I was initially trepidatious that Louie could maintain the incredibly high quality of the first three seasons but the first two episodes put me at ease. I almost forgot how inventively funny and surreal the show can be and there were moments of quiet brilliance that had me howling.
The garbagemen scene was amazing, as was the repair guy telling the pinocchio joke. Finally, that big dumb smile Louie had at the end of model completely made my night.
Do you think that we are meant to believe the events of “Model” as they were presented? My wife and I were debating whether the reveal was going to be that it was part of a maturbatory fantasy brought on by the “back massager” he bought. The episode had a surreal quality.
All I know is continuity is something Louis CK observes only as it suits him. FWIW, I think the events of “Model” are real, and that they’ll never be referred to again.
I thought “Model” was the better of the two episodes, but I loved that doctor who “treated” Louis. “We were given a clothesline. We use it … as a flagpole.”
Yeah, Louie always mines those awkward interactions in life where a vulnerable person is interacting with an authority figure. Do you remember the woman at the drug store who insists on talking to the pharmacist? She ends up having to talk about the firmness of her stool in front of everyone.
I also like that Jerry Seinfeld was kind of a dick. Good on him for agreeing to it.
I’m surprised that Seinfeld was even allowed to offer that gig to Louie, no matter how strapped he was for an opener. At the end of last season, CBS used Louie as a ruse to knock down Seinfeld’s salary for The Late Show, and Louie was banned from that network forever. Wouldn’t there be requirements for CBS’s newest star to also avoid him? [Please note that yes, I agree with Nonsuch’s continuity comment, but I still think someone else could have been the headliner, and still be as big a dick.]
Louie was used as a ruse to knock down Letterman’s salary, who agreed to extend his contract, but at a lower price. Seinfeld had also made a run at the show and tried to screw Louie over in the process by telling Louie that Seinfeld already had the job. He asked Louie to keep that a secret; that’s when Louie realized that Seinfeld was bullshitting (“if someone asks you to keep a secret, that secret is a lie”).
That’s what I’m saying. In the show, Seinfeld is the new host of The Late Show. Louie was banned from performing on the show (at least with Letterman as the host, and this ban will presumably carry over into Seinfeld’s term behind the desk). So why would Louie (other than it was damn funny) do that dick Seinfeld any favors after what happened to him at the end of last season?
In the show, Letterman is still host of the late show. At the end of the episode, they are all watching the TV when it is announced that Letterman has signed a new contract with CBS. Seinfeld isn’t the host of the show.
As for why Louie would do a favor for Seinfeld, on the show Louie is not nearly as successful as Louis is in real life and can’t really piss off someone like Jerry.
Hmn, yes, you must be right. Odd that Louie would be so clueless about the amount of good he could do his career by speaking in front of those one-percenters with so little material they’d enjoy. Or was it purely a last minute thing at a request by Seinfeld (and thus the desire to avoid offending Mr. Powerful JS)? (I missed a bit of the show and that might have had the crucial information.)
Seems like a somewhat weak premise (in comparison with what L.C.K. usually gives us in this show).
Wow. The two episodes that aired tonight were pretty awesome.
“So Did the Fat Lady” was, IMO, a pretty strong statement that can apply to a great number of people in today’s society. The actress playing “the fat girl” was incredible, I thought. Very real, and very touching.
Then there was the section with Louie and his kids on the subway. Something about that was very disturbing to me on a level I don’t think I quite understand. Are we being introduced to a storyline where the younger daughter is suffering from some sort of mental illness (and which is not being handled well by either parent)?
The “Elevator, Part 1” episode was also pretty strong. Louie is really hitting his humanistic notes with this season.
Still some easy humor in there, though. “We know that you have no choice in your Cable Provider Service, so please hold for the next available repesentative in six… thousand… seconds…”
I swear that was Ellyn Burstein stuck on the elevator, but her IMDB page had no mention of Louie, and I couldn’t find a cast list for the episode. Can anyone help me out?
Maybe this is just my perspective but I found Sarah Baker to be “TV fat” and not “fat fat”. I found her totally adorable and when Louie told her “you’re not fat”, I instinctively agreed with him. I would call her chubby at best, not fat. I was more distracted by how short she was over how fat she was.
I loved the whole subway scene. Louie frantically talking about the subway rules while the girls stay nonchalant. Then how we see Louie making a scene in the subway car when he loses his daughter, and how the camera zooms out to show that no one else in the car is paying any attention. Same deal when Louie yells at his daughter on the subway platform; camera zooms out to show that no one cares.
For anyone who noticed, they are obviously not riding the Six Train. The inside of that train is different from the train in the scene. That’s because NYC only lets you film inside the Shuttle Train. The outside shots must have been filmed at a Six Train station, but the interior train shots were filmed inside the Shuttle Train.
I’m noticing a running theme this season of Louie accepting the misery in life and fighting to keep happiness at a distance. The show sets up some fantastic shots to get this point across. In the scene with the garbage men Louie does nothing when the men make noise outside, and then it gets more absurd to show how much misery Louie is willing to tolerate. And in the scene where Louie meets Yvonne Strahovski, she is literally kept at a distance across the court yard while they talk to each other.
I’m watching the episode right now btw. I don’t know that I agree with the point she’s trying to make at the end. Well, I mean, everybody’s different. But her monologue seems to assume that guys find her attractive but are afraid to date her because their own status will be questioned. I don’t think that’s true. I think most guys just aren’t attracted, physically, to overweight women.
ETA: I should amend that to say I don’t think guys are attracted, usually, physically, to women they perceive as overweight. Of course these perceptions vary from guy to guy and culture to culture.
I think she’s talking about a subset of guys, of which Louie is included. Vanessa knows that guys are attracted to her because guys are willing to sleep with her. And we know Louie is attracted to overweight women because he doesn’t deny it when Vanessa accuses him of having sex with fat girls but never dating them.
I have no idea how often men are having secret sex with fat women, but if we assume this premise is true, then I can’t disagree with Vanessa’s conclusion.
