Louie (Louis C.K.'s show on FX)

i am so confused by everyone who thinks pamela is awful. its like you've never met actually awful people.

next season should have louie falling for a long sequence of ever more heinous women, until he marries an emotionally abusive kkk member.

pamela is openly rude; janet is covertly rude. he likes the honesty. it's going to end badly and it's going to be his fault so what's the point quibbling about the interim.

I think the whole sexual assault thing was just showing that Louie doesn't have what it takes to be your stereotypical alpha-male that he feels he needs to be. You see the whole time how forced it is, like he's trying to make himself do this because it's as if this is what he needs to do for Pamela to like him. It seems to have a messy point about what living up to made up expectations can possibly lead to.

I have a feeling this post reeks of unintentional rape-sympathy, but I'm going to post it anyway (don't hurt me ilxor, pls).

louis is so morrisey with pamela. i just can't, i just can't, i need you, why do you hate me so. i tried and it came to no good, why are we together, why are you leaving, why did you stay.

historically louie is crap at making his move and pamela understands that with a caveat. if it weren't you and if it weren't me this situation would be unforgivable. i think she's stronger than he is and trusts him more than he trusts himself or her and he has to navigate that somehow.

also i figure louis ck is in love with pamela adlon but w/e.

You guys, you've got some good points.

i mispelled morrissey.

he's dancing with tears in his eyes. he is the son and the heir of nothing in particular.

he is human and he needs to be loved; why you gotta make a blog post 'bout it.

he's dancing with tears in his eyes.

wasn't that midge ure?

yeah, i'm just integrating what's steaming right now. kroq2. seemed appropriate. my sharona.

As an English I can totally identify with Pamela's struggles with icky feelings and I think she's cool and funny, if too mean often. Thought these episodes were lovely actually, the two of them seemed very happy in their own deeply weird ways.

also i figure louis ck is in love with pamela adlon but w/e.

― slugbuggy, Tuesday, June 24, 2014 1:50 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol flashback to the "louie and pamela must be getting married irl!" shit itt circa 2011

Shit, Pamela is the voice of Bobby Hill!

yeah that cracks me up

1) the apartment was entirely empty, 2) she went through the whole effort of hiring movers, without telling him, as if it wouldn't cost him any money or upset him to completely fuck with his personal space this way, and 3) all of this from someone who is afraid to say "I love you"

I dunno how you could see this as not being psychopathic. Like, consider if someone did this to you, how immensely disruptive it would be.

― Οὖτις, Monday, June 23, 2014 2:32 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

Can't believe this scenario could happen on a show whose first episode opened with a bunch of garbage men literally breaking Louie's window and banging garbage can lids in his face

― 龜, Monday, June 23, 2014 1:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, i think you have to make allowances for the fact that "louie" is a work of fiction which often relies of stereotype and hyperbole and all the other things fiction does.

i mean, sure, in real life if someone did that it'd be cause for serious alarm, but the show itself helps dictate the terms on which we're supposed to take it, and after a few hours louie himself wasn't all that upset so that's a cue to the audience not to be either.

that's a really really bad example because louis switches back and forth cleanly between magical realism and somewhat sardonic television "reality" with real skill and discretion. The garbage man bit is not meant to be taken as something that's actually happening so much as it's the sense of what-it-feels-like made concrete. the sequence with pam selling all his furniture is NOT A DREAM! NOT AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! It's sold as someone you care about coming into your house and selling all your shit because they think it is time to move on from the things that are holding you back. Pam can be read as a controlling and overreaching psychopath for doing this but she could also be seen as someone who is taking a risk and helping louie move past his past, get rid of all the old shit from his marriage that even his kids are finding kind of pathetic for him to keep around. both views are possible and not too far from the truth and that duality of vision, fuzzy morality and stubborn insistence that there is not a "point" to these interactions any more than there is a person in the right for many of the things people do as couples is one of the big selling factors for me of louie as easily one of the best shows on television. it's closer to g.m. marquez than g.r.r. martin and i'm super happy that a cable broadened dial allows for both.

but even in the context of the first-order "reality" of the show, I think we witness hyperbolic, exaggerated actions/reactions by characters all the time--things that are accepted more easily in fiction than in reality-reality.

and of course one of the things the show does, sometimes (and I agree the garbagemen thing isn't a good example), is to make the boundaries between the show's ostensible "reality" and some kind of sur- or hyper-reality indefinite. that hasn't happened as much this season as it had in previous seasons, but it's still a part of the show.

i love that ilx is swarming with dainty flowers that would run screaming from a woman who told dirty jokes and breaks balls

Your Reese's-esque melding of the ad hominem attack and the strawman argument never grows any less breathtaking to behold.

