What I expected: Lou sits down with A Buddy and chats about mental health in a way that destigmatizes it.

What I got: Either an actual therapist or someone doing a fucking amazing job playing one earnestly talking about mental health with Lou's improvised persona, who is a humor-is-deflection, party bro who decided to be a Cool Mental Health influencer, uncomfortable wreck of a person. The therapist gently, with continually gotten consent, and with relentless persistence, tries to get this Persona to have an earnest conversation, and Persona Lou throws every deflection he can at him.

It's so good. It's so good.

I love it as a therapist, the absurdity heightens the work the therapist is doing and makes the performance of it all so clear. I love it as someone who has been a fan of Lou, the fast thinking acting and the incredible resonance with the character. I love it as someone that loves improv, what a hell of his own making Lou has trapped himself in, giving himself such an earnest and compassionate straight man. I love it as a commentary on influencers turning their life into content, I love it as a thought provoking examination on the state of privacy, I love it as a reminder that you don't have to be good at therapy to benefit from it, that's the therapists job.