Ha. My bad. Not sure how that happened, except that the song triggered a similar reaction to Louie's.
I hadn't set my DVR up and have missed Season 2, but I just caught the last two episodes "Joan" and "Country Drive". Joan Rivers was pretty fucking awesome, "I'm bored I'm bored ..." had me cracking up, and the stand-up bits in "Country Drive" were on par with some of my favorite Louis CK standup. This show is so full of raw emotion like I've never seen in a comedy before.
Chris Hardwick has commented before on the Nerdist Podcast that Louis C.K. is one of those insane comics that writes a new hour and a half of material every fucking year. That doesn't sound that impressive on first thought, but then, how many bands make incredible albums every year? Imagine your favorite writer putting out a blockbuster book every year. The man is a comedy god, and will eventually be revered as such.
Considering most comics spend 5+ years performing the same 20 minutes of comedy over and over again, it's beyond impressive. It's unheard of. It isn't like he mixes and matches new stuff and old stuff. Once he records the hour, it's over. He doesn't perform the material anymore. Like, ever. That's like Metallica refusing to play a single track off Master of Puppets after 1987. It just isn't done.
Jesus another instant classic. The rate that this guy pumps out incredible stories and comedy is awe-inspiring.
From Louis CK's twitter page: "Season 3 of LOUIE is official. We will be back. I am very grateful to keep the best job on earth for another year."
Holy shit that scene with Dane Cook was perfect. The meta-real life aspect of it made you think if it was actual comedy or not. Fuck it, I refuse to believe that conversation was "scripted". I'm going to believe it actually happened, then Louie went back and made it into a scene. It is because of that incident that everyone actually hates Dane Cook. Not because he's a douchebag, not because the quality of his jokes, its because 1-3 of his 1,000 jokes seemed a little too similar to what Louie who is THE number one comic's comic. The guy sat down for a special with Ricky Gervais, Chris Rock, and Jerry Seinfeld. Think about that for a minute. If you just think about the number of people that have heard Louie's name compared to any of those three, it's ridiculous THEY even know who he is. Huge props for Dane Cook participating in that scene. I don't care his reasoning, that took balls. It actually might help him out as that was a fair scene to both of them. Louis also executed the build-up and delivery of that scene perfectly.
It's not a Standup special, it's a special where they sit down and talk about standup. It's called Talking Funny, and it's probably still on HBO on demand.
That isn't the only reason. I know I thought Dane Cook was funny as hell until he decided to make a string of enormously shitty rom-com movies instead of doing anything of merit. His over all douchieness in the Tourgasm show didn't help. I did like this scene though, thought it was perfect for a Louie episode. I don't know if the lighting was weird or what but Dane look like he had a gigantor melon for a head. Dude looked like an oddly shaped fellow sitting in that chair.
Damn I had no idea we were getting 2 hits of this show tonight. Both episodes were spectacular. The masturbation episode was pants-shittingly hilarious. The chick played her part beautifully; I wonder where he found her. His stand up was classic and the masturbation scenes were comedy gold. When they suddenly shifted to him furiously masturbating after the girl's little speech, I fucking died. I thought that was a great ending to the episode but then he threw in the last bit with him trying to masturbate to the shitty news and it was the icing on the cake(bad metaphor, I know). Side note: I can't believe they got this episode past the censors. The second episode more than made up for the fewer laughs in excellence. I've never seen such a compelling character (Eddie) developed in so little time. Within the course of about 15 mins I wanted to know everything about him. It seems too good to not be based at least slightly on a real life friend Louis must have had. If someone told me TV rots your brain, this show and The Wire would be my first counter-arguments. Like the great article posted above said, "This is really happening."
To me Eddie seemed to be an exaggerated version of Doug Stanhope. The suicidal part was just a good direction for the story to take, but the character acts how Doug Stanhope(or the character he portrays on stage) would act. He's a very negative and cynical dude, but he's a comic genius. The real Stanhope tours the country doing shithole venues as well. I just started watching this show recently because I felt burned by Lucky Louie being so mediocre, but i'm pissed that I didn't start from day one. Lot's of catching up to do now.
Sammerton mentioned it first: That blog post was pretty fucking interesting. Never knew Louis was a camera nerd, either. If you liked that episode of Louis, then you really, really should go take the 20 minutes to read those blog entries he made. Tons of pics and real-life stories about the FOB hops he did. Also, the singer in the show, Keni Thomas, is an ex-Ranger who was awarded a Bronze Star, and did the real USO tour with Louis.
Not just a BSM-V, but he fucking ran the Mogadishu Mile. That's some hard core shit right there. He was the perfect riposte to Louie's stuttering nerves. I'm continually shocked by how blatantly honest that show is.
The last episode solidified my opinion that Louie is one of the best television shows created in a long time, but it's also one of the strangest and most enigmatic. Every episode is so different from the last: some, such as the masturbation episode, are incredibly funny and almost lighthearted. Others, like "Eddie", are quite profound and reach levels of absurdity and hopelessness reminiscent of something like Waiting for Godot. And still others, such as the last, manage to be very uplifting and sweet (while still being hilarious). Very excited that the show got picked up for another season.
No show I've ever watched can make me feel the extreme range of emotions as Louie, let alone in a single episode. Just brilliant.