I watched the first episode of this drama a few years ago and felt that there were too many foul language characters and it was too sad to watch it. I recently found it again and watched it again, but I have a different opinion. Serious spoilers below.
Louis CK is the screenwriter, director and star (playing Horace), so this play has a strong personal imprint on it. I didn't know much about him before, but after watching this show and chatting with Phil, I realized that he is more famous in the United States. Phil said: "I even thought he was the best talk show actor in America at one time." His humor is very large, and he often makes jokes about things that others think are taboo. Phil said that he often thinks while laughing: " Wow, that's too bold to say." Or a little disturbed, but still funny.
Later, Louis CK produced a semi-autobiographical drama series Louie, which was translated into "Louis is not easy" in Chinese. Phil said that after watching it for a season or two, he did not follow it again, because it was no longer so humorous, but it became more and more sad. I found the first episode of the first season and watched it, and it was really embarrassing from the beginning to the end.
"A Hundred Years Tavern" is also completely lost, but there are some magic strokes that are very, very good. The most admirable episode is the third episode, where Horace's ex-wife comes to him to talk about her troubles. The whole episode is basically her one-man show, very contagious about her lust for her eighty-year-old father-in-law (she I'm in my 60s), super disturbing and super vivid, and then turned to the expression of guilt and guilt, which has become a common human predicament: loneliness in a relationship between the sexes... I know what's wrong but can't control it Myself... the whole performance is too subtle, very wonderful. The actress Laurie Metcalf, I've seen her play Sheldon's mom and Miss Bird's mom, just blew up in this episode.
Phil listened to my description and said that there was an episode in Louie that was very good. Louie is a very expressive person. His girlfriend has been with him for a long time, and he can often guess the second half of the sentence from his endless sentences. In one episode of their chat, Louie said a half-sentence and his girlfriend guessed what he meant, and then he continued ummmmmm, his girlfriend guessed all the way...every time. As a result, the more he talked, the worse he became, and he became a girlfriend and quarreled with him, and the two of them broke up! Louie didn't say much from beginning to end - he did want to break up, but in the end it was up to her to guess. I don't know what season this episode is from. These two episodes can fully demonstrate Louis CK's strong screenwriting and dialogue writing abilities.
There's also an episode of Centennial Tavern that I think is great, where Horace has a one-night stand with a super attractive woman, breakfast together in the morning, and she asks him what he'd think if he were a trans. Then it began to challenge the average man's view of trans women very fiercely, forcing Horace to reflect on her own and men's hypocrisy. It's so funny...Horace doesn't even know if she's transgender at the end.
But there was one episode that really bothered me. In this episode, Horace's brother Pete has a girlfriend who is a nice girl half his age. Pete takes her home for dinner to meet Horace and sister Sylvia. Sylvia was already hostile, she had cancer, and she couldn't stand Pete looking for such a young girl, so her whole attitude was very mean and rude. She made it clear to the girl that Pete had something important to tell her. She didn't say it, but Horace finally said it: Pete was seriously mentally ill and relied on drugs to maintain a seemingly normal life.
This is especially cruel. Pete is a gentle and good person. Although he is sick, he is the most normal of the three siblings. He didn't want to date such a young girl. The girl lied about her age on the dating site because she liked older men. Their exchange in the first half of the episode was very warm. No one expected such an extremely dark turning point. And you might be expecting some reversal, but not at all! Horace and Sylvia hurt Pete so badly.
Thinking back on this scene, it feels like Louis has managed to create a situation where everyone is nervous and uncomfortable, and there is a Sylvia full of resentment and hostility. She didn't say what the hell was wrong with Pete, but having pushed the tension and embarrassment to its highest point, Horace simply came out - there was no way out anyway. In the best sense, they don't want to give girls false expectations, but I can't understand and forgive this behavior either. Sheer cruelty and malice.
After watching this episode, I discussed it with Phil, Phil said that Louis CK is very strange, it seems that he is getting more and more mourning after his marriage failed. Originally, he was mourning and humorous, but now there is less humor. He seems to feel that all kinds of embarrassment and depression in life have a sense of comedy, but this is not the case. So Louie's show makes people feel more and more unwatchable.
I still watched "Hundred Years Tavern", and when I saw the finale, I wasn't shocked because it was passed through by the drama, but I was still very sad. Louis ends up giving Pete a little light (the Tourette's girl) and a little hope to Horace (the cheerful sunny chattering woman who came to apply for a bartender's job), and then tore mercilessly to shreds. Looking back on the character Pete, it's so tragic, a tragic childhood leads to a tragic life, and even the ending is in a desperate situation: what will he do after that? Without treatment, he was tortured to death by his own horrific hallucinations, treated, and tortured to death by his own guilt. For him, death is the best way out.
How big a black hole must be in Louis CK's heart to write this drama like this. His talent, his insight into the absurdity of life and the dark side of human nature, I can understand and like it, but...in life, I must stay away from this kind of person!
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