Louie: "Ikea/Piano Lesson" (3.7)
The line between Louis C.K. and Louie, the character, has always been intentionally small. And even though we the audience don’t have information about what stories in Louie actually happened to the show’s writer/director, even the more fantastic stuff that’s clearly just whimsy is still personal. Having an alter-ego isn’t much in vogue anymore when it comes to independent cinema, but there was a time when Jean-Pierre Léaud’s performances were difficult to separate from Francois Truffaut’s life and Robert De Niro would annually be unleashed to perform as Martin Scorsese’s dark inner thoughts. It’s this personal sheen that covers... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsWatch a Supercut of All of Louis C.K.'s Apologies in Louie
Louis C.K. writes himself into so many painful, awkward situations on Louie that sometimes the show is hard to watch. You have to fight the inclination to avert your eyes in horror as he stumbles over his words en route to uttering the absolute worst thing possible, over and over again.... read more
Found in: Blogs, Awesome of the DayLouie: "Barney/Never" (3.6)
If last week’s episode of Louie was big and ambitious, taking the show into new territory, this week’s is more familiar, but in a good way. Many of Louie‘s best episodes are the ones that put together smaller incidents, and it’s a nice change of pace to have the show do a few smaller vignettes to link them together. And fortunately, both halves of “Barney/Never” are incredibly strong and make perfect sense together, since they’re both focused on misjudgment.... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsLouie Renewed for Fourth Season
It’s only a formality at this point, but FX has announced that they will be renewing Louie for a fourth season. The announcement was made by FX head John Landgraf during the TV Critics Association Press Tour in Los Angeles on Saturday.... read more
Found in: TV, NewsLouie: "Daddy's Girlfriend Part 2" (3.4)
I may have been a little too hard on last week’s episode of Louie, but “Daddy’s Girlfriend Part 2” really emphasizes what was wrong about part one. There are plenty of movies, tv shows, books, songs, etc. about the search for love, and while Louie‘s episode about new courtship wasn’t exactly the standard-issue romantic comedy formula, it was still pretty rote. The journey from bliss to disillusionment that can happen in just an evening, though, that’s material far more suited to Louie, and unsurprisingly it turns into a much better episode.... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsLouie: "Daddy's Girlfriend Part 1" (3.4)
One of Louie‘s hallmark traits has been the way it confounds expectations, experimenting with form and content with nearly every episode. I say “nearly every,” though, because that’s not always the case, as with “Daddy’s Girlfriend Part 1,” in which the surprise is, for the most part, the lack of surprises.... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsLouie Review: "Miami" (3.3)
“Miami” was an almost great episode of Louie that was also one of the sweeter episodes the show’s done. It didn’t even require the appearance of the adorable girls who play his daughters in the show. However, it really did have a big problem, one that did a good job at showing just how big of an effect small decisions have in making the show work: it’s one of the few episodes of Louie that trips right at the finish line. And unlike some of the show’s errors, it wasn’t just a charming illustration of the show’s DIY low-budget aesthetic;... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsLouie: "Telling Jokes/Set Up" (3.2)
“Telling Jokes/Set Up” is a fitting title for this week’s episode, given that its two halves, as with many others in the series, have little to do with each other. The first, and shorter, half of the episode is about the strangeness of his daughter’s jokes. Louis gives as an example, “Who told the gorilla that he couldn’t go to the ballet?” which is less a joke than a thought piece that feels like it was written by a slightly more whimsical David Lynch. Like all of the show’s sections about his daughters, it’s charming. It’s also rather slight,... read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsLouie: "Something Is Wrong" (3.1)
Normal television shows are plot-based. But Louie is different from practically every other narrative television show in that its plots are relatively unimportant, at times even non-existent. read more
Found in: TV, ReviewsThe 30 Best TV Shows on Netflix Instant
The TV landscape might not be completely bleak in the summer anymore, but there's still plenty of great television you might have missed the first time around, and now you can catch up on several of those shows via Netflix Instant. read more
Found in: Blogs, List of the Day
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