The othering of ILX

can the subsandwich speak

Watching CK's special Shameless, it's funny how with the Pamela Part 1 controversy no one mentioned that half the jokes in this hour-long special mention rape of one kind or another.

i love that ilx is swarming with dainty flowers that would run screaming from a woman who told dirty jokes and breaks balls

― am0n alb4rn (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, June 26, 2014 10:00 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't run screaming, and i don't necessarily care about shows having "likable characters," but a lot of her actions seem more like passive-aggressive meanspiritedness than your normal joshing around.

which is fine, for the show that is. IRL if a guy kept coming back to a woman that abused him like that it would seem... dysfunctional. maybe that's the point. or maybe they are just exaggerating her ball-busting-ness for effect. who knows? i certainly don't. i'm going to sleep.

honestly don't see anything unbelievable about his behavior - wrongheaded, sure, but there are lots of folks like him IRL. he's convinced himself she is his soul-mate for some reason and her spurning him just makes him desire her more, because he doesn't really want her, he's after the elusive Pamela-totem. so any of her negative behavior towards him doesn't really dissuade him at all. maybe the passive aggression is her way of trying to hope she finally makes him give up?

I remember having a period like this in my own life when I was 19, lonely, naïve, and depressed, and there was a friend of mine who I thought I was in love with who kept clearly telling me "it won't happen" and I kept hearing "maybe" anyway, and kept telling her how I felt for a period of two years, until I alienated her so much that we drifted apart. she wasn't pass-agg like Pamela, but she could have been and it wouldn't have mattered.

it doesn't seem like pamela is trying to spurn louie anymore, but she's still being a dick

i'm not quite done w/ season 2 yet so I'm still a bit behind

all this aside. Pamela's totally the funniest character on this show. She's a lot funnier than the actual comedians.

Yeah well the couple of stand ups I know aren't particularly funny IRL.

what you think they're gonna give away quality laughs for free

Spent some time contemplating this show the other day and came to the measured conclusion that the funniest moment was Ricky Gervais fingering Louie's butthole.

i'd have to think about it some more but first impulse is "i diarrheaed in the tub"

I agree that the Pamela stuff for the past couple of episodes seems to stretch past ball-busting and into near-abuse, to the point where I was rooting for Louis to just *give up* on her already. It makes the relationship feel not-quite-right, which may be the intended effect for all I know.

Still think the funniest moment was in S2 when he's apartment shopping with Pamela and he sees the homeless dude on the street get swapped out for a different homeless dude by mysterious suitmen.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/07/californication-pamela-adlon-interview-louie-rape-scene-tv-recap-culture-debbie-harry.html
key quotes:

It’s been four seasons, and I still can’t decide if I even like Pamela.
Yeah, when we were fleshing out the season and he told me I threw away his furniture, I was like, Okay now, she’s like a monster! A crazy person would throw away somebody’s furniture.

And the fact people were talking about, Did Louie try to rape Pamela? Was that a rape? Or calling it rape straight-out, which was nuts, because I never saw it like that, because they had this kind of over-the-edge connection and relationship. They do a push-me/pull-me thing. I know that one thing that motivates Louis and drives him is characters that don’t explain why they do what they do. You just see things happen and play out, and you don’t get a neat little button at the end of it. Pamela and Louie are both as flawed as the next person, it’s not cut and dry.

The notion that we’re being careless and putting some kind of dangerous message out is offensive to me. But I can’t help what people feel and what reaction they give to things. I said something to Louis at the beginning of this season, which was that when we’re doing stuff, more than going for a laugh or anything — or a reaction — we’re going for a feeling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUsXjqkCo8o
adlon at 1.15 in a wizard costume opposite a mohawked johnny depp

Renewed for another season (only 7 episodes, but maybe they're long ones), starting next Spring.

LA Times

ultimately

this season...

i felt like the hungarian romance was wayyyy too drawn-out... it could have been a two-epper and had the same impact.

that is all.

Been rewatching S4 - works better if you ignore the episode titles and treat it as a long episodic movie of sorts, if that makes any sense. I thought it was a lesser season at first but there are just so many amazing scenes. I agree that the Amia plot could have happened over fewer episodes, but those also contained the Louie/Janice material, which was all dynamite.

i haven't read this thread and i just saw the episode where he goes on a date with parker posey and they wind up on the rooftop.
it was chilling -- i have no idea what was going on or what exactly is up with her, only that it definitely wasn't what he or we were seeing. when her facial expression changed? yikes. i don't think i'll forget that.

i trust you haven't seen the other posey eps then. it gets complicated.

no, i saw the one where she was working in the bookstore (months ago) and i remembered her being charming and smart. then last night we were like oh yeah let's watch louie and she went into the bar, and then the clothing store, then the stairs and i just feel sad and confused about it now. the episode with the suicidal alcoholic friend had the same effect on me. maybe these ppl are like one grade too real.

parker posey (and chloe sevigny) eps are the peak of this show imo

idk man, he's got a real weird relationship with women and it's probably my least favorite aspect of his comedy.

kinda agree? the fat girl ep was partic lame

he definitely has a weird relationship with women

the opening bit to this ep was about how small women must go around feeling like they're getting sprayed in the face with jizz because men can't help but objectifying them

it really grossed me out!

can't believe i typed that but i also couldn't believe he was saying it so

yeah I think that's pretty clear. He seems to be aware of it on some level.

xxp

the fat girl ep and ensuing thinkpieces were p weird to me in that Louie seemed to get credit for "giving" agency to this character for giving her the opportunity to spout a monologue (the authorship of which I don't recall - did he write it?) and then have the character promptly disappear never to be seen again (which, granted, is not unusual at all for this show but still)