Unhinged redemption flowchart: sin → disappear → therapy → masterpiece

In 2017, five women accused the comedian Louis C.K. of masturbating in front of them or while on the phone with them, against their will, and he later acknowledged that the allegations were true. The revelations put his comedy, which is provocatively moralistic—“he holds certain lines so that he can more easily obliterate others,” Tyler Foggatt writes—in a murky new light. C.K. occupies a strange place in the culture. He is in a cancellation limbo: not too cancelled to perform several sold-out shows of his new comedy show at the Beacon, but cancelled enough that, if you manage to snag a ticket, you might not want to brag about it to your co-workers. Comebacks are tricky, in part because we haven’t figured out what, exactly, they should look like. A public apology is required. Then that person should probably go away for a while. “While they’re gone, they might want to get some form of treatment—therapy, rehab,” Foggatt writes. “Then, after we’ve forgotten about their existence, they should offer us a great work, channelling the worst things they’ve ever done, their overwhelming guilt and shame, and their newfound clarity into the finest content they’ve ever made.” Foggatt attends his latest show in New York and reviews his début novel: