Great Stand-Up, Great Sitcom: Louie

kimberlee rossi-fuchs returns with a look at comedian louis ck’s fx sitcom louie.

With an easy, conversational delivery and irreverent, often dark wit, Louis CK is my absolute favorite comedian working today. In both of his hour-long stand-up specials, CK killed it – almost literally, in fact, as I frequently found myself laughing so hard that breathing was rendered nearly impossible. Waxing hilarious on such far-flung matters as the insidious lure of the airport Cinnabon and the odious task of cleaning his infant daughter’s shit-packed vagina, CK possesses an astounding knack for eliciting laughs from pretty much any topic, the mundane and the taboo alike.

While his comic gifts did not necessarily translate on HBO’s Lucky Louie, his short-lived first attempt at a sitcom in 2006, CK is much more successful with his new show, Louie, which premiered on FX this June

Each episode of Louie usually consists of two loosely connected vignettes revolving around CK’s daily life as a working comedian and a divorced father of two young daughters, punctuated by bits of his comedy club act.

While the stand-up device may sound reminiscent of the early days of Seinfeld, Louie is much less of a traditional sitcom and often feels simply like an adaptation of CK’s stage act fleshed out with supporting characters and set pieces, comedy brought to dramatic life.

As always, the stand-up is on point and brutally hilarious. When, for example, CK conjectures upon the appropriate amount of time one should wait before engaging in sex with monkeys in a post-apocalyptic world, it’s clear that he hasn’t lost any edge in the years since Shameless. Thankfully, the scenes revolving around his off-stage life are often equally funny. The humor frequently hinges on the uncomfortable and cringe-inducing, as when CK instinctively giggles at a disgruntled airline passenger’s tirade over a canceled reservation and then has to endure an awkward, silent stare-down from the man as he waits in line.

Unlike Larry David’s superior, misanthropic persona on Curb Your Enthusiasm, however, CK never comes across as smug in such situations, but rather as a hapless everyman, sad-eyed and relatable, like a funny Charlie Brown.

In fact, in both his stand-up act and on his sitcom, CK frequently portrays himself as somewhat of a sad clown, a successful comedian for whom wit is a way to pay the bills and unwind with friends, but ultimately does not make his life any happier.

In one scene, for example, in a bit of comedian wish fulfillment, he eviscerates an obnoxious heckler during a show, returning her rude interruptions with a barrage of insults and wishes of AIDS. When she confronts him after the show, however, his attitude is not one of anger, but of disappointment as he explains that, by disrupting his act, she effectively just ruined the short window of time he looks toward all week, the only fifteen minutes of his life that don’t suck.

This self-effacing darkness is prevalent in CK’s wit and the humor on the show expertly toes the fine line between what we as an audience find tragic and that which we find comical.

In one episode, CK and Pamela, the single mother of one of his daughter’s classmates, arrange a playdate between the children. After bonding over a bottle of wine, the two share their darkest feelings about parenthood and Pamela admits an occasional and fairly understandable desire to hit her child. When it’s his turn, CK offers that on that day that his youngest daughter turns eighteen, when “I just become a guy, not Daddy, I just become some dude,” he might kill himself. Having been loosened up by a few glasses of wine and the similarly intoxicating experience of some much-needed adult company, CK is not making a joke when he says this, but is confessing some very ugly, yet sincere feelings. His confession is met by a brief silence as he looks to her for a response, a nod of understanding, but is instead met with laughter. “Oh my God, please do it now!,” she cackles and their serious conversation dissolves into a fit of laughter.

In addition to being laugh out loud funny, this is a brave, ego-less scene for CK, one that evidences that the tragic and the comic are never too far apart. Fortunately for both CK and his sitcom, his fearless willingness to mine the darker corners of his psyche often turn up comedy gold and make Louie a must-see.

All Photos Credit: FX Network