Season Analysis: Maron turned out to not be the Louie-style personal project some (probably unfairly) expected it to be. It is actually a fairly traditional sitcom, though more understated than most. The Louie connection is a useful one, though, insofar as Marc Maron is just as nakedly emotional as Louis C.K.
“Dead Possum”
The common link of the best episodes of Maron’s first season was Josh Brener, who plays Marc’s assistant Kyle (and also recently made The Internship more bearable than it would have been without him). Kyle, a grandson of a friend of Marc’s mom, is one of those eager-to-please, “I’ll do anything for you if you help me break into the biz” types. But Brener takes care to make Kyle as genuine as possible, and he and Marc have an easy rapport (when Marc isn’t being an asshole), as first displayed in their bonding at the hardware store.
While all of Brener’s time onscreen was a delight, the same cannot be said of the star of the show himself, who hasn’t quite figured out how to be the fictionalized version of himself. But he did have quite a moment in the podcast wrap-up portion of “Dead Possum,” in which he mused on the dilemma of dealing with issues having to do with getting rid of a rodent stuck under his house:
“Look folks, I’m not an alpha male, alright? I act like one sometimes but I’m not a real one. And the reason I know that if I ever lock eyes with a real alpha male – they know. They’re like, ‘Say hi to the little girl in there.’ And I’m like, oh no, they saw you. Look, I think all men have a girl inside them. You just don’t want her to come out at the wrong time. I know I’ve got one in there. I know she’s a bitch; I’m starting to think she has an eating disorder, and her name’s Jill. But that’s my issue. The bottom line is, no matter who you are, you’re going to be defined by your actions. And sometimes, you’ve just got to man up.”
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