The more I watch Louie, the more I'm amazed by it. It's one of the bravest, funniest, saddest, strangest, best shows on TV, perhaps ever.
A few episodes ago, Louie was acting in a situation comedy and ended up berating the director, the lead actress and the audience for accepting such lame, false, manipulative and completely un-funny writing. Flipping channels a couple of days later, I caught a couple of minutes of "Hanna Montana" that was a complete and perfect example of what he was railing against.
A recent episode had a very attactive, devoutly religious lady campaigning against masturbation while Louie went on as an advocate of it. With any other show, the lady would end up in the sack with Louie, be caught masturbating or somehow shown up as a hypocrite. By the end of the show, she was shown as still holding on to her beliefs and being true to herself. Louie ended up, well, being Louie.
Another episode had Louie claiming in his act that he had no bravery for adversity and would kill himself if his life wasn't perfect. A former friend stopped in and caught up with Louie, primarily to say goodbye before committing suicide because his life was such a total failure. Any other show, and Louie would have somehow managed to talk him out of it. Louie tried, saw the futility of it and, letting the guy know he wasn't in favor of it, still let him go and went home as his reason for living (his daughters) would be there in the morning, still depending on him. Was it funny? No. Was it amazing television? Absolutely.
With another episode, Louie had Dane Cook on and they argued about the alleged theft of Louie's material by Dane. They both had their say and neither convinced the other. Both had valid points of view. Why would Dane go on the show to not totally vindicate himself and why would Louie have him on if not to vindidate himself? Because in real life, not all conflicts get easily resolved. It's real. And it was done pretty amusingly.
Louie C.K. mentioned in an interview that the show doesn't pay a ton for the work he does (he writes, directs and stars in it) but it gives him TOTAL control over it and that makes it worthwhile. I can only hope that other networks will support other artists (and he's proving to me that he is an artist) this way.
I also found it ridiculously funny in the masturbation episode that Louie, with all the explicit and twisted porn that can be found on the internet, chose as a fantasy a fully-clothed image of "Hot Lips Houlihan" from the old M*A*S*H series. As Woody Allen once said, "Pornography is in the groin of the beholder."
