Hiatus-starved Louie fans craving a dose of vaguely comedic existential dread are in luck; Louis CK surprised the comedy world today with the sudden release of a new web-series, titled Horace And Pete, which hits all the stand-up comic’s best notes of semi-humorous, “Christ, is this our lives?” ennui.
Co-starring Steve Buscemi and Alan Alda, the series sees the writer and director play a bar owner, Horace, the latest in a long line of dead-eyed, mumbling, mostly broken CK protagonists. Staged like a play, the whole thing feels a little bit like Cheers, except instead of witty banter, the resident barflies—including Jessica Lange, Steven Wright, and Nick DiPaolo—share quiet misery and a desperate need to drink. (Also, if you’ve ever wanted to see Alan Alda play a racist old asshole who calls people a “miserable cunt,” here’s your chance.)
The first episode clocks in at an hour, and will run you five bucks on CK’s web site. Details about the series—where it came from, how many episodes there will be, when it was filmed (references to the ups and downs of Donald Trump’s campaign suggest it was shot within the last two weeks or so), how CK got Paul Simon to write an original theme song for it—remain mysterious, but we’ll let you know when we learn more. For now, you can just sit back and enjoy—or whatever the verb is for receiving a steady drip of CK’s now-trademark feeling of slow decay—the soul-crushing, joy-draining fun.