New Louis CK Series Horace and Pete’s

Louis C.K. has done it again. Released a new project without fanfare, without big announcements, and without having a distributor, other than himself. This morning Louis sent out an email to his fans simply titled “A Brand New Thing” from Louis C.K. With “Louie” on indefinite hiatus we all thought these were going to be the years where we just get the benefit of C.K behind the camera– he’s producing several major comedy series right now including Baskets with Zach Galifianakis, “Better Things” with Pamela Adlon, “One Mississippi” with Tig Notaro, and an animated pilot with Albert Brooks.

The brand new thing is what appears to be the first episode of a webseries- or maybe its the only episode, but the email offers “Horace and Pete episode one is available for download. $5.”

Horace is Louis C.K. He owns a very Cheers-looking 100 year old bar (that’s a lot less cheery) with his partner Pete played by Steve Buscemi, and episode one is over an hour long. We haven’t watched it all yet, but we’ve seen enough to know that throughout the series you’ll find Kurt Metzger, Liza Treyger, Nick DiPaolo as an assistant District Attorney, Aidy Bryant as Horace’s daughter, Steven Wright, and that’s just so far. Add in amazing performances from a very foul mouthed racist Alan Alda (Horace’s Uncle Pete), Edie Falco (Horace’s sister) and Jessica Lange.

Oh and, if this matters (and it does) theme music written and performed by Paul Simon.

It plays like an Arthur Miller play (in fact, it looks like someone filmed a play) and feels throwback but all the references are current, like Donald Trump and the upcoming Super Bowl. The references are so fresh that we have to imagine this was recorded only days ago. What can we say other than that it’s very ‘Louis C.K.”.

Now that we’ve watched it, we’ll say just this until there’s been a little time to reflect- it’s amazing. It’s a play, that might be episodic, the performances are tremendous, and there’s a lot to think about, debate and ponder.

Written and directed by Louis C.K., you can download ep 1 for $5 now on louisck.com and you should.

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