Welcome to the first-ever edition of The Teevee, a new occasional feature in which film/music editor Justin Strout, arts & culture/food editor Jessica Bryce Young and staff writer Billy Manes gchat about their favorite shows the morning after.
Also, it should go without saying, but the following is one giant SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
The inaugural gchat begins (sadly) without Mr. Manes, who has yet to care enough about cringe TV to take the Louie plunge. Instead, Strout and Young dissect the first ep of season two on their own. Enjoy and come back soon!
Justin: Good morning, Jessicaaaaa
Jessica: top o'the mornin' to ye
i woke up as a leprechaun, apparently
or: LEPER-chaun.
Justin: leper-khaaaaannnnnn!!!!
*shakes fist
Jessica: ... wrath of.
got it.
Justin: i think we should kick off our FIRST-EVER TV Club with some disclosure? last night was our second viewing of
Louie 2x01. or at least mine. did you rewatch?
Jessica: I did not re-watch, very sad to say
Justin: oh no!
Jessica: i was just moments ago combing
FX for the repeat schedule
which is VERRRRRRY STINGY!
C'mon, teevee, get with it
Justin: Rupert doesn't give it away, baby
Jessica: i don't hew to your "schedules" and "airdates" anymore
I want everything, all the time.
of course, I have the screener, so.
Justin:
ETEWAF 4ever
Jessica: <awkward honky gang sign>
Justin: you do have the screener, which brings me to my initial point: We're kind of teevee critics now! you were good enough to secure us the first 3 eps of
Louie and first 4 of
Wilfred, was it?
no, i have those reversed
4 of
Louie, 3 of
Wilfred
Jessica: 4 of
Louie
haven't seen the
Wilfred yet.
Justin: so we're working under the privilege of digestion
at least for now
Jessica: yes
Justin: having said that, regarding 2x01, I have to cop to some frownies
there was learning in my
Louie!
Jessica: really?
ah yes.
TRUE!
Justin: a fly in my C.K. soup
Jessica: and hugging
Justin: YES! he's broken the
Seinfeld code right off the bat
Jessica: but sandwiched with rudeness, unfairness and profanity
Justin: not that he's tied to any code whatsoever
and a scatology we haven't seen before
that left me a little cold
Jessica: I do think that's what made me think of the
Seinfeld code, that whole good-dad vibe
it was a bumpy re-entry!
it's not EXACTLY the same as seasone 1.
Justin: seas-one
i like it!
let's talk seas-two
Jessica: you know how i love a good
cold open
Justin: i do. you know how i love that you use proper teevee terminology.
Jessica: haha
yeah, Louie flipping off his kid was kind of like the sheriff shooting that
little gombie
(girl zombie)
Justin: totally! statement of purpose
Jessica: yep
pointing the bat at the stands.
Justin: and i think he was exuding a certain confidence for the better part of the ep
which was immediately taken from him
Jessica: haha
Justin: before we get to sissy, can i just say how weird it is that there are two unrelated actresses playing Jane, his youngest daughter?
according to IMDB she's both Ursula Parker and Ashley Gerasimovich
which i know they do for babies and infants, but 5-year-olds?
Jessica: isn't that always the case with kid actors?
oh I get it — not twins
Justin: right!
the effect is disorienting. I keep wondering how many girls he has, exactly. Lilly's much easier to keep track of
Jessica: yeah
maybe it's for coldhearted singles like me, who just register "KID"
Justin: maybe so
Jessica: couldn't pick any of em out of a lineup
they're just furniture, ha
Justin: how bout that mango smoothie he was rockin' in the kitchen? i want!
and the girl who likes mama best gets a "calcium chocolate"
Jessica: mango pop FTW
Justin: and i'll tell you, that whole "honey, I have a lesson for you" going down the tubes was EXACTLY how it happens. when you grow up on
Full House and
Blossom, you get really proud of yourself sitting your kid down for a teaching moment and they just set dynamite to it Every. Goddamn. Time.
they stop paying attention the MOMENT they suss out that it's a lesson
so he gets the kids in bed by 8 - another triumph - and in walks his sister. do you remember seeing her in seas-one?
Jessica: no
in fact, we didn't notice the rotating kids but we were talking about the rotating moms, brothers, etc.
and that could be one of two things: 1) just don't have the $$ to keep same actors around or 2)
the deeper meaning: relatives are irrelevant to self-absorbed louis.
maybe?
Justin: that was one of the more cathartic points for me about the
amah-zing NY piece: that his mom is a totally different mom depending on the circumstance. it was one of those nagging things for me that i couldn't pinpoint and I'm so glad to know it's there and i'm not imagining it
it could be both. budget necessity is the mother of absurdism, perhaps?
Jessica: EGGS-ACTLY.
Justin: since we already puffed our chest over swag, can I just add to that? my inbox this morning brought me both
People on Sunday: The Criterion Collection featuring the 1930s German collective of Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak et al AND Syfy's
Dinocroc vs. Supergator?
Jessica: last one = best one
Justin: back to
Louie... i LOVED their little chit-chat. "Stop it!" "Yeah, but really go on, right?"
so loving. so melancholic.
