Friday, August 5, 2011

YOU SHOULD TRY NATURAL DETERGENT: So a few days ago, Adam accuses us of failing to warn him of the awesomeness of Louie (note to Adam, culled from the better part of a decade of posts and comments: Friday Night Lights; Freaks & Geeks; Undeclared; Battlestar Galactica; Justified; Parks & Recreation; Arrested Development; Deadwood; The Wire; Better Off Ted). If that drew any of our readers still on the fence to this week's episode, then you have your pick of "you're welcome" and "we're sorry."

I loved this episode, but wow, what a weird episode, and what a possibly inscrutable introduction to the show. The opening scene seemed like half an indictment of everything that Louis C.K. had been asked to do before Louie (and I don't think it was directed in any way at Parks & Rec, but if I were Michael Schur I at least would have searched my memory to see if there was anything in it I recognized) and half a kind of unrelated but contextual pre-explanation for the last half of the episode. When was that scene supposed to take place -- today or ten years ago? That weird scene is followed one of those melancholy fatherhood scenes that grounds the show, which flows immediately into one of the weirdest things the show has ever done -- an exposition plot scene with a manager played by a 13-year-old Catskills comedian whose age is alluded to but never explained. And then, after an interlude that seems like an ad-hominem dig (the long walk with all the bodyguards), the thin plot descends into an unresolved argument between Louis C.K. and Dane Cook -- two guys who in real life actually do not like each other -- where both sides stick to their real-life positions (the scene feels possibly meta, like Dane Cook actually agreed to do Louis C.K. a real-life favor if he would let Cook present his position on the show). Followed by a coda to the unrelated (plot-wise) opening scene.

So what was Louis C.K. trying to say, if anything? Was the sit-com framing device a way of accepting that Louis C.K. is not as uncompromised as he comes off in the argument with Dane Cook, or a proud declaration that he is? Did Bob Saget and Dane Cook in this episode act as an amalgam (the relatively benign and malignant sides) of what Louis C.K. has rejected in his career? Or did the two plots have anything to do with each other?

7 comments:

  1. Marsha1:16 PM

    I'm commenting to encourage you to keep writing about Louie, but I'm honestly not sure what I have to say about this episode. I didn't know anything about the CK/Dane Cook rift before this, so I felt a little hampered. Loved the use of Saget, however.

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  2. I will need to think about your questions, but I will say that your insight on the fact that the sitcom frame took place in a different time frame seems right.  I mean, he has a baby then, and on the show I think it's been established that he has two non-baby daughters and that's it.  So, while this confused me, you're probably right -- it's probably supposed to say something about his choice some years ago to take a different path from Saget.  And what a brilliant use of Saget -- someone we know is himself pretty dark but willing to whore himself and make happy-and-light-we-all-smile-in-the-end sitcom fare.

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  3. Adam C.2:25 PM

    My read was that the sitcom framing device took place 9-10 years ago, as the opening scene was followed by Louie coming home to his then-suburban house, being handed his then-infant daughter (who turned 10 in the "present" scenes), presumably by his then-wife, and apologizing to the baby for being a comedian.

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  4. Someone on twitter today said this show would be the kind of TV Woody Allen would make, and now I never, ever want to see it. Is that accurate?

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  5. Andrew10:39 AM

    I'm not sure that the opening scene was an indictment of the various TV shows that C.K. has appeared on, but an amalgam of roles and situations that he's both had and others that he's rejected. I see it more as an acknowledgment that he's willing to sell out for success to some extent, but that something in his own internal comedic compass is keeping him from being as successful as Dane Cook. It's about the tension between success among your peers and success in the market. 

    Does anyone play sitting uncomfortably without saying anything as well as Louis C.K.?

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  6. Adam C.3:25 PM

    I think it's not very accurate.  I don't really see the same sensibilities at all.

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  7. I retweeted that, but the truth is that I love Louie and mostly don't like Woody Allen -- especially the old Woody Allen to which the tweet referred.

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