Why ‘Louie’ Is The Most Unique Show On Television Right Now

Bow the double-bass low, because after 19 arduous months, Louis CK’s half-hour comedy series is finally returning with its fourth season this week. If you’re yet to experience the small screen’s ballsiest offering, I implore you, by the combined power of both of my love handles, to drop everything — work, appointments, commitments, even your newborn child — and start playing catch-up.

It took a while for CK — often dubbed the ‘comedian’s comedian’ — to crack the public consciousness: a firm fixture on the stand-up scene, Louis tried and failed with his crude, subversive, laugh-track sitcom Lucky Louie (2006) and 2001’s Blaxploitation parody feature Pootie Tang (yes, CK wrote and directed Pootie Tang). But since the 2010 debut of his acclaimed FX show, he’s quickly — and justifiably — joined the ranks of esteemed modern comedians who go beyond the wink-wink brand of humour, including Larry David, Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais. But whereby their offerings might be easily pinned down with clear labels such as ‘cringe comedy’, ‘satire’ and ‘mockumentary’, Louie slumps through a space that almost defies definition… and I mean that in the best possible way.

In anticipation of this fresh batch of episodes, here are a bunch of reasons as to why the first three seasons of Louie rank alongside some of the most memorable television in the history of the medium.

–

His Own Show

Prior to the show’s commissioning, CK opted for a considerable budget cut in favour of complete creative control. Up until his recent enlisting of Susan E. Morse (Woody Allen’s editor), Louis wrote, directed, produced, edited and performed in every episode, without a jot of interference from the powers-that-be. He’s the only showrunner on television that works with this kind of freedom, and it keeps the show authentically and undeniably CK’ian, devoid of the tried and tired structures and conventions of episodic television.

–

Free-Jazz

While we’re on the topic of bucked televisual conventions, Louis’s ability to write whatever he wants to write in whatever manner he sees fit lends the show its uniqueness. Despite being meticulously scripted, the episodes are loose in structure — some are made up of two separate stories of varying duration, some stories traverse a trio of episodes. Other episodes devote slivers of time to context-less vignettes — he can sit behind the wheel of a country drive and mime the entirety of The Who’s ‘Who Are You’ purely to glean groans and giggles from his daughters, or take a few minutes to stand in a grimy NY subway station and grow inspired by a virtuosic violinist, only to be distracted by a homeless man who decides to strip down and wash his dirt-caked flesh with the contents of a water bottle.

Louie is no slave to one tone, style, or expectation. Like a free-jazz jam, the show’s meat all seems risen from CK’s gut, which means that — in a way that mirrors the randomness of everyday life — you never quite know what’s coming.

–

Honesty

Louie, the character, is a man propelled by a pursuit of honesty. Whether it’s attempting to reason with his daughter about her expectation that the world be ‘fair’, with a heckler about the true ramifications of their disruptive actions, or with a disinterested date about the fact that he’s almost always gonna be punching above his weight, Louie’s attempts to bare his soul are almost always quashed by an unforgiving world or by uglier parts of the modern psyche that he’s unable to shake.

This quest for authenticity takes the ‘plot’ to the most unexpected of places, like in the show’s first truly great episode ‘Bully’, where Louie’s date is ruined by a frat boy who belittles him, then makes him admit he could kick his ass. In any other show, audiences would expect Louie to take revenge by attempting to assert his manhood, but instead, he follows the boy back to his parent’s house and ends up having a heartfelt discussion with his exhausted father about how much parenthood can suck.

–

Absurdity

Because Louis CK has both hands on the steering wheel and the show is an unobstructed exploration of his own mind, he can take these moments of authenticity and veer them into absurd directions, without them jarring or feeling forced. He can dance with a realtor on the balcony of his dream house, and take obtuse, nonsensical direction from a television executive played by David Lynch.

In one particular episode, after bonding with a woman with whom he’s been lured to a dinner party in order to meet and laughing over the ludicrousness of the awkward set-up, she offers him a bit of no-strings-attached fellatio. When she asks for him to return the favour and he refuses, citing it’s “a little too intimate”, she physically (and somewhat violently) forces him to perform cunnilingis. In true Louie form, he plucks some truth about male biology from this absurdity, and instead of calling the authorities, he swiftly and casually agrees to see her again.

–

Drama

The more Louie evolved as a show, the less it could be labelled as a straight comedy. Some episodes — like ‘Bully’, or another where he goes on a delectable mindfuck of a date with a charming bipolar woman — are as painful and heartening as any offering from any quality drama series. Louie never goes for the easy laugh or punch line, managing to take scenes to surprising, yet entirely believable conclusions, whether they’re laugh-out-loud funny, wistful and ponderous, or flat-out heartbreaking.

In the final episode of season three, Louie’s failed attempt to capitalise on David Letterman’s retirement and succeed the Late Night throne (having realised he was merely being used as leverage to convince Jerry Seinfeld to take the gig for less cash), sends him on an impulsive trip to China, where he sits in a hut on the edge of a mountain with a bunch of people who don’t speak a word of English, and somehow feels more at home. It was a beautiful, profound conclusion to a stellar third season, yet somehow retained an underlying sense of humour.

–

Humanity

Attempting to whittle down the core appeal of this sweaty, balding, relentlessly insecure, middle-aged misanthrope is no easy task, but it was during a recent encounter with Jono Ma — one half of Aussie electro explorers, Jagwar Ma — that I came a little closer. I asked Ma how he prepared before heading out on stage, and his answer was as surprising as it made complete sense: while his band mates fill their ears with adrenalin-ensnaring tracks from their favourite artists, Ma retreats to a corner and finds focus by whacking on bits of CK’s stand-up. Louis’s philosophy reminds Ma of the absurdity of living — how we’re all merely fuzzy bits of energy circling around each other in the best way we can, whether engaging in a one-on-one conversation or performing to thousands of screaming fans at Coachella.

In other words, CK’s ‘comedy’ has an uncanny ability bring us down to earth, and remind us of our living, breathing, unpredictable humanity — failed erections, fat rolls, freckles, and all.

–

The fourth season of Louie premieres in the US tomorrow. Look for it on your internets, or on local screens later this year. 

–

Jeremy Cassar is a screenwriter from Sydney.