Louis C.K. isn’t soured on life. But he seems forever on the verge of turning.
At least that appears to be the case with the character he plays on the eponymous “Louie,” his semi-fictional FX comedy making a much-awaited return at 10 p.m. today.
Louie, who (like Louis) is a New York comic and a divorced father of two daughters, knows struggle and angst and cloudy wonderment. He views life through eyes with a stricken look, dwelling in a state of comfortable dread.
“What makes you laugh?” someone asks him.
“I can’t remember,” he replies.
The fourth season kicks off with back-to-back half-hours that chart Louie’s bumpy daily life, including a rude wake-up call, a visit to the doctor, cooking dinner for his girls, awkward stabs at romance, indignity performing at a Hamptons benefit and brief respite in a comics’ poker game.
There are also glimpses of him doing standup in a Greenwich Village club, where he ponders what happens after you die and says, “Actually, a lot of things happen. Just none of them include YOU.”
It’s great to have him back with these 14 new episodes, especially after such a long absence. Back in fall 2012, Louis — who stars, writes, produces and directs — had asked FX for some extra time to recharge his batteries.
“Oh, boy, am I glad I did that,” he says during a recent phone interview. “I had way more energy, and I took a lot more time writing than I ever have. So even if it’s not better, I certainly tried harder.”
No one could dispute that he tries harder. His level of creative control and multihyphenate submersion in “Louie” is unprecedented for a TV auteur. And he is seen as a truth-teller beyond the boundaries of TV comedy, outdistancing Lena Dunham, Tina Fey or Larry David to earn proximity to TV drama’s holy trinity of Davids: David (“The Sopranos”) Chase, David (“The Wire”) Simon and David (“Deadwood”) Milch.
With such thunderous acceptance (a current GQ profile calls him “the greatest comic talent of his generation”), is it tough to reinhabit the earlier, not-nearly-so-successful Louis C.K. he portrays on his show?
“The good times that I’m living started about three years ago,” the 46-year-old Louis replies with a hollow sound that might be a chuckle. “If you pit those years against 43 years of struggle, you still have plenty to draw from.”
Acclaim is nice, he says, “but it’s like if you were being called a really good pilot: that doesn’t make it easier to fly the plane. The fundamentals of the task are still the same, and hard as ever.”
The only time he checks in on his star status: when answering a call of nature.
“While I’m sitting there, that’s when I Google myself,” he says. “And it makes me kind of nervous.”
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