I am – Hercules!!

"Your Pussy is a chamber of financial ruin."

USA Today is wrong. It’s a super-funny “Honeymooners”-like sitcom, from comedian Louis C.K., about a part-time muffler-shop employee married to a hot nurse. The nurse is played by Pamela Adlon (very funny as Bobby on “King of the Hill”), who really stood out in HBO’s “Unscripted” series a while back. So much so I wondered why she hadn’t done more on-camera stuff.

Variety says:

… The multicamera sitcom format has a half-century of history behind it, so seeing HBO attempt to turn the genre on its head through sheer raunchiness is initially jarring -- almost like hearing children curse. The novelty, not surprisingly, wears off quickly, though there are still some extremely funny moments in this blue-collar comedy, a wildly uneven half-hour built around acerbic standup Louis C.K. Hardly everyone's cup of tea, "Lucky Louie" will have its loyalists, though likely as a narrow cult confection. …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… The show is based on the comedy of Louis C.K. and there's no shortage of laughs. … When his daughter keeps peppering him with "Why?" questions, Louie's ultimate answer is, "Because God's dead and we're alone." It gets a laugh but this is not a throwaway line; it's Louie's guiding philosophy. … That hangdog attitude detracts from Louie's appeal. Equally important, it transfers the focus to vivacious and assertive Kim whenever the two of them share a scene. While Louie might be everything we'd expect from a part-time muffler shop worker, Kim surprises us with a sense of social consciousness and a concern for healthy living. Her personality inhabits the screen even when she's out of the picture.

The Washington Post says:

… "Lucky Louie" is not a runaway smash right out of the gate, but neither does it stumble or implode. The language is far earthier and more explicit than could be found in a sitcom on the broadcast networks, suggesting that one way for sitcoms to survive is simply to talk dirtier. … The comedy becomes poignantly funny when it evolves that wife Kim, instead of choosing celibacy for herself (and thereby for poor Louie), decides she wants to have another baby, and proceeds to seduce her spouse via such dubiously subtle techniques as sticking a breast in his eye or bending over teasingly at the oven door. …

TV Guide says:

… Aiming to take Roseanne-style domestic realism to a new graphic level, Louie stars comic Louis C.K. as a mopey married-with-kid mechanic. Gripes about money and especially sex are common, delivered with cringeworthy crudeness. The funniest running gag involves Louie awkwardly trying to bond with his new African-American neighbors. Understandably, they try to keep him at arm's length. At least. …

USA Today says:

… a show so vile, it makes you think the company's arrogant It's Not TV — It's HBO slogan isn't a brag — it's a threat. … Sorry, but adding nudity and profanity to old jokes, old situations and old fights doesn't make them new or better or, in this case, amusing. It just makes them unpleasant. …

The New York Times says:

… The comedy is nifty, light and kind, even as it tries to be real, slitting open the stand-up themes of marital sex, masturbation and dope smoking until it's dirty enough to convince you that you're not being condescended to, but smart enough not to be grim. That's a huge feat. The good news is that you'll know instantly, with the first scene, whether you're ready to bring a slightly more sordid, slightly less shrill and slightly sweeter "Honeymooners" back into your living room after all these years. Tomorrow's pilot is a near-perfect comic set piece: it's almost a monologue, and comedy actors should try it for auditions. It seems to be one of those scenes that someone should have come up with years ago. If nothing else, Louis C. K. deserves an Emmy for the creation of a single timeless comedy scene, if such an award is ever offered.…

10:30 p.m. Sunday. HBO.

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