1-2 and 3-End are night and day. It’s got to be some sort of long form joke I just don’t get. I am very glad I stuck it out past the second. I would imagine that people who enjoy the first two might not really enjoy the rest because the whole feel shifts dramatically.
Maybe it’s just how Louie has conditioned me but I have no trouble reading these episodes more like a stand-up set than a traditional season-long story. So scenes of him reading text exchanges or riffing on the immigrant parent experience hold up fine alongside longer episodes about, say, dating. The show feels like a natural extension of what he’s been exploring on-stage and in his book Modern Romance (which I haven’t yet read.)
One thing I find a bit strange and irksome is that two separate times in the first half of the season, stories have ended with little, bittersweet moments of disappointment for Dev (The Sickening, Rachel.) But then in the opening minutes of the very next episode, those setbacks are immediately erased with a quick line of dialogue. That’s one thing I’ll say for Louie… he stays true to his unhappy endings. Which, I suppose, might sum up the difference between 47 and 32.
Just watched episode 2. Twice.
Amazing show.
“I am sorry, Mr. Chow. But we are not coming to your rest-aur-ant todaayyy.”
I think what I really love about that second episode is that you can really see Aziz Ansari turning things over in his head that even he hasn’t considered, or at least not much until this show. Some of his performance here seems to be him realizing “Holy shit, this is getting to me on a personal level.”
Absolutely love the show…and I usually dislike any show set in New York City with hip young adults. The second episode is my favorite so far. I agree that the actor playing Brian could use a bit more time in acting class, but the actors playing their dads were comedy gold.
Dev’s parents are actually Aziz’s real parents, which is cool.
I did not know that. That’s very cool. They were absolutely hilarious. Especially his father.
“Leave me alone! I want to play video games!”
So, watched episodes 3,4. Wow… what a better show. What was going on in those first 2 episodes? Was there a gas leak on the set of episode 2? Everything was in slow motion, dialogue, camera work, etc. The episode about Indian actors was my favorite so far. Such a great show now!
Exactly! You’ll really like the rest of the series I’d say. Number 5 in particular is awesome, but it really just gets better.
I don’t want to get into a debate over that episode being bad, because it would take a lot of time to articulate what I didn’t like about the episode. I thought the ideas were good, but the execution was amateur, the pacing was slow, and the jokes were non-existent, it was just plain bad. I am sorry that the AV club reviewer that you linked didn’t see it that way. Besides, in her review she talks really only about the ideas in the episode, and the fun that was casting Aziz’s parents in a role. But, being honest, they really can’t act, or if they can, they weren’t directed in a good way. Kelvin Yu was also… off. That was compounded on by Aziz’s acting, which is ok, but not a solid rock to lean on. Take those things, and add the fact that Aziz himself directed this episode (thus pulling double duty) it was going to be hard to pull off.
This show does some awesome stuff when it talks about Indians or women in the acting/tv world, but it has to be done with a lightness and humor that felt absent in that episode. The tone of episode 2 is jarring when you compare it to the later episodes in the season. I don’t know how the episodes were filmed, but I would hazard a guess that episode 2 wasn’t filmed in the middle of the show. Most of the ensemble cast isn’t present for this one, which could explain why the tone is so different in Episode 2.
My feeling is that good actors are a dime a dozen. Casting real parents (not to mention minorities) is exceedingly rare. So I guess it comes down to how much value you get out of all the TRUTH that’s happening both in the writing and in the people/relationships. To me it’s much more interesting to see those little hints of documentary reality peeking out. There’s some amazing Aziz origin story stuff happening when his dad starts singing silly songs or making faces while his wife is talking. TV offers plenty of well-crafted artifice but not nearly enough of this kind of truthful insight.
I’m still loving this series so much. Each episode is a gem. Today I watched the episode titled “Old People”. So good.
I’m taking notes too. My parents are in their 80s, and I’ve fallen into that rut of not really having deep conversations with them anymore. This episode had some great questions I can ask to get more good stories out of them.
The last two episodes of the season “Mornings” and “Finale” were both a really good commentary on modern relationships. And the last scene really caught me off-guard. Well done.
Is this show coming back for another season? I loved it to pieces.
Yep! It’s coming in April.
Second season is out today!
I saw the first episode of the new season. Oh man, so good. This is such a great show.