‘Loudermilk’: Making an Unlikable Character Work
The obscure series Loudermilk demonstrates the right and wrong way to develop an asshole character within the span of 3 episodes.
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Man, someday we’re going to look back at television in the 2010s and be amazed1. So, so many streaming channels of various kinds, many of which existed for just a few years, blew incredible amounts of money, and then vaporized as if they’d never existed2. Case in point: Audience, which AT&T launched in 2016 as a DirecTV exclusive3, then later ported to their own networks, and finally shut down in 2020 (!). If you knew Audience existed I do not believe you4.
Audience actually produced a number of original series, which is kind of amazing. After being shut down, some of these series have turned up on surviving streaming services—like Loudermilk, starring Ron Livingston as a recovering alcoholic and addiction counselor who Tells It Like It Is and always Says What Everyone’s Thinking. You know—an asshole5.
This show was on for three seasons! And produced 30 episodes! And starred Ron Livingston! And it turned up on Netflix recently, where The Duchess and I, always in the market for a show we can watch while falling asleep on the couch after two bottles of wine6, pounced on it as the new show we will binge and remember absolutely nothing about. The whole point of Loudermilk is that Sam Loudermilk is an asshole who Tells It Like It Is and always Says What Everyone’s Thinking—that’s it, everything else is set dressing and padding. The asshole character is difficult to pull off, and what I find fascinating about Loudermilk is that the show is both really smart and really stupid about this.
Really Smart
Asshole characters are tough because they’re unlikable, of course, but also because they are by nature performative. We all know assholes in our lives7, but those assholes usually don’t wander around just assholing all over the place. There is a time and place to be an asshole. But fictional assholes have to be assholes all the time, because that is the point of their character. This can get grating, and repetitive, so it requires some nuance to pull off.
Loudermilk both does and doesn’t. Does: In an early episode, Sam comes home to his surprisingly swanky apartment building (he’s a recovering alcoholic who works a job cleaning a bank at night, and while he has a roommate his apartment is palatial8) and finds himself stuck on the stairs behind an older man struggling to carry a guitar up the stairs. Sam is audibly frustrated by the old man’s slow pace, makes a few snarky jokes, then pushes past the old man to rush ahead. A few minutes later, while Sam is chatting up his attractive new neighbor, the old man gets his revenge by informing her of what happened, making Sam look like the dick he is.
This works to establish Sam’s character because it’s showing, not telling. He’s a selfish dick! It sells. Without resorting to hamfisted shit like lengthy “clever” speeches or bizarre public behavior no one in the history of civilized society has ever engaged in9.
Really Stupid
Two episodes later, Loudermilk opens with a clunky, irritating scene in which Sam notices two guys with beards wearing flannel shirts having a conversation, and stops to mock them and berate them for ... having beards and wearing flannel shirts—for being hipsters circa 2017, I suppose. This scene has everything you shouldn’t do: Sam makes a speech, is gratingly the asshole in the scenario, and isn’t particularly funny or perceptive. He’s just punching down at people who are minding their own business10.
Does it demonstrate he’s an asshole? Yes, but not in an entertaining way, or a way that informs his character. The old man on the stairs showed us that Sam is impatient and selfish, and Sam paid a price for it. This sequence is just a boring two minutes of a guy shouting at clouds, and, worse, it’s a scene where Sam goes out of his way to abuse two total strangers for no reason. It’s so ... writerly11. It smacks of a writer having a “Jerk Store” moment, writing perfect comebacks to a bully they encountered three years ago and then crafting the perfect Take That speech they proceed to shoehorn into a script12.
There’s no context here, no reason for Sam to stop and make a speech aside from the writer’s desire to have Sam make a speech and sound cool and mean and acerbic13. And there’s no lesson or punishment: Same just makes his lame speech, is mean to a pair of strangers, and then wanders off14. The scene accomplishes no work for the character, story, or setting.
It’s easy to fall into temptations like this; being the god of your fictional universe means you can indulge revenge fantasies and the like, but it’s almost always a bad idea. You have no idea how many entire novels I’ve written just as revenge fantasies involving kids I went to grammar school with. The answer is: A lot, and none of them are any good15.
NEXT WEEK: What’s missing in True Detective: Night Country.
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Also: Depressed!
I used to argue to my brother that our future was a version of Infinite Jest, where everything ever made would be available a-la-carte for small amounts of money. Man, I was confident.
We had DirecTV for a hot minute back in 2006. Every time the wind blew the screen went blank. I practically begged the cable guy to come and save us.
I am increasingly convinced that I’m the Truman in this scenario called life. No other explanation makes any sense.
AKA Jeff Somers circa 1985-2005 or so. I had a good run being a charming asshole, but as it turns out that shit ages poorly. As did I.
Don’t judge. If we didn’t do this I’d be out every Friday and Saturday committing crimes.
WHY ARE MY EARS BURNING STOP THINKING OF ME YOU BASTARDS
I love it when TV shows want their characters to be “poor” but seem to think “poor” means not having a staff.
Believe me, I’ve always wanted to be the guy who makes a snarky speech and then everyone claps. Oh, I want it bad. But it ain’t never gonna happen, because that’s just not how human beings roll.
As I’ve aged like a ripe cheese, my mantra has become: Let People Enjoy Things.
Writers are the worst. I spend half my time composing terrible insults directed at you that I will never have the guts to deliver, but trust me: They are masterpieces of meter, structure, and imagery.
I’m still working on my epic takedown of the kid who told me I looked like a child molester when I was 12 years old. When I finally get it right, it’s going to destroy him.
One suspects this was a speech the writers had been stewing over for years.
In my experience, mean speeches never end with me wandering off. They end with me being chased by a growing crowd of people intent on murdering me. I no longer leave my house and we’re all much happier as a result.
You should pay me to read them anyway. $500 gets you a box full of handwritten chapters and drunken speeches on cassette tapes.
I loved the series. I loved how Loudermilk could express his emotions/feelings without being held back or censored in the most part even though he was unhappy with himself, lol. The group of friends in the 12 step group—in which Loudermilk was un happy with leading the group—were a great use in the help of stabilizing a lot of the series story.
This is such a useful post to me because I’m currently writing a story that features a ‘likeable asshole’.