tue 19/03/2024

Horace and Pete | reviews, news & interviews

Horace and Pete

Horace and Pete

Louis CK defies expectations with his brand new 'not a comedy' show

Two men walk into a bar...

“Warning: this show is not a ‘comedy,’” wrote comedian Louis CK in an email alerting fans to the impending arrival of the second episode of his new show, Horace and Pete. “I dunno what it is. It can be funny. And also not. Both. I believe that ‘funny’ works best in its natural habitat. Right in the jungle along with ‘awful’, ‘sad’, ‘confusing’ and ‘nothing.’”

Just over a week ago, without any prior warning, American stand-up and writer Louis CK launched a brand new show, the first episode available to download from his site for $5. It’s a distribution model that has worked well for his stand-up shows and, while some have complained that the price point is steep for one episode of a series, many were too busy trying to nail down what exactly it was to care what they’d paid. With episode two recently released (at the knockdown price of $2), we should be in a slightly stronger position to make the call.

The characters appear as the fixtures and fittings, worn and worn-out, the veneer almost goneHorace and Pete (Louis CK and Steve Buscemi) run a family business, a bar, called Horace and Pete’s. It has stayed in their family for 100 years and has always been run by a Horace and a Pete. I’m not sure what to call the opposite of nominative determinism, but this arrangement seems to nail it. Be aware though, while the show may bear the hallmarks of a "man walks into a bar" set-up, the punchlines that follow have all the brisk camaraderie of a custody battle. Horace and Pete is certainly no Cheers.

Horace and Pete is also not a stage play, though it shares many similarities. Yes, there are multiple cameras, but these are used for subtle shifts rather than jarring jump cuts. There are few sets, the takes are long and the editing minimal enough for occasional stumbles to be left in. Long pauses that feel, at first, unfamiliar to a TV audience are allowed to fill space and take up time. There’s even an intermission (though this isn’t just whimsy, it successfully concentrates focus and lends structure).

The stellar cast, which includes, alongside Buscemi, Alan Alda, Jessica Lange (pictured above, with Alda) and Edie Falco, are given much to do, almost all of which is driven by conflict: of intent, ideas and people. Yet Horace and Pete isn’t star-studded event TV – it remains a personal project that is stamped through with clarity of vision.

OK, so if we’re still not sure what it is, let’s focus on what it’s about. Well, Horace and Pete isn’t really about anything in particular – it’s about everything in general. There are clear narrative arcs: Horace’s battle for the future of the bar that puts him at odds with his sister, Sylvia (Falco); his strained relationship with daughter Alice (Aidy Bryant); Pete’s management of mental illness and his relationship with the almost irredeemably vile "Uncle" Pete, but these work best as emotional pinch points that allow small ideas to come in and unfold themselves under wider discussion.

Naturally, the bar setting is perfect for this, and the artfully embedded vignettes, where people riff around themes that could have easily ended up in the writer’s stand-up shows, benefit from the polarised views that a crowd can offer. This is where much of the comedy lies. Because, although not a comedy, there is, of course, much humour here – most obviously in the second episode. There’s also some phenomenal writing, including a clever fantasy sequence that only becomes apparent when it’s revisited. Relationships reveal themselves gradually, over time, and the audience is given the responsibility of interpretation. Horace and Pete is a show that resolutely refuses to hold our hand – or even show us a kindness – and that’s incredibly refreshing.

The characters, regular or otherwise, appear as the fixtures and fittings, worn and worn-out, the veneer almost gone. They are often raw and sore, bristling and ready to burst, particularly Falco as Sylvia (pictured right with Buscemi and... er, CK), who gives a performance at the first episode’s denouement that fills every inch of the screen (or stage) with palpable emotion. Meanwhile, Alda’s Uncle Pete treats words as weapons and, in doing so, spits barbs of sharp intent that are wet with whisky and all the more believable for it. I’m particularly keen to see what will be done with this hateful misanthrope.

So, Horace and Pete is funny, but it’s not a comedy. It’s dramatic without being straight drama. But we have to ask ourselves whether the ability to define really helps us – why do we have to label everything? There’s a huge amount to enjoy here, can’t we just do that? As Horace himself says when it’s pointed out to him that keeping the bar is unprofitable folly: “Can’t any place just be a place that people come here and it’s just a place?”

Of course it can.

@jahshabby

The punchlines that follow have all the brisk camaraderie of a custody battle

rating

Editor Rating: 
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)

Share this article

Add comment

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters