Horace and Pete is not a comedy. Louie himself has described it as a tragedy. And while this show does have moments of Louie's signature blend of vicarious embarrassment, incredibly dark humor, and surrealism with genuine pathos, Horace and Pete tends to lean more toward the latter. And the result is absolutely devastating - this show is heavy, and addresses a wide array of issues like mental illness, suicide, alcoholism, infidelity, mortality, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, child abuse. It's intense. But man, does Louie handle it well.
Louie's strength has always been his writing, though I've seen his talents in direction only get better over time, and that is fully demonstrated with this show. Admittedly, of all the main actors in the show, Louie himself is probably the weakest player of the bunch, but in his defense, he surrounds himself with a circle of immense talent, with Buscemi and Alda in particular giving some absolutely stunning performances. Outside of that, Louie's writing here is particularly top-notch, which is commendable considering this show is even more engagingly ambitious, poetic, and narratively complex than almost any episode of Louie, although I admittedly still like that show more.
The show deals with, primarily, the theme of old vs. new, and more specifically, tradition vs. progress. This is evident most obviously in the relationship between Uncle Pete, who is sort of an even more stripped-down and outwardly hateful Archie Bunker type, and Horace and Pete Jr., two deadbeat schlubs beginning to wonder if the bar is a dead-end. In one of the first episodes, Pete tells Horace that he's been trying to do certain rituals in the mornings and nights to motivate him to keep going during the day, whereas Horace admits he's been trying to sleep through most of his days so the second half of his life can finish quickly. This is also shown through numerous clashes of old and new within the many subplots of the story, such as Pete dating a 26-year-old woman and Horace having to be updated on the particulars of the transgender experience even though he professes a belief in equal rights for everyone.
But this theme is also present in more subtle aspects of the show's production. The show was inspired by both the work of film director Mike Leigh and specifically the play Abigail's Party, which like this series focuses on a family and generations past in the place where they all grew up. The show is shot in a multi-camera sitcom style but features no laugh track or audience, as well as very little sound mixing or music. The show is inspired by the "TV theater" style of the 1950s, and yet is only available on Louie's website, as he wanted from the beginning to completely eschew the traditional television model. One could say such a decision wasn't a deliberate effort on Louie's part as some sort of creative choice relevant to the actual show, but in interviews and explanations of the show he seemed to have been very adamant about shooting and distributing the show in this very particular way.
The show really becomes intriguing, however, during the conversations between many of the regulars at the bar, usually about politics. Each episode of the show was shot the week that it would be aired, which allowed Louie to write in current events for the bar patrons to discuss. So, if you're sick of hearing about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and the 2016 election, sorry, this show will not provide any escape. But this is where, in my opinion, the show's true brilliance stands out - Louie juxtaposes the cyclical suffering of a few generations of a family on the brink of making a decision to try something new and scary or try to stick with tradition with the seemingly cyclical suffering of America on the brink of making a similar decision. And all possible angles are considered.
In a particularly brilliant scene, one bar patron asks a liberal patron and a conservative patron who are arguing to explain what they believe their respective ideologies mean to them, rather than just whining about what they preconceive the other's to be like. Once they take the time to listen, they understand each other's position a bit better. This works in tandem with the storyline of what to do with the bar. The show presents the ugliness as well as the value in keeping up with tradition, and also presents the value as well as the potential chaos in letting things go and trying something new for the sake of it. But the important part is to listen to both. One episode ends with a quote from the late Garry Shandling about the value of silence - that if everyone just shut up for a minute, maybe we could figure something out. We need to talk, we need to debate to figure things out, but to do that well, we all need to be able to listen, for real. (Indeed, even in practice, the show embraces silence by having nearly no diegetic sound, a choice that is distracting at first but ultimately allows the words and moods of the characters to really be felt.)
It's tempting, though, the show admits, as things complicate both in the political world and in the world of our characters' seemingly endless grief, to just give up. One bar patron, when speaking of his opinion on the election, recommends voting for Trump just to burn the country down because "we deserve it". Both Petes, likewise, have moments throughout the show where they consider giving up, and Horace's fatal flaw is that he's often too much of a loser to even decide which he wants to do. But the show encourages people to not give up, because, as Pete says as one point when asked why everyone on Earth doesn't just kill themselves amidst all the turmoil, "Maybe it gets better."
And Louie proposes all of this, mainly, through the experiences and history of a family. Louie has made the analogy of the country or the world being like a family before in his stand-up, referring to America as the world's "shitty girlfriend", and comparing Israel and Palestine to the relationship his daughters have with each other. This is just an extension of that. The good times, as well as the suffering, in the Wittel family is cyclical until one member or life itself forces change in some direction, and Louie makes that connection to the world as well. That we're gonna always have horrible stuff come up, and we're always gonna disagree, but if we give up, never decide, or just plant our feet firmly where we want and never listen to anyone else, the hurt will only get worse. He shows that to be true for both politics and for his cast of characters, who all make some variation of those decisions (which makes Louie's description of the show as a tragedy ring true, as pretty much everyone suffers by their own flaws).
Outside of listening, though, I believe the show argues most importantly for being a good person through all of this. Tom Noonan's character gives an awkward but ultimately tender monologue toward the series' closing that punching an area of pain doesn't make it go away; you have to treat it, and that people are the same way - when people, the country, or life hurt you, you can't hurt them back and expect the pain to diminish. There has to be love and care for others at the root of your decisions. Listen to people, be nice to them, and don't just give up when things are hard, because things are always going to be hard, but not doing these things just makes those times harder. Give Louis C.K. some credit for being able to make an ultimately positive and thoughtful remark about tradition vs. progress while still being gut-wrenching, darkly comic, and having one of the most bizarre twist endings to any series ever.
I have no idea where this show could go. Louie has expressed interest in a second season, and I have confidence that he has an idea for it that is completely outside of my imagination. This show will not at all be for everyone, but it's an impressively ambitious step forward and some kind of revelation for Louie as an art-maker. As a long-time fan, it's interesting to think that he was known for dick and fart jokes just nine years ago, and now has made more than one TV show that have really hit close to home - while, of course, still delivering the dick and fart jokes in spades. And here he has further upped the ante by engaging us with this story that begs us to treat each other nicely, listen to others, and not give into emotion in a global situation where he seems to feel we desperately need to hear it most.
Please actually buy Horace and Pete, don't pirate it, and give it a try. It's incredibly unorthodox, painful, surreal, and beguilingly intelligent and endearing, as well as thoroughly engrossing. If the last two or three seasons of Louie haven't been your bag and you prefer the sillier side of him, this will not deliver. But if you're looking for a TV show that is truly wildly unlike any other you'll ever see, as well as some very smart (and, by the way, not at all partisan) sociopolitical commentary and pathos, then I can't recommend Horace and Pete enough. I could write about it for hours. To me, Louie's artistic career is really just starting, and I'm immensely excited to see his growth as a writer and artist in the future.
I don't give grades to TV shows due to how infrequently I review them, but this would undoubtedly be an A or an A+.
