Mark Twain once said "Comedy is tragedy plus time". This could be the subject line of "Horace & Pete", Louis CK's masterpiece in the vein of great American dramatists.
The story revolves around the titular characters and their eponymous bar, which has been run in the family for 100 years, always owned by a Horace and a Pete.
In the mix is also Alan Alda's senior Pete, and Edie Falco's Sylvia, a brutal matriarch in the vein of Albee's Martha in "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
These are not heroes or villains here, just broken remnants of what could once have been people. This is the anti-dote to superhero movies, special effects and multi-million dollar enterprises. This is about broken human beings, who have accepted their brokenness, given up on finding gold dust in the sand and no longer look forward.
The multi-layered storyline takes us through the trials and tribulations of these characters, without ever asking for forgiveness or defending them. In fact, lack of redemption - the impossibility of it - is a running theme throughout the 10 episodes.
We care about these flawed people, not because they are victims or heroes, but because they are like anyone else. And in the hands of actors who all give performances of their lifetimes, the tangibility of "Horace & Pete" is near unbearable.
Alan Alda is no longer Capt. Benjamin Pierce - the all around nice guy. The character he has created here is one mean, nasty individual without any seemingly redemptive feature (not that he'd want one, mind you).
Edie Falco establishes herself as one of America's greatest TV actresses of all time, with a performance as brutal as it is brutally honest.
Steve Buscemi, fresh from the antithesis of this character in "Boardwalk Empire", portrays his Pete with such surgical precision that you want to reach out to your screen and take him away from his predicaments.
And Louis CK... Arguably the greatest stand up comedian of all time, the Bostonian here proves that his power of observation far surpasses the medium we are most used to see him in.- The fact that he has written dialogue and staging equal to any of the great American post-realists, then directed and acted in it, places him on level with some of the greatest legends in the art form.
"Horace and Pete" is a masterpiece. Each episode has a life to it, as in live theatre, that has thus far been impossible to recreate for TV. But Louis CK not only manages the feat, he smashes it out of the park!
If you are a fan of Chekhov, Williams, Albee, Miller or O'Neill, you will not be disappointed!
The story revolves around the titular characters and their eponymous bar, which has been run in the family for 100 years, always owned by a Horace and a Pete.
In the mix is also Alan Alda's senior Pete, and Edie Falco's Sylvia, a brutal matriarch in the vein of Albee's Martha in "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
These are not heroes or villains here, just broken remnants of what could once have been people. This is the anti-dote to superhero movies, special effects and multi-million dollar enterprises. This is about broken human beings, who have accepted their brokenness, given up on finding gold dust in the sand and no longer look forward.
The multi-layered storyline takes us through the trials and tribulations of these characters, without ever asking for forgiveness or defending them. In fact, lack of redemption - the impossibility of it - is a running theme throughout the 10 episodes.
We care about these flawed people, not because they are victims or heroes, but because they are like anyone else. And in the hands of actors who all give performances of their lifetimes, the tangibility of "Horace & Pete" is near unbearable.
Alan Alda is no longer Capt. Benjamin Pierce - the all around nice guy. The character he has created here is one mean, nasty individual without any seemingly redemptive feature (not that he'd want one, mind you).
Edie Falco establishes herself as one of America's greatest TV actresses of all time, with a performance as brutal as it is brutally honest.
Steve Buscemi, fresh from the antithesis of this character in "Boardwalk Empire", portrays his Pete with such surgical precision that you want to reach out to your screen and take him away from his predicaments.
And Louis CK... Arguably the greatest stand up comedian of all time, the Bostonian here proves that his power of observation far surpasses the medium we are most used to see him in.- The fact that he has written dialogue and staging equal to any of the great American post-realists, then directed and acted in it, places him on level with some of the greatest legends in the art form.
"Horace and Pete" is a masterpiece. Each episode has a life to it, as in live theatre, that has thus far been impossible to recreate for TV. But Louis CK not only manages the feat, he smashes it out of the park!
If you are a fan of Chekhov, Williams, Albee, Miller or O'Neill, you will not be disappointed!