“The constant flow of penis’ just tapered off?”
The second season of Louie has, to say the least, been different. Outside of just seeing spurts of seriousness, melodrama, & meditations on life we have also seen some experimentation with filming & perspective outside of the stoned scene from early in the first season. Louis CK has taken us on a bumpy ride this season. Things have worked, they have worked beautifully, & they have also, at times, tanked badly. This is still more than most shows dare go in an entire series and that alone earns it higher honors than most the crap we take in with out eyes.
The show begins with Louie leaving the Comedy Cellar instead of the usual title/entrance in. We follow him down into the subway were he drops some money for a very young street performer. This is not the usual low rent performer though. Its a young kid in a tux playing a beautiful tune on a violin. It wouldn’t be Louie though without an amazing juxtaposition. Enter Homeless man. He stammers down the stairs with his tarp cape and bags full of cans and behind the violinist lays out his tarp and starts undressing. Right in the line of site of Louie who was getting down on the music. The homeless man takes off his jackets and shirts and then starts his hobo shower of pouring water over himself. The musics intensity starts influencing the cameras intensity which starts closing in the homeless man. Closer & closer shots as the violinist reaches the climax of the piece and when he does we are left with a cackle from the homeless man before Louie steps onto the arrived train. This initial opening scene is just so well done that you don’t even notice that there barely is any Louie in it. Its just one of those great groupings of shit & champagne that makes this beautiful world go round in its crazy ways.
Early on in the ride we watch Louie write and start listening in on a conversation a young black kid is having with his friends. To sum it up the young buck is talking about how he skipped grades and should graduate high school by the age of 16 all the while being hard as fuck. Louie and the rest of the train cars later focus falls on a puddle of what looks like soda on one of the train seats between two ladies. All of a sudden we are in black & white with some building positive music. We watch Louie get up, take off his long sleeve shirt and soak up the spill so it doest cross over seats and get on either of the ladies. Cue empowering music. One of the ladies puts her hand to his cheek and thanks him. Louie receives reassuring nods from fellow passengers. Then the other lady, a hot blonde businesswoman, gets up and then seemingly gets on her knees and starts servicing him. Soon after we are thrown out of, of course, one of Louie’s dirty thoughts and thrown right into the, very late in the game, opening credits. In many ways this scene is just so ridiculous that it works very well. Its not that crazy that Louie does nothing of the sort like in his dream. He would just be looked at as a weirdo on the train like the guy who probably left the spill in the first place. The blow job at the end is just pure pleasure because if he/one were to actually go out of their way and do that just one of the approving smiles would be gratitude enough.
The second act follows Louie out on the town with Pamela, played by the always lovely & amazing Pamela Adlon. We begin with the two out to lunch. Louie has decided to take Pam to a lovely French inspired diner/cafe. After she berates him for a while about how he is always trying to impress her and how he constantly needs to stuff his face we finally see the waiter come with their soup. Then we see Louie do something he has never done with Pam, make her laugh. We then follow them to a street sale/ flea market, where Louie just cant help but try to put his arm around Pamela once he gets her laughing again. After her rejections Louie decides to profess his love for her in probably one of the most brutally beautiful ways possible. This impresses Pam and she, like myself, is sort of floored by it but its not enough to sway her feelings for Louie. We then follow the two back to Pam’s apartment where Louie just feels like he should just head home. Pam tries throwing out suggestions to convince him to stay but Louie doesn’t even stop to listen and just leaves. At that moment it goes by so fast that its very easy to miss just like Louie does. Outside the apartment entrance Louie realizes that Pam asked him if he wanted to take a bath with her and he has to call her up just to make sure. In his constant fact checking he completely kills the mood that he had going at the end with Pam and after their phone conversation lets out one of the loudest screams.
Its hard not to feel the same type of frustration for Louie as he does in that exact moment. Its a moment everyone has, just, like earlier, personified to the max. A situation where you realize you had a chance at something or that what you wanted was right in front of you and you missed it. In many ways this episode was about those little moments we get or small gestures we make and how we can just lose out on them. Louie & Louis CK are great at taking those small and unnoticeable moments and butting amazing amounts of comedy into them. My earlier skepticisms about the second season are now far gone as the risks that have been taken so far, have payed off amazingly. This episode is proof of that, like none other.
Grade: A