Jessica: "Don't let your sister die of pain because you are awkward with people."
ZING! right into the hearts of awkward ppl everywhere
Justin: absolutely
Batmanuel to the rescue!
Jessica: a dart of simultaneous self-hate and "maybe there's hope for me?"
Justin: that was Nestor what's-his-fuck, yes?
Jessica: was it?
Justin: sans guyliner?
Jessica: hmm.
SUDDENLY SUSAN?
... Carbonell?
Justin: YES
Jessica: ahahaha
Justin: was it? are you Googling furiously?
Jessica: no
just the only Nestor I can think of.
the name stuck in my head
Justin: same here, but more from
The Tick than Brook Shields
Jessica: can't find my keys, etc. etc.
i'm not proud.
Justin: Google says he's on
Wilfred, but can't find anything on last night's ep! What a strange coincidence if that wasn't him
Vulture only has him as "Spanish-speaking neighbor." So...probably not? Nestor-esque?
Jessica: RACIST
Justin: maybe i should learn and hug like Louie
so his neighbors help him with his sister's emergency and he seems genuinely effected by it. cuz he doesn't think about his neighbors? cuz they were (maybe) a gay couple? What brought on his soul search?
Jessica: I think just because he cocoons
self-isolates
but when there's an emergency, that doesn't work
so ... learning. and then: PPPPPPFFFFFZFZFZFZFZT
so much for learning. go back to the bong and the ice cream.
Justin: absolutely. they were pretty insistent, though. that might've sent me over the edge. lucky for him, he was too disoriented to fly off the handle
Jessica: fart = a commentary on "learning"?
Justin: yes, we should address the flameball of gaseous vulgarity that was the centerpiece last night. did you think it was funny? i was shocked, but more at the makers than the "joke"
Jessica: yeah, at top level, lame. but if we can unpack it (a, GROSS; b; sorry, academi-speak), maybe it is a comment on the show
FORBIDDEN WORD ALERT: meta.
Justin: yeah, ouch. i used that in
my Wilfred takedown. Which, we should mention quickly is online along with your wonderfully academic
Louie preview
Jessica: the girl can't help it
my style: "foulmouthed academic"?
apparently I CUSS too much?
Justin: who says you cuss too much?
Jessica: ah, FB commenters
spineless
Justin: maybe it's the "coldhearted single" effect. there's no cuss jar in the Young household. whereas family-guy me is squeaky clean, mouth-wise
(go with it...)
Jessica: yeah, RIGHT.
Justin: so essentially, Louie's sister wakes him up screaming in pain AND she's pregnant, so Louie loses his mind quite literally. his neighbors are pounding on his door and talking him down but he can't even hear them. at all. which i relate to. i go deaf when my adrenaline kicks in.
Jessica: But first — he expresses his preference for one of his daughters, he tends to his preggers sis ... oh wait
SPEAKING OF WOMEN WHO CUSS TOO MUCH.
Justin: his sister breaking out the eff-bomb? i feel like if you can't say fuck on FX, then don't say "eff," either.
Jessica: his sister's rant about his ex-wife?
Justin: YES!
Jessica: GOLD, Jerry. I ... identified with her in that moment.
Justin: and she's so effing dead-on. all bets are off, post-divorce
Jessica: Drunk on the language, perhaps going a little farther than how she actually felt.
... or, discovering how she actually felt via the rant!
Justin: it seems to be how people relate to Louie
Jessica: Louie: curator of rants.
Justin: casual coarseness
Jessica: ... and now we go back to the jazz.
sorry.
but like all
Louie episodes — or maybe this is more prevalent in S.2? — it moved like music
Justin: it's true. is it going too much against the nature of the show to say that I hope he ends up with his playdate buddy,
Pamela Adlon? I heart her so goddamn much.
Jessica: she is wonderful
esp in ep.3, but we have to wait
Justin: I KNOW!!!!
this def isn't a Ross-and-Rachel type of show, though, and as much as I love the subversion, something in me craves the familiarity of the sitcom love story
Jessica: ah, I hear you
also, I'm kind of grossing myself out right now, obsessing over what is, after all, a cussing FX sitcom
IT AIN'T GODARD, HONEY
nevertheless.
Justin: and it doesn't help that Louis raved so much about her in the NY piece. "My only true comic collaborator," I believe he called her?
Jessica: yeah
[Bobby Hill, BTW?]
weird
Justin: I know! She's an angel from heaven.
I want to shower her with rose pedals while she degrades me to my very core
Jessica: OOOOHHH-kay, I think we're done.
Justin: what happened? i blacked out for a moment.
Jessica: remember, HR.
Justin: PPPPPPFFFFFZFZFZFZFZT
i'm so looking forward to i-meeting with you throughout the season
AND and... not just
Louie! We're bringing Billy in on some of these TV Clubs, yes?
Jessica: abso
Justin: I'll bring some effing mango smoothies. Until next time, JBY.
Jessica: How come I don't get the mango pop? Unfair, Strout, unfair.
next week: I'll pick up some blueberries.
Justin: so long!
Jessica: teeveeTYL