NEW YEAR'S EVE

Louie
Season 3 (2012)

I’ve already written about discovering and loving Louie a couple of months ago; as much as I’m trying to slow down and savor December part of me can’t wait for the new year, when I’ll have time to sit and watch this show from start to finish.  In the meantime I watched the last episode of Season 3, a combo Christmas/New Year’s head-trip.  

The episode begins with a close, lingering shot of Louie huddled on the couch, clutching a mug, wrapped in a blanket, a dazed look on his face.  Does he have the flu?  Has he undergone some traumatic event?  The camera then pans back to reveal that it’s Christmas morning and Louie’s two adorable daughters are happily ripping open their gifts.  As each present is joyfully revealed there’s a quick flashback to the various ordeals Louie went through getting them. 

I am totally adding wrapping paper nap to my list of annual Christmas traditions!

One of his daughters opens a beautiful doll and we get a long, darkly funny scene showing Louie desperately trying to fix the doll’s broken eyes prior to wrapping it.  It’s a comedy of errors with a significant creep factor given the doll’s eyeless face.  It involves Louie drilling through the doll's head, disassembling its body, scrubbing it in the toilet, painting its face and, ultimately, weeping.  In typical Louie fashion these scenes are equal parts tenderhearted, comedic and a bit stressful.

Doll Surgery

After Louie’s daughters depart with his ex-wife he quickly dismantles the tree, shaking the ornaments off and throwing it out the window, before crawling into bed in a funk.  His sister (surprise Amy Poehler cameo!) calls and invites him to Mexico for New Year’s.  Louie then has a dream about his grown-up daughters and his own, wretched future self.   Upon waking (or does he?) he hallucinate/dreams that the newscasters on TV are telling him to kill himself.  One cold shower later and he’s off to the airport to meet his sister’s family in Mexico.

I’m not going to spoil what follows but if you thought any of the above sounded weird or dark you have no idea!  The rest of the episode takes the viewer, and Louie himself, to places you would never expect, especially for a Christmas episode (such as it is).  The real mystery here is what’s real and what isn’t.  Is Louie dreaming the whole time?  The rapidity and bizarre nature of what unfolds suggests it’s a fever dream but certain details root the whole thing in reality.  And then it simply ends, offering up no explanation.  After watching I started to search online to see if any interviews or anything shed any light on this surreal episode but then stopped, deciding that the ambiguity is part of the art.

And art it undeniably is.  The episode begins with a creative, albeit familiar, take on a parent’s holiday stress and then literally ends up on the other side of the world.  Like every episode of Louie I’ve seen it feels like a brilliant short film and manages to cram more emotion and impact into one half hour of TV than most series manage in their entire runs.  As a Christmas episode this may fall short but in every other way it soars.

Christmas Quotient: A 3 for the first 1/3 and then a 1 for the rest—but remember this is only indicative of how Christmasy the episode is, not the quality of the episode itself!

See It, Skip It, Own It?
It might not be everyone’s cup of tea but it’s definitely worth seeing (and discussing and contemplating).

HALLOWEEN

Louie

Season 2 (2011)

Okay, bear with me on this because I know I am super late to this party.  But Louie is a really excellent show.  It’s one of those critical darlings that has long been on my radar but that I ignored; I really only knew Louis C.K. from his recurring role as a sweet but eccentric cop on Parks & Recreation.  Then this week I noticed that the show had been added to Netflix and I watched an episode, not for its own sake but because I had heard that one of my favorite comedians, Maria Bamford, guest starred. 

In a word: wow.  Hilarious, moving, real—this show is deserving of the praise. Each episode is like a brilliant little film with a gorgeous, jazzy score; Louis C.K. is superb (both as an actor, writer and director) and the guest stars are incredible.  I’ve only watched five episodes and so far Parker Posey, Joan Rivers, Maria Bamford and Chloe Sevigny all turned up and turned in amazing (and very funny) performances.

So how excited was I to discover there was a Halloween episode?!  And luckily it matched the high quality of the other episodes I’d watched.   Like much of the show this episode is split into two segments, so “Halloween” only makes up about 15 minutes.  But it does a little with a lot.

It's Halloween time in the city

Louie is taking his two daughters (one of whom is in blackface as Frederick Douglas, because, as Louie sheepishly explains, “she read a book on Frederick Douglas”) trick-or-treating in New York City.  This alone fascinates me, for as I earlier discovered via my friend Mercedes, who grew up in the city, New York kids generally trick-or-treat at stores instead of houses or in apartment buildings. Sure enough we see Louie and the girls going to nail salons and shops for their candy.  I don’t know why I find this so intriguing, other than it’s so different from the neighborhood trick-or-treating that I grew up with. 

Louie starts to get nervous as it gets dark and tries to hustle home.  This struck me as odd but Mercedes confirmed that this too is realistic, as most trick-or-treat while it’s still light out to avoid the assholes that the darkness brings.  She even said that she was egged one year after staying out after dark!  Where as in the burbs we waited impatiently for the sun to go down so we could get started.  New York is a wacky, upside-down land, as this episode goes on to prove.

Similar to poor Mercedes and her egg-wielding assailants, Louie and his daughters are soon stalked by two extremely creepy guys in costumes.  Despite Louie’s efforts to keep up a brave front and assure his daughters that they are just being messed with, the guys get creepier and more aggressive and my heart started to race watching this. 

You sir are everything that is wrong with society!

I knew they wouldn’t get slaughtered or anything but they do a fine job of ratcheting up the suspense.  Finally Louie’s young daughter has an outburst, yelling at the creeps for ruining Halloween and giving Louie enough time to collect his wits and break a nearby store window, setting off an alarm and scaring the guys off.  The episode ends with him and his daughters waiting for the police to arrive while he nervously smokes a cigarette that one of the guys dropped.

It’s simple enough but brilliantly executed and performed.  When the little girl stands up for herself, her family, and the true spirit of Halloween itself I wanted to cheer out loud.  I also generally avoid being out in the city on Halloween night, especially on the subway.  I've experienced enough St. Patrick's Days and parade days in New York to know that you just can’t trust people not to use the holidays as an excuse to be horrible.  That’s what this episode of Louie captures so well, how something sweet and innocent can so quickly and easily be ruined by total strangers.

Sorry about the egging, Mercedes.  But trick-or-treating in nail salons?

That’s just weird.

I really hope there is a Little Girl Frederick Douglas Twitter account 

Halloween Quotient: 4

See It, Skip It, Own It?

See it (and the rest of the series) for sure—up now on Netflix!