Wondering how comedian and TV star Louis C.K.’s spends his “free” time when his FX sitcom Louie goes on its extended hiatuses? He’ll perform standup, of course, and make it available on his website for five bucks. And now, apparently, he shoots another show and debuts it online without anybody knowing about its existence during production. It’s called Horace and Pete and it takes place inside an Irish pub run by Horace (played by Louie). Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire) plays his parter Pete and the web show is rife with cameos including but not limited to Alan Alda (The Blacklist), Edie Falco (Nurse JAckie), Aidy Bryant (Saturday Night Live), Jessica Lange (American Horror Story), Rebecca Hall (The Town), and Steven Wright.

The black comedy skews dramatic and clocks in at just over an hour. It features an intermission where the characters discuss current events like the presidential race and the Super Bowl. Louie released Horace and Pete with little fanfare, simply posting a link to “a brand new thing from Louis C.K.” on his website and offering it up for $5. You can buy Episode 1 today, and it would appear that an additional three episodes are on the way. So…surprise!

Update (2/4): Louie has broken his radio silence regarding the release of his new show. Click after the break for more.

Days after debuting Horace and Pete seemingly out of thin air, the multi-hyphenate comedian published a post and opened up about his latest project.

He confirmed that he’s serving as producer, director, and writer on Horace and Pete, just like he does on his FX show Louie. What’s starkly different here, however, is that he’s also H&P‘s distributor (via his website) and financier. Apparently he was on the receiving end of some backlash for charing the public a mere five dollars for the premiere episode that launched last Saturday. He justified the cost with a metaphor only Louie himself could possibly deliver and perfectly land.

Horace and Pete is a full on TV production with four broadcast cameras, two beautiful sets and a state of the art control room and a very talented and skilled crew and a hall-of-fame cast. Every second the cameras are rolling, money is shooting out of my asshole like your mother’s worst diarrhea. (Yes there are less upsetting metaphors I could be using but I just think that one is the sharpest and most concise). Basically this is a hand-made, one guy paid for it version of a thing that is usually made by a giant corporation.

Makes absolute sense to me. After all, in order to stay in production, Louie “needs to recoup some of the cost” (added emphasis).

Now, for the ultimate question: Why the surprise? The reason may not shock you, after all. In fact, it’s quite genius and poignant if you ask me.

Part of the idea behind launching it on the site was to create a show in a new way and to provide it to you directly and immediately, without the usual promotion, banner ads, billboards and clips that tell you what the show feels and looks like before you get to see it for yourself. As a writer, there’s always a weird feeing that as you unfold the story and reveal the characters and the tone, you always know that the audience will never get the benefit of seeing it the way you wrote it because they always know so much before they watch it. And as a TV watcher I’m always delighted when I can see a thing without knowing anything about it because of the promotion. So making this show and just posting it out of the blue gave me the rare opportunity to give you that experience of discovery.

What a refreshing take on the TV consumption experience. Bravo, Louie, for making a bold move and standing by it. Here’s to hoping the broadcast and cable networks take a page out of his playbook. Ah hell, who am I kidding…

In the end, Louie did not confirm the total amount of episodes in the pipeline (expectations subverted again!), but he did promise more are on the way at this very moment. Episode 2 is shooting now, and it’ll hit the site on Saturday. Episode 1 will remain at $5, ep2 drops to $2, and the remaining installments will go for $3 a pop; this despite Louie’s completely valid aforementioned argument–what a guy!

Click here to read Louie’s post “About Horace and Pete” in full.