Louis C.K.'s Unique New Adventure
Louis C.K., my favorite depressed forty-something-year-old, set out on an audacious new venture last week. On Saturday he quietly put out an hour long episode of Horace and Pete, the first installment of his new surprise show, which he is writing, producing, directing, distributing and financing on his own.
The awkwardly lengthed "episode" is a departure. Set up like a play, actors' clip-on lavalier mics visibly hang from their ties as they barely move from their spots in the show's one main set. Time inbetween monologues is almost completely silent. And it's not to say awkardness is something C.K. has ever been afraid to embrace. But usually it stems from his own personal displeasure towards interactions, but in Horace and Pete the awkwardness comes from different venues, like silence lasting a few seconds too long, only stopped by the beautifully symphonic Paul Simon soundtrack.
(Horace and Pete aka Louis C.K. and Steve Buscemi--Courtesy of Rolling Stone)
And the show is saturated with very very real actors. Horace and Pete are C.K. and Steve Buscemi, who are joined by Edie Falco, Alan Alda, Jessica Lange, Aidy Bryant, Steven Wright and Kurt Metzger. Even Nick Dipaolo, a comedian and frequnter on Louie, helps out.
However it's not just the 1 hour seven minute slot, or the live setup, or the fact that its an independently run online pay-per-view that made this feel unique from other C.K. works. Louis C.K. separated himself from the show almost completely.
Calling this a comedy would be pretty synonymous to when the Golden Globes called The Martian a comedy, in that neither of the above examples are comedy. While there were glimmers of C.K.'s wittiness throughout the scenes, nothing about it was outright funny. And while there is social commentary, it's hard to tell which comments entirely belonged to C.K.
The script covers topics like mental health, polarized political parties, and complicated families, things C.K. is not shy to muse about in his own show, but at no point did C.K. stand up and talk about his personal opinion on it all. At no point did his character really even have any stream of consciousness moments. It's hard not to guess which drunken everyday man at the bar is C.K.'s vessel to voice his opinions (kind of like Larry David's George in Seinfeld). But none of them seem completely like him. Most episodes of Louie feel like a tidier version of his own life. In Horace and Pete there's no such glimmers of familiarity. However this isnt a comparison between the 2 shows because that would be unfair to what appears to be one of C.K.'s main objectives, to create something completely new.
He penned an email to his follower list on Thursday afternoon that expanded on the idea of an unadulterated concept and why the show was done so quielty: "Part of the idea behind launching it on the site was to create a show in a new way and to provide it to you directly and immediately, without the usual promotion, banner ads, billboards and clips that tell you what the show feels and looks like before you get to see it yourself."
The email also touched upon the $5 cost for the first episode. As he described it, "every second the cameras are rolling, money is shooting out of my asshole like your mother’s worst diarrhea. (Yes there are less upsetting metaphors I could be using but I just think that one is the sharpest and most concise)."
However lucky enough for viewers who liked the first episode, the upcoming episodes are set to be between $2 and $3. Regardless of the price drop, I feel like I coud have found room for the show in my sad college budget.
