HORACE AND PETE

Article first published as TV Review: 'Horace and Pete' on Blogcritics.

 

With little fanfare and no prior announcement, Louis C.K. dropped a new television series on the world two weeks ago called Horace and Pete. Set in a bar run for a century by various related Horaces and Petes, the current owners struggle to keep the doors open and fend off a left-out family member. Is this the end of the establishment, or simply the regular challenges that occur regularly over the course of a lifetime?

The story is simple enough. Horace VII passed away a year ago, so now the bar has fallen under the care of Horace VIII (Louis C.K.), an accountant, and his medicated brother, Pete (Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire). When their sister, Sylvia (Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie) brings a lawyer (Stephen Wallem, Nurse Jackie) in to assert ownership, the politically incorrect previous Pete, known as Uncle Pete (Alan Alda, M*A*S*H), tells the storied history of the place and defends the status quo.

One wants the status quo defended, as the titular drinking hole is a universe unto itself, removed from the city outside. Its regulars, including Horace VII’s last girlfriend, Marsha (Jessica Lange, American Horror Story), Leon (Steven Wright, Reservoir Dogs), and Kurt (Kurt Metzger, Ugly Americans), may enjoy debating current events, but it’s hard to imagine them discussing such things anywhere else. Those that come in less often, such as Horace’s daughter, Alice (Aidy Bryant, Saturday Night Live), and a few hipsters looking for an experience, don’t understand.

Horace and Pete can be humorous, but it’s not a comedy. It’s much darker than Louie and there is a sadness that permeates the proceedings. It’s thoroughly enjoyably, beautiful, and stylistic, but it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, and at times, it’s downright depressing. It’s the natural extension of what Louis C.K. has done before, deepening the pathos.

Calling Horace and Pete a television show stretches the definition of that term. True, I did watch it on my television (by buying the episode from C.K.’s website, downloading it to my laptop, then transferring it to my TiVo, where it still looks fantastic in 55 inches), but it does not broadcast on any station, nor is it available via streaming services like Netflix and Amazon. Instead, as he has done with recent stand-up specials, C.K. controls the experience, providing a single portal through which to get it, giving him total control over the presentation, and allowing him to release the first one while still filming the second.

Some may balk at the $5 price for episode one, when most buy-alone shows are $2.99 (for high definition) per episode. C.K. has pledged to sell the second installment for $2 and subsequent ones for $3, so it’s only the pilot, which clocks in at an extra-long 67 minutes, that costs a little more. But it’s totally worth it.

What the viewers get with Horace and Pete isn’t just a show, it’s an experience. The drama feels like a Broadway play. Filmed multi-camera with no background score, there’s a constant white noise one would expect when watching a recording from a theatre. The cast is top-notch and very New York, lending to the impression of a live performance. The script is by C.K., and while most of the dialogue could easily come from his FX comedy series, Louie, by giving his words out to a varied ensemble and delivering them in the right manner, they become the lyrics of a playwright, not sitcom fodder.

None of this avant-garde art is totally unexpected for C.K. Perhaps this specific format is not what one would have predicted, but it’s been a long time since he’s allowed himself to be defined by convention. C.K. is constantly pushing boundaries and doing something no one else has before, if only because of a clever bend. Horace and Pete is that from beginning to end.

Ugly Americans enjoys a "Wet Hot Demonic Summer"

     This week finds the return of Comedy Central's Ugly Americans with "Wet Hot Demonic Summer." Presumably, the title is a parody of the film Wet Hot American Summer, but without having seen the film, it's hard to know how much of the episode is, too. The demons want to wipe out the wizards, who are heaving a convention. Knowing Mark's (Matt Oberg) connection to Leonard (Randy Pearlstein), a wizard he shares an office with, Twayne (Michael-Leon Wooley) tricks Mark into thinking he is running a summer camp near the wizard meet. When Mark goes to get a signature from Leonard for a census form, Twayne and the demons invade the conference. But so does Grimes (Larry Murphy) with his new bear clan. Chaos ensues. Meanwhile, Mark's roommate, Randall (Kurt Metzger), leads the other camp counselors to dig below the grounds in an abandoned silver mine.


