In his new Netflix special “Louis C.K. 2017,” comedian Louis C.K. delivers the same masterful and somehow uplifting gloom fans of his dark humor love — but now he’s in a suit and tie. C.K. exchanges his usual casual clothes for something indicative of a freshness and maturity fans have not seen in full bloom before.
While C.K.’s lines and thoughts about divorce, love and life habitually hold down a gravity of their own, they are even heavier when paired with his physical comedy. He uses the microphone as a prop to imitate a penis in his mouth for 20 seconds, attempts to dance like Channing Tatum in “Magic Mike” and even performs a polished pantomime of a sexual act.
Yes, C.K. is a classic stand-up comedian in the sense that he pushes boundaries and tackles taboo topics — something that often gets comics into trouble. For instance, his 2015 “Saturday Night Live” monologue in which he explained how one might sympathize with pedophiles elicited quite a backlash. His fearlessness can come off as unabashed and discordant with the normal frequency of human conversation — yet it makes for an engaging hour and a half of material.
C.K. is aware of stand-up’s “offensive joke” trope, though. After walking out on stage, he immediately says, “So, I think abortion … ” and pauses for a laugh — proving he is cognizant of the audience’s thoughts and harmonizes with them accordingly. After performing a spot-on impression of Matthew McConaughey in “Magic Mike,” C.K. self-referentially says he has perfected the impression from watching certain clips of the film so many times — though he admits he’s never seen it in its entirety before.
After expressing his attraction to McConaughey and Tatum in “Magic Mike,” C.K. says, “I’m pretty sure that the end of ‘Magic Mike’ is that I’m gay.” He alleviates the comment’s surface-level controversy by further explaining he would never suppress anyone else’s homosexuality — but he has a right to suppress his own.
C.K. is truly a master at allowing an audience to step inside the more intimate places of the mind, especially when he laments about ideals of religion and love.
“Religion teaches that when you die you get to ruin heaven for your dead spouse,” he says. “Why is that fair?”
C.K. is cynical about love — he is divorced with two children, after all. Nonetheless, after describing love as a magnificent bubble that eventually bursts, he acknowledges that it is still the best thing in life.
Per usual, C.K. is hopeful yet perpetually bleak. Despite his new suit-and-tie look, he is still the same comedian underneath it all.
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