Season 3 of the transcendently funny comedian's show premiered last night. While reviewing the pilot, Nathan Rabin summarizes C.K.'s appeal:
Over the course of the past year or so, Louis C.K. has made a remarkable evolution from being merely one of our most beloved and respected artists—a man his colleagues and peers talk about with hushed awe and total reverence—to being something of a contemporary folk hero—a balding, ginger, slightly overweight stand-up-comedy Robin Hood speaking truth to power and reclaiming the means of distribution from the nefarious likes of Ticketmaster…[the new episode's opening bit] corresponds to the show’s enduring fascination with masturbation, aging, physical decay, and sexual humiliation
In a recent chat with Jay Leno, Louis wished he was gay:
Alyssa comments:
[W]hat the riff is really about is what heterosexual men lose and lose out on in the process of vigorously reinforcing their heterosexuality for the general public: the chance to be enthusiastic, to be affectionate, to wear what you want. It’s a critically important conversation, and I’d love to see more men in positions of power in media engage in it, or even who seemed comfortable enough to stop reinforcing their masculinity for a minute.
Above chart by Kyle Hilton, who captions:
Louis CK's facial expressions on Louie are a tutorial on how to wordlessly convey discomfort and emotional dyspepsia; in each episode, he covers all possible combinations of furrowed brows, wincing squints, and exhausted exhalations. Last night's season-three premiere provided a real showcase when he could not bring himself to break up with his girlfriend and instead just twisted his face into an endless series of grimaces of repressed unhappiness.
The Dish 