     This animated series about a social worker helping supernatural beings and ugly monsters integrate into New York City is hilarious, and taking the action into the country doesn't hurt it at all. The voice actors are talented, and the jokes are funny. For instance, when Mark's demon girlfriend, Callie (Natasha Leggero) takes off her bikini, another, smaller one, is revealed underneath. And when Randall and the others get trapped underground, they vow to eat weepy koala Doug, a plan they decide to continue even after Doug digs them out. Using a zombie as main character lets the writers go for such dark humor.

     At the wizard convention, Leonard is supposed to be handing over his reigns to an apprentice, who is a very clear knock off of Harry Potter. But true to character, Leonard is too lazy to spend fifty years actually training his replacement, so he picks him up at the Chinese restaurant when Leonard dumped him with only days before the transition. The joke is on Leonard, though, as failing to have a suitable apprentice means another five hundred years of work for him. If only Leonard had thought about the consequences.

     Mark is a great straight man to the bunch of misfits, though the fact that he is dating a demon gives him a little depth, and keeps him from being boring. His upbeat attitude is what drives the show, when everyone around him would rather be apathetic. Mark comes off as a bit annoying as he urges others to get into the spirit of camp, but it shows his loyalty that he would bring some of the beings he helps in his job and his roommate out to join the fun. He is a nice, naive guy, something needed in such a zany, offbeat comedy.
     Be sure to watch Ugly Americans Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. ET on Comedy Central.

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     Buy Ugly Americans Volume One on DVD.

Ugly Americans returns tonight

    Last spring, Comedy Central aired a seven episode first season of Ugly Americans.  It's an animated series set in New York City, except that humans share the place with monsters and demons of all sorts.  I thought it was a pretty funny show, though I never wrote a full review.  I just watched tonight's season premiere, "Better Off Undead", and I have to say, it went a little too gross for me.

     The show revolves around Mark Lilly (Matt Oberg), a social worker for the Department of Immigration, or something like that.  He counsels creatures to help them get their lives on track.  This week, Mark tried to help a two-headed worm guy and his roommate, a Zombie named Randall (Kurt Metzger).  The left side of the worm guy was being abused by the right side, and there were parallels made between worm guys and slavery, as well as spousal abuse.  There is already a worm guy who is a regular in Mark's group, but that guy's two halves live in harmony.  Anyway, about the new worm guy.  Mark convinced the weaker half to get separate from the stronger half.  The weak half moved into Mark's apartment, and began acting like a servant.  Eventually, Mark grew tired of his company, and had him get reattached with his tormentor.

     Meanwhile, Randall was stalking his ex-girlfriend, trying unusccessfully to win her back.  She has a restraining order against him, so that complicated things.  Randall checked himself into a zombi rehabilition place, to learn to be a better zombie, and to better stalk people.  I twas a bit goofy, but eventually, Randall realized that he had to be who he was.

     Then Mark got cursed by his co-worker, a failed wizard named Leonard (Randy Pearlstein).  Mark was turned into an exact replica of Randall's ex-girlfriend.  You see, Leonard was drunk, and didn't know what he was doing.  He actually put a curse on Mark, who aged rapidly, and could not return to himself unless he had sex, as a woman, with a male, to completion.  Mark's demon girlfriend, Callie (Natasha Leggero, a judge on the recent season of Last Comic Standing), was very understanding, and helped him find a man to do the deed with online.  Sadly, the only man who responded to the female Mark's ad was Mark's gross, gruff co-worker, Lt. Grimes (Larry Murphy).  Mark hooked up with Grimes, and then very grossly, pulled himself out of the dead old lady skin in the morning.  Grimes found out just who he slept with, but he was weirdly ok with it.

     For me, the dead skin, and Randall accidentally eating his own fingers was more sick than I care to see.  However, generally the show is fairly entertaining.   Ugly Americans premieres tonight on Comedy Central at 10:30pm.

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