Horace and Sylvia trying to decide how to continue on Horace and Pete
A lot of thoughts on the amazing Horace and Pete and its
spectacular finale just as soon as I venture to Chicago…
“This? This my friend is Horace and Pete’s, true heart of
Brooklyn. Owned for one hundred years by two brothers, Horace and Pete. Till
one day, Pete killed Horace and had to go away. And that’s what happened to
Horace and Pete.”
-Harold
Wow. Just wow.
Ten weeks ago when Louis CK released the first episode of a
new show entitled Horace and Pete I would have never imagined it would turn
into something this special. Sure I am a huge fan of Louis CK, his stand up,
and his great FX show Louie, but I was not prepared to be blown out of my seat
in this fashion. Horace and Pete is special, a spectacular amalgamation of
diverse and strange ideas coming together into one brilliant mishmash of
serialized Drama and great American play. For 10 Saturdays I have sat at my
computer in anticipation of whatever would come into my inbox, whether it was
an episode that revolved around a single long conversation, or the tragedy of
mental illness. Horace and Pete is like nothing that has been attempted on TV,
at the very least a very long time, and is something that, week after week,
kept finding new ways of being special.
“Episode 10” was the perfect finale for this beautiful show.
Way back at the end of “Act 1” of the show (which I believe was episode five or
six) I waxed on about whether Horace and Pete would ultimately turn into a
comedy or a tragedy. Turns out Louis CK ended up following the archetype of the
stage play version of the latter in truly stunning fashion. There is no perfect
scene or sequence, but the final tragic climax to Horace and Pete is as close
as you are going to get. From the introduction Amy Sederis’ Mara (Who PS
apparently improved everything in that scene which is unbelievable on its own),
through the whirlwind of an interview, through Horace, after spending the
majority of the episode mourning the loss of Pete, finally getting his moment
of hope before having it all stripped away by the return of a mentally
destroyed Pete who returns to the bar only to kill him (all fit with a classic
stage blackout). It’s one of those traditional stage play style endings that,
despite its age, has never lost its power. Horace is about to find away to
escape the sad tradition and become his own man only to have it all stolen from
him by the comeuppance of the family’s past sins. The tragedy of Horace is that
no matter how hard he tried he could never escape simply just being a guy who
was tied to a painful family tradition. There was no way out, and there was
never going to be.
It’s not just the climactic scene that makes Horace and Pete’s
finale special but the entire build up towards it was fantastically executed.
The pre “intermission” half of “Episode 10” was a flashback to the horrid
childhood of Horace, Pete, and Sylvia. Louis CK played Father Horace (because
as of now I can’t remember the generation number of the Horaces this will be
the name I go with), a scary, abusive husband and father who ruled his family
with a quiet disdain. Louis CK has gotten a great amount of chances to show the
breadth of his dramatic acting abilities and this was yet another fantastic
example what he can bring to the table. He plays a completely different character
in the brief flashback then he has throughout the rest of the series. The quiet
malice he displays is chilling and really gets across the fear that the man
could inspire. Edie Falco plays Father Horace’s then wife Marian brilliantly as
well getting across in the why she ran at that moment perfectly. The flashback
culminates in a true moment of tragedy as Marian has to use one of Pete’s
mental episodes and subsequent beating at the hand of Father Horace in order to
escape. The flashback gives background to just why this family is so messed up
in the present day. It gives credence to Pete’s mental problems which surely
were not helped by the tortured he endured at the hands of Father Horace,
present Horace’s inability to break from the tradition no matter how he tries,
and Sylvia’s desperation to sell a bar that brings forth so much pain from the
past. It’s a great set up to the tragic events that would follow and a brief
yet telling look at how the pains of the past can always haunt the actions of
the present.
But despite all the greatness that preceded it, the tears
began to flow the most in the episode’s denouement. The final sequence in which
we get the first look at Son Horace (which again due to my inability to
remember generation numbers will remain his name for the time being) is
devastating for many reasons. First is the Sylvia’s realization, while she
tries to explain Horace to his estranged son, just how trapped Horace really
was. “Ahhh you know he was nothing really… he was no kind of man he was not
particularly funny or smart or kind or… you know… he was just some guy, but he
was your father,” Sylvia rattles off before breaking down in tears. It’s her
final realization of just how trapped Horace really was and how he became a man
who was and how his ultimate character trait was the family tradition that
ended up being his undoing. It’s a powerful yet understated moment and one of,
if not the best, moment of the show for Edie Falco who sells the sudden
realization beautifully. It’s a quiet moment to end the show on, but one that allowed
for everything to sink in beautifully. All the pain and suffering that the bar
has caused was personified in the death of Horace and the final sequence drove
that home perfectly.
Horace and Pete’s 10 episode run has truly been something to
behold. Wildly creative and ambitious the show provided something new and fascinating
every single week. It is as great a piece of entertainment as Louis CK has ever
produced, combining all of the best storytelling elements he learned in Louie
and mixing it with some wild ideas that he had never had the means to try.
Horace and Pete was a huge shot the arm to an already diverse TV landscape, a
show that proved that high drama can be depicted with beautiful restraint and
emphasis on the quiet and the understated. It is going to be difficult to find
something better than this in 2016.
Some other musings:
- In a recent interview it was reported that Louis CK went into millions of dollars in debt because of this show. He should be fine all things considered but I’m sad that not as many people watched this show as he had expected. So as a message to everyone who has not done so… Please watch this show!!!!
- As mentioned earlier one of the most amazing things to come out of Alan Sepinwall’s interview with Louis CK is that Amy Sederis completely improved her scene in the finale. It’s such a beautifully hectic tour de force a performance that it’s hard to believe that she did this from scratch not just once, but three times (each different) for three straight takes. She really adds to the climactic sequence with her liveliness, playing a perfect bright ray of hope in a sea of darkness.
- This week in bar talk: we get bar talk from the past with Uncle Pete being outraged by the tabloid story of President Ford supposedly saying Drop dead to New York City (which apparently is not true) and people voting for Donald Trump because it’s the nice thing to do.
- How much more disturbing is the Horace baseball story when, instead of it being told in front of a grown Horace who can handle a little bit of embarrassment, it’s told in front of a young Horace who is clearly scared by the events of that particular game?
That’s it for me. I am already sad that I didn’t get an
email notifying me of a new episode this week…
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
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