Horace & Pete (Season 1)

[Dukefrukem]

I was rolling watching the first episode.

So good.

https://louisck.net/show/horace-and-pete


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZvs-3dDdgo

[Idioteque Stalker]

"It's like Cheers if everyone in it was depressed." Kimmel nailed it there.

This show is amazing. I watched all of it in the last couple days. The disparity in acting quality from the leads to the others can be pretty jarring, but everything else has me ready to declare it a favorite. Episode 3 in particular blew me away.

[Irish]

This may or not be interesting to the MatchCut crowd --- McKee on the show:

http://mckeestory.com/horace-and-pete-2016/

"Louis C. K. is the Eugene O'Neill of the Internet."

[Dukefrukem]

Certainly feels that way in this series.

[Grouchy]

This show was mindblowing. I feel like Louis C.K. has made the definitive anti-sitcom. I've never really liked sitcoms outside of Seinfeld, and at best I've found some of them tolerable, so the genre game he plays here feels right up my alley, just removing every saccharine and crowd pleasing element from the format and replacing it with theater drama. There's this great effect where the characters quip jokes and one-liners at each other and in that awkward space where the live crowd laughs or the pre-recorded dead people kick in you just have a few seconds of dead silence where you can reflect on the often harsh and unbelievable sharp things they are saying to each other. That is deliberate and it's great writing. I also loved the anti-type casting of Alan Alda, although if we're to believe Louie himself the role was written for Joe Pesci and Alda just sort of accidentally drifted into it.

One minor complaint I had (and this might be the only thing I found less than perfect about the show) is how hard it was to buy Buscemi as the young Uncle Pete given the enormous height difference between the two and the fact that they're standing against the exact same backdrop. But, I guess it's like most theater conventions - you either buy into it or you don't.

[Irish]

This show was mindblowing. I feel like Louis C.K. has made the definitive anti-sitcom.

I loved that quality of it. It's halfway between sitcom and American Playhouse 90. A long time ago I complained on here that TV is such an overly commercial medium that there isn't any room for "indie tv," or TV at the edges, or niche, fringe stuff. But Louie is exactly that and parts of it are glorious to watch.

Favorite scene/episode: The one where like 20 minutes of it is nothing but Laurie Metcalf talking to CK, who remains off camera for the duration. It seemed like a simple thing and a radical act all at once -- here's a TV show that let's an actor perform, doesn't cut away, and doesn't dilute the performance with anything else.

It bugged me at the time that TV critics and trade press almost totally ignored the show.

[Grouchy]

It's obvious why Louis C.K. financed it himself. No network, not even HBO, would have invested in a project like this.

And maybe not without reason - I don't know if it's because of its unusual distribution, but this is the most groundbreaking live-action comedy in American TV since Arrested Development. Like you say, it's totally underrated.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Favorite scene/episode: The one where like 20 minutes of it is nothing but Laurie Metcalf talking to CK, who remains off camera for the duration. It seemed like a simple thing and a radical act all at once -- here's a TV show that let's an actor perform, doesn't cut away, and doesn't dilute the performance with anything else.

Not to overblow CK's filmmaking chops, but that episode was Bergman-esque in how it makes the actors feel so vulnerable through the incredibly long takes. Isn't there a mirror-image-type long take of CK to close the episode? Also, we don't really even know who she's talking to at first, and there's that great moment when it finally cuts to a reverse shot and CK asks, "Why are you telling me this?" I'm not sure if I've ever seen a joke like that before.

[Irish]

Not to overblow CK's filmmaking chops, but that episode was Bergman-esque in how it makes the actors feel so vulnerable through the incredibly long takes.

Yesssssssss!


Isn't there a mirror-image-type long take of CK to close the episode?

It's been awhile---but from memory, there's a mirror shot once it cuts to him and the camera stays on him for a few beats. Then it cuts back and forth between them, with a few two-shots in the mix. (The style becomes more conventional the longer the episode goes on, which I think fits with what they're doing.)


Also, we don't really even know who she's talking to at first, and there's that great moment when it finally cuts to a reverse shot and CK asks, "Why are you telling me this?" I'm not sure if I've ever seen a joke like that before.

I loved that, because the whole time I'm deeply curious who she's talking to and why-- and then bang, the reveal. And it's funny, but also a little sad, too.

Two other things that occurred to me, tangentially related:

- The entire idea for this episode benefitted from the show having, like, no budget. A network show with money would have used bar scenes as bookends, with everything in between a flashback that would literally show, point blank, everything Metcalf related in her story. The cheap-o version of this premise was much more powerful to me because it engaged my imagination, something TV rarely does.

- I really liked that there's an entire fucked up moral context to the episode. She's basically coming to him for some sort of grace --- permission to do something a little ugly because she knows he's done something ugly, too. Not only does the episode deepen Horace's character with what it reveals about him, it also presents two people who are completely messy and confused but not conventionally selfish or evil. There was a more nuance than what I usually see from mainstream TV.

[Idioteque Stalker]

- The entire idea for this episode benefitted from the show having, like, no budget. A network show with money would have used bar scenes as bookends, with everything in between a flashback that would literally show, point blank, everything Metcalf related in her story. The cheap-o version of this premise was much more powerful to me because it engaged my imagination, something TV rarely does.

Jim Jarmusch said something like, "The budget becomes the aesthetic." He's always been great at that, and here CK too spent his money wisely. Specifically, he spent it on great lead actors instead of hackneyed flashbacks or whatever else. You're so right about this, by the way. There's very little chance a recreation of that scenario with Metcalf and some 80-year-old dude would've been convincingly erotic; her performance is so good, however, that the eroticism is never in question per se.


- I really liked that there's an entire fucked up moral context to the episode. She's basically coming to him for some sort of grace --- permission to do something a little ugly because she knows he's done something ugly, too. Not only does the episode deepen Horace's character with what it reveals about him, it also presents two people who are completely messy and confused but not conventionally selfish or evil. There was a more nuance than what I usually see from mainstream TV.

Maybe she's looking for grace, or maybe she's looking for someone she "trusts" to tell her to gtfo. It seemed to me as much a peace offer as anything--her first honest-to-goodness chance to tell him she finally understands his experience. Maybe she's secretly hoping he tells her what he did was the biggest mistake of his life, and she should stop now before she repeats his mistakes.

[Irish]

There's very little chance a recreation of that scenario with Metcalf and some 80-year-old dude would've been convincingly erotic; her performance is so good, however, that the eroticism is never in question per se.

Yeah, exactly! I remember details of her story more than 6 (?) months afterwards because of the way it was delivered. I almost feel like somebody I know in real life told me that story.

(Also, really dig that Jarmusch line)


Maybe she's looking for grace, or maybe she's looking for someone she "trusts" to tell her to gtfo. It seemed to me as much a peace offer as anything--her first honest-to-goodness chance to tell him she finally understands his experience. Maybe she's secretly hoping he tells her what he did was the biggest mistake of his life, and she should stop now before she repeats his mistakes.

Ooooooh. I like that a lot --- terrific interpretation.