to mind shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm in some regards, but in other ways it is entirely unique. The show's premise draws very heavily from Louis C.K.'s actual life - the character on the show is named Louis C.K. and is a stand-up comedian, is recently divorced and has two daughters (like the real C.K.), and much of the plot of the show is derived from actual experiences that C.K. has had. C.K. is the executive producer, writer, director, and star of Louie, so two more things are clear: First, Louie is an intensely personal project for C.K., and second, if you don't like Louis C.K., you should probably avoid this show.

But for those of you who don't bear any ill will toward C.K., the pilot should be a real treat. C.K. intersperses stand-up bits that relate to the plot of the episode throughout the show, which is reminiscent of the early days of Seinfeld, except that C.K.'s stand-up bits are both hilarious and extremely (almost depressingly) personal, and were the highlight of the pilot for me. The pilot opens with one of these stand-up segments, where C.K. talks about volunteering for his daughter's school. This sets up the first part of the "real" action, where C.K. volunteers for his daughter's field trip to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Well that's the idea, anyway. You can tell the trip is doomed from the great exchange between C.K. and the bus driver, who asks, "So where do you wanna go?" and after getting the answer: "Ok, how do we get there?" Maybe it's just because I've had some similar experiences with bus drivers, but that had me chuckling quite a bit. Also great: After the bus gets a flat tire and pulls over in scenic Harlem, C.K. starts rearranging the students so that "the darker kids" are in the window seats. I suppose this would be a good time to mention that this show is not politically-correct and not for those looking for some good ol' family fun - it's rated TV-MA and airs at 11 for a reason.

The bus plotline is dispensed with quickly after that, and we get another stand-up bit, followed by a plot with C.K. going on a date with a woman (I'll refer to her as Date Woman, since after two viewings I never caught a name, if she had one). Here's where some of the humor started to fall a bit flat for me. The creepy old nude woman was just not funny at all and went on too long, and some parts of the date just didn't work, such as C.K. talking about his daughter's infected vagina (I'm almost positive Curb already did this) or the whole bathroom mix-up gag. Still, the jokes weren't all clunkers - C.K. repeatedly awkwardly smiling at Date Woman was a nice bit, and Date Woman's constant interjections of "Awww" when C.K. was talking about his kids was great as well (Louie's response: "Have you seen them or something?"). Like the field trip, this plot moves quickly and is done and gone before you can blink, and the episode ends with another fantastic stand-up bit that has an absolutely killer punchline.

Louie's pilot does what all good pilots need to do - it sets up what the show is about and what kind of show it will be (as well as providing some good laughs). Louie blends together a painfully realistic tone (there are moments here where the awkwardness is almost palpable) with a gleefully absurd one (such as the bizarre and funny moment when Date Woman runs away from C.K. right into a waiting helicopter). Though the pilot's humor is somewhat hit or miss, it holds up very well to repeat viewings, which is a good sign for the strength of the show. It's not a perfect pilot, but then again shows like Seinfeld and Community had so-so starts as well, and I'm big fans of them (I've also seen the second episode already, and it's consistently funnier and better overall). So I'll be covering Louie for a while, and hopefully the show can live up to the great promise it shows in this pilot (Also, hopefully future reviews won't be so quite so long-winded. Sorry!).

Grade: B+

"It doesn't matter that she's Jamaican...but it totally does"