One of the best new shows of this summer TV season was Louis. As with Seinfeld, the series stars the titular comedian playing himself, a standup comedian, and each episode commingles scenes of Louis CK doing standup with dramatizations of events in his life.

Unlike Seinfeld, the series isn't family-friendly. It's what you'd hope Seinfeld would be if it got translated for FX. Louis doesn't tone down his standup material subject matter or language for this show, and that's one reason it works (unlike his previous TV series Lucky Louie). Each episode can start on one subject and end up somewhere entirely unexpected, almost like a Simpsons episode (Seinfeld always brought its story threads together each episode, but episodes of Louis can skip across multiple subjects, giving it the feel of a standup routine). The wide tonal range of the show is one of its signatures. Some episodes aren't comedic at all, and many of those are the strongest of the series.

One standout was the episode "Bully" which covers as much ground as Louis himself in the episode, starting one place and ending somewhere entirely unexpected (because of its meandering subject matter from one episode to the next, watching the series out of order isn't problematic):

The series ranges from the dark tragedy at the root of standup, but within the same episode can introduce sudden moments of grimy sublimity as in the visually lyrical closing scene to the first season:

The show has been renewed for another 13 episode season. Good stuff.