I actually paused during his speech and told my wife, “Why am I so interested in this story and curious about the outcome?!”
Todd Barry is a really good storyteller, so the crowd’s reaction was genuine. You can actually see more and more people become interested in the story as it goes on.
It was told from Todd’s point of view, so he made his life sound as glamorous and exciting as possible. Louie presented it that way to strengthen the conflict his character is facing of whether to work hard to find a good relationship, or to take the easy way out and become like Todd Barry.
If Todd’s story wasn’t so compelling then the conflict would be less interesting and Louie’s resistance to finding love would be less understandable.
A lot of people who having nothing worthwhile in their lives live for small victories like Todd. Todd’s problem wasn’t really a problem. He created the problem in his head so that he could resolve it. This is how a man lives who has nothing important in his life. He creates an easy conflict, resolves it, and pretends he accomplished something heroic. It’s sad, but not everyone can see it that way.
Partly because he told it so well.
Agreed. Before the show, Todd Barry excitedly tweeted “I have my BIGGEST part yet in the 2nd ep of @LouisFX tonight.”
I love the writing. It is so tight. Every word of that rambling, sad story was carefully considered. And I loved how everyone applauded at the end, which is the outcome Todd likely wanted. The incongruous reaction highlighted just how pathetic his life really was.
And he was soooo proud of his day. His 10 minutes on the treadmill and 10 minutes on the bike, taking the Chinatown bus to save a few bucks and then making the owner come get him, all told with this shit eating grin.
Barry did an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee that’s pretty good.
Yes, i have heard this from lots of guys. Once the lights go out the fat girls pussy feels exactly the same as the super models from a previous episode. That doesn’t mean they would date her in a million years.
I just saw a news item that the real Louis C.K. just bought a summer house that had belonged to Babe Ruth, so another example of how the finances of Louie on the show don’t track with reality.
So what do we think? Amia is gone, although not before she was able to tell Louie (through the Hungarian waiter) how she felt. I think it ended about as well as it could have between them. And Charles Grodin’s recap of what the best and worst parts of love are was interesting, although I’m pretty sure I disagree with him on the best parts. I do think he was right about what the worst is though.
So Hurricane Jasmine Forsythe was a real storm (“Everyone living here is already dead, and everyone living here will be dead by four o’clock.”) Louie gets to be a hero for once. Good for him.
I’m still on the fence about what Pamela wants. Is she just a friend who is always a dick to Louie, or does she really want to date him but isn’t sure how to begin?
She decided she wants to give it a try, but is still not physically attracted to Louie, so it gets weird.
Pamela is ready to settle.
This would be rape if you weren’t so stupid. Ha! What a line.
I really enjoyed the extended stand-up portion early in the second episode this week. “God is divorced” had me chortling, and the “somewhere in heaven there’s a dead woman under a porch” had me howling.
“I made an entire universe for you, and you think that I then made a second, whole other much better universe?” hehheh.
Are we meant to conclude that Hurricane Jasmine Forsythe was real?
First: There was the nuttiness of the newscasts–and it was a nuttiness that wasn’t pointed. That is, it wasn’t making valid points about flaws in news reporting; it was just nuttiness for its own sake.
For example, do people see it as a problem that newscasters don’t know the names of the rest of the “news team”? If so, then having the anchor call the weather guy “weather guy” would be a pointed criticism. But it doesn’t seem to be the case that ‘being too shallow to remember names of others on the news team’ is A Thing. It doesn’t seem to be the case that Louis CK was making satire intended to skewer newscasts. Instead, he seemed to be simply going for the absurd, and the laughs to be gleaned from the absurd.
Second: There was the oddness of the ex-wife being THAT hysterical, and then falling into Louie’s arms. Completely out of character–almost Expressionist in its lack of realism.
Third: There was the abrupt end of the “Louie saves his family” story. New York City seems to be humming along just fine; the Hungarian restaurant appeared to be having a normal day.
I realize that “real” in the context of this show is a fairly shaky proposition. But some things do seem to be “real” in the backstory: that Louis is the father of two daughters, for example.
“Hurricane Jasmine Forsythe,” I think, isn’t meant to be taken as ‘real’ in that same sense. I think it’s a representation of what Louis went through emotionally, over Amia. Amia was important to him, but when his kids and ex were in danger, he rushed off to the rescue–putting his feelings about Amia into (unflattering) perspective.
Also, Louis CK showed us something interesting about narrative structure, I think. He could have shown the whole six-episode Amia/“Elevator” arc just as he did, but without the Hurricane Jasmine Forsythe bits. That is, the arc-end could have come after the scene in the park, then Louie following Amia into the church, then back in the aunt’s apartment—and THEN the Hungarian restaurant. Finis.
But we viewers wouldn’t have found this satisfying.
We needed some big emotional blow-out, in order to make the Quiet Acceptance of the restaurant scene work.
Now, in virtually all stories, this big emotional climax would be related to the story-arc, and would “make sense.” (The father of Amia’s son shows up and threatens Louie’s kids! The aunt has a heart attack and dies! The State Department shows up and arrests Amia as a spy! …or something along those lines.)
But Louis CK showed us that a completely unrelated emotional climactic blow-out could work. More importantly, he showed that the blow-out could be not only unrelated, but also utterly absurd and logic-free–but it would still work!
Pretty amazing.
I think the satiric point is that it doesn’t matter what the “weather guy’s” name actually is, because he’s the weather guy — a fake personality assumed for the cameras, just like the rest of them. There is an element of absurdity to be sure, but it’s very much a satire of the empty, sterile way in which the news is presented/performed on TV.
Having two lily white daughters with a black mother actually is also part of the absurdity.
I never took any of the newscasts as criticism of news shows, but rather an interpretation of how it feels to watch them.
As for the storm, my impression is that it was a dramatized interpretation of hurricane Sandy.
It seems to me that the news is a satire on how people view the news. It’s always in the background and reporting unspeakable horrors with no emotion. The weatherman is called the “weather guy” because no one cares who he is. Whenever I turn on the news to see the weather I never care enough to learn the guy’s name.
The absurd reporting is a joke about how people go about their lives while horrific events happen elsewhere. We have more important things to worry about than the death of 12 million people, most of Brooklyn, and the Miami Heat.
Yes, of course. But the fact that an inspiration for a plot development is something from the Real World is no guarantee that the plot development itself should be considered “real” (in the story’s universe).
I still believe the whole rescue sequence was an example of “Dream Sue.” Certainly Louie’s physical heroism and passionately-grateful reception by his ex were the stuff of Mary Sue-ness.
The idea that the satire targeted the viewers (rather than the newscasters–as mentioned by Ellis Dee, too), makes sense to me.
Louis. Right the ship. You’re starting to lose me and my wife! The Pamela thing is boring. The hurricane was random especially how it was just gone the next day and life is back to normal.
I really wish he’d work a bit more humor back into the shows.
Louis. Right the ship. You’re starting to lose me and my wife! The Pamela thing is boring. The hurricane was random especially how it was just gone the next day and life is back to normal.
I really wish he’d work a bit more humor into the shows.
I found the “kissing” scene quite uncomfortable to watch. There were moments when it did look like sexual importuning or assault.