When Edie Falco picked up her Emmy for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Comedy Series for 'Nurse Jackie,' the first words out of her mouth reflected what pretty much everyone watching the ceremony was likely thinking:

"Oh, this is the most ridiculous thing that has ever, ever happened in the history of this lovely awards show," she said. "I'm not funny!"

Falco could have extended that notion to the rest of her show. Sure, 'Nurse Jackie' has its funny moments, and characters like Merritt Wever's Zoey and Peter Facinelli's Coop are there more or less for comic relief. But, for the most part, Falco is dead serious in the title role, and the theme of the show -- Jackie's addictions and how she juggles the various lies in her life -- takes the program to some pretty dark places.

So does that mean it's not a comedy anymore? The popular response is to say "yes," but I'm not so sure, especially after watching the first season of the show 'Louie.'

As I mentioned in my 'Louie' Moment column earlier today, last night's episode of Louis C.K.'s show on FX was as serious as a heart attack, at least outside of C.K.'s stand-up bits. In the episode, Louie dreams about his Catholic school days and how his teacher used such extreme methods to scare the sin out of him and his classmates; the segment where the demented doctor described the physical torture Jesus went through during the crucifixion would have made Mel Gibson gasp.

In the middle of the episode was a sequence that would have been more at home in the original version of 'A Clockwork Orange' than in what is nominally called a sitcom, with young (and adult) Louie flashing on his sins interspersed with the kid running to the church and "freeing" its Jesus from his cross. I didn't laugh once when I saw it, but then again I wasn't supposed to laugh.

It was the most dramatic scene in a season full of morose and dramatic scenes, starting with second episode poker segment where gay slurs were discussed, and the the touching post-fight talk Louie has with Nick DiPaolo in the third episode. And in the episode where Louie backs down from a bully, he follows the punk to Staten Island, where he sees where the kid's abusive streak comes from. When he sits on the stoop with the kid's dad as the dad talked about how hitting was a given when he grew up, there wasn't a laugh to be found, but it was refreshing that the show took such an unexpected and thoughtful turn.

But there hasn't been a time during 'Louie''s first season where I didn't think I was watching a comedy. Louis C.K. is a morose guy, with a dark worldview. It's logical that the show would explore where some of his nihilism comes from; it's supposed to show how Louie's life informs his stand-up and vice versa, and how it's all incorporated into that worldview. If that sometimes means I'm not laughing, then so be it. The show had enough hysterical moments to make up for the serious ones.

My attitude towards 'Louie' and its loose definition of "comedy" is what has been allowing me to cut 'Nurse Jackie' some slack. Like I said, it goes to some dark places, like Jackie's affair with Eddie, her theft of a drug dealer's stash, and the episode where she broke her own finger to hide the fact that she cut off her wedding ring to keep her marriage a secret from her colleagues. But the show is more consistently funny than 'Louie' is, even if those laughs are more chuckles than gut-grabbers. And, if Wever or Facinelli had been nominated for comedy Emmys this year, I wouldn't have even flinched.

The outcry that we're hearing about the show seems to stem from the fact that Falco, who won Emmys for playing the not-at-all-funny Carmela Soprano, beat out such comedic stalwarts as Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Amy Poehler. But just because she's a serious character in a lightly funny show doesn't mean she shouldn't be nominated in the comedy category. It's not like she's never done comedy before, as she did a great job guesting on '30 Rock' a couple of years ago.

There are always going to be hard-to-define shows on the air, and if it's hard for me to define what a show is, I sure as heck can't expect the Academy to define it. The producers of 'Nurse Jackie' could have gone either way in how to classify their show, and they decided to classify it as a comedy. Who am I to argue with them?

I'm sure Louis C.K. will do the same when he submits the show for Emmy consideration next year, and no one is going to object to that ... right?

(Follow @joelkeller on Twitter.)