Review -- Louie

Louie
Poker/Divorce
FX Tuesdays 11 p.m.

The second episode of Louie opens in the middle of a poker game, which is being played by Louis C.K. and a few of his comedian friends. It starts out with shots of them laughing and trading jokes, and then abruptly veers into a discussion that is still hilarious, but also extremely uncomfortable and delves into the harsh truths of our reality. That opening is so far the best summation of the core of this show that I've been able to come up with.

After a pilot episode that was funny and showed a lot of promise, Louie almost moves back a little with its second episode, filling in some information about C.K. and his failed marriage that one would normally expect to find in a pilot. Before getting into that, however, the episode starts with the aforementioned poker game, which is one of the most brilliant (and funny) comedic scenes I've seen in a long time. The banter is fun and relaxed between the comics (the whole thing reminded of the mystery writers card game in Castle), with a great bit after it's insinuated that one of the comic's mother collects discarded penises to stuff up her ass: "Your mom really does that?" "I don't know, I don't talk to her everyday." This topic gets conservative/somewhat homophobic comic Nick (who we'll see again in the third episode) to ask their gay friend what it's like having a dick up the ass. Now do you understand why this is airing at 11 with TV-MA notices all over it? Instead of treating the subject in the juvenile and slightly offensive matter that most comedies would choose, Louie uses this as a launching pad for a painfully honest discussion of the word "faggot" and how our interactions with people often have unintended meanings. And then they largely laugh it off, and after the credits it moves into a hilarious stand-up bit where C.K. relates marriage and divorce to a really shitty time machine. But the subtext of that conversation lingers throughout the episode, and it says a lot about the remarkable flexibility of this show that it can transition straight into humor after such a genuinely tense moment.

After the stand-up comes a nice scene with C.K.'s brother, where the two talk about C.K.'s divorce. This conversation's style and humor reminded me a lot of Seinfeld - specifically of the great interactions between George and Jerry - and again showcases how Louie can find thick veins of humor while discussing basically how awful life is. The show is also reminiscent of Seinfeld in that each episode seems to be self-contained - C.K. was going on dates in the last episode, which doesn't really jive with this episode's plot. Here, C.K. starts going through his old yearbook, and finds a picture of Tammy Wickilinis, a girl that he had "a moment" with back when he was young. C.K. tracks her down using Facebook, and meets her at her house. It's clear that his mental picture of her as an older, yet still pretty woman are way off from the moment he sees her - she's overweight, married, and with three kids. They talk, and C.K. seems to slowly realize that he is not alone in getting old and chubby, that even the girl that he idolized as a child has succumbed to age and marriage. Which gives him the confidence for one of the ugliest make-out sessions ever televised - it's a little too gross to be funny. Luckily, Louie underlines it brilliantly by transitioning immediately to a final stand-up bit about how having sex with animals isn't all that terrible.

I really have to credit this show for having the chutzpah to take on such a series of incredibly depressing themes and truths, and somehow manage to make everyone laugh. I still can't really tell you what this show is - I've seen the third episode, and it's both wildly different and yet also similar to the first two - and at times I think it's a more depressing version of Seinfeld, and it times I wonder how I could even think this was like Seinfeld at all. However, I can tell you that it's damn fine television, and I'm fascinated to see what else the show has in store.

Grade: A

"So what you're saying is, gay people are a good alternative fuel source."