Megan Garber of THE ATLANTIC on Louis C.K.

It’s all part of another old story: semi-apologies that, in time, nullify themselves. The status quo, reassembling to its familiar, fusty order. Louis C.K., who has been treating cruelty as a game since long before this year, seems to be hoping that he can benefit from “hypersensitivity” in a similarly warped way—and in his new brand of comedy are the contours of tragedy: lessons unlearned, abuses unaccounted for, the people who truly deserve their anger written, once again, out of the story. You could read C.K.’s evolution as a gradual loss of control, as a wayward id winning out over everything else. You could read it, as well, as something more strategic: a calculation that his core audience, now, is the red-pill crowd, with humor that is marketed accordingly. Either way, C.K. has reason to have confidence in his new brand of comedy: In person, his jokes about the inconveniences of empathy have been commonly met with laughter. And with enthusiastic applause.