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

never ever thought i would be happy to see nick dipaolo.

real talk

I really liked these episodes, but one thing I couldn't figure out, particularly in the 3rd ep: the scenes with his daughters had this really sentimental music playing each time he explained that taking a job hosting a late night tv show would mean that he'd see a lot less of them, etc. And there was something about the way it was done that was just completely not typical of the tone of the show—which, I know, is about constantly upsetting our expectations—so much so that I wondered whether it was a gentle parody, like 'this moment is serious and heartfelt, cue serious heartfelt music'

― America's Mobile, Friday, 21 September 2012 17:03 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this is true, like an extra step
the scene w/his daughters coming over to give him a card almost made me cry. or him in times square - not hollering at a building, just him in times square. he has a lot of bathos, i guess he is this perfect mix between looking tough & looking doughy & vulnerable, it just slays me.

or those shots of him running through the streets, & then w/the kids joining him. he films new york so fucking beautifully! like the arrangement of the shots was super ambitious & smart, w/a camera intersecting & then driving alongside him. killer.

I wondered if the kids running with him was unplanned, like the dude flicking off the camera in the opening sequence (which I hope isn't gone for good).

ah, I guess it would have to be scripted or they'd be waving at the camera. It was a nice touch, anyway.

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/402/vlcsnap2012092120h31m48.png
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6106/vlcsnap2012092120h31m20.png

idk man i thought the same

great payoff. whole arc felt very honest, and i was surprised that it did't stay dark all the way though, but the uplifting part wasn't too cornball. the one ridic thing was how baffled louie was by basic talk show convention -- like asking your guest a question or w/e.

that was annoying. "ok, do an interview." "WHAT?!?!?!??!"

however, dad night live ftw. really great episode.

So the four Oscar winners this season = F. Murray Abraham, Robin Williams, Melissa Leo, Susan Sarandon?

JB Smoove must have an Oscar by now.

lynch has a win right? (Best director for I believe elephant man?)

Nah he was nominated but Robert Redford won that year. Also nominated but lost for Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr.

Yeah the problem to me with stretching this to 3 parts was that Louie seemed caught off guard for too long, like wouldn't he have regained his footing with Dahl sooner? But I'm always a little bothered by the Louie "character" in this show- I want him to act more like he does in his stand up (which is very real life Louis CK) and have a fuck it attitude, but the character he is playing is just bumbling and lacking confidence a little too often.

otm! the guy in that standup bits and the character are two separate entities.

After that interview scene I now really just want to see a set of clips of louie baffled by everyday life.

Lynch: "Tie your shoelaces."

Louie: "Like use that ends of the, what is that, is that like string? I do the knot, right?"

Lynch: "Introduce yourself"

Louie: "Hi, I'm David Lyn.. oh shit, I'm sorry, can we try that again."

Lynch: "Open that door."

Louie: (falls to the floor and starts foaming at the mouth)

Hahaha

Love when they pan over to the agent sitting there on the side at the end of the scene in the office.

Uh...I guess that was the end of the season? Odd, but I liked it...maybe?

http://i.imgur.com/7wsiS.png

A++ ep

Holy shit, what a fucking finale. Wow.

loved it

really can identify with the spatial thinking & manual dexterity deficiencies that went into the doll surgery

Seriously that might have been the best single ep ever, expect that it was clearly dependent upon knowledge of the last two seasons? So maybe not as great a standalone as "Eddie," but still pretty damn great.

that was really great, uh huh. the doll sequence was bravura, like the pace at which its depravity deepened.

the bus reunion was kinda amazing & shocking & the next scene really beautifully put together - the non-standard ER bleeps, the slowness in focusing.
this was a touch overscored i think!, but yeah this was great.

There was a new episode tonight? Dammit.

Also some kudos for not having a single person in the whole China sequence speak any English. The whole time I was expecting someone to come along with broken English to deliver some line that would become the season-ending epiphany or whatever. Not being able to communicate with anyone made the ending a lot more profound (as much as it kills me to use that word)

the china thing was kind of retarded

psa: nothing described as retarded is ever as bad as the deployment of the word retarded

i thought the china thing was pretty good! i know a sorta WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY AND PULL YOU INTO THEIR HOMES message is maybe a little pat, but i feel like the story had enough use for it that it worked; like louie as utterly unanchored guy whose kids have just descended like a family portrait down an elevator shaft, able to just go honour his least fleshed-out-impulses (ie "china looks nice") & be aimless somewhere else. in similar kinda-flimsy-representations-of-nations territory, i thought the synchronised river-gestures part, with the guy, was really beautiful to watch! & that the meal did sorta demonstrate something & wasn't just a cloying happy ending (it sorta rhymed, to me, with the veselka ending to s1, only in this case louie is having to find some sort of contentment w/o his kids).

happy to defer to someone w/actual on the ground investment or affiliation to china if this all seemed uncomfortably reductive though.

I really liked the first part a lot, but the last half didn't do much for me. Such is the Louie experience.

i know a sorta WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY AND PULL YOU INTO THEIR HOMES message is maybe a little pat, but i feel like the story had enough use for it that it worked

plus this shit actually happens! as i can attest with a guy bringing me/my mum/this other couple in to his home in egypt to drink tea w/ him so he could try out his english and my mum was teaching his daughter to whistle. foreigners be nice and stuff.

schlump's post otm. the elevator scene was pretty surreal in that regard. i also liked the dream sequence; particularly the way it reflects how he really has no idea what kind of people his daughters going to become, and how not only would they not see him on regular basis, they wouldn't even see each other.

ya i just felt like foreigners be nice and stuff was a dull note to end the season on

(xp)

some of the tenses in the dream sequence were rad, i wish it had gone more in that direction. also that someone had been wearing the rabbit hat from whichever season it cropped up in.

kept remembering the bus reunion today, whoa heavy

interesting how he tied together ducks/his youngest daughter/traveling abroad once again

I hate new years too.

i strongly reject any suggestions that there was any retardedness in this episode whatsoever. i live overseas and thought the china stuff rang true. i loved how they wrapped up (for once and for all!) the daddy's girlfriend arc. plus, this is destined to be the most fucked up run-it-every-december christmas special EVER

did louis buy the duck book for his daughter for xmas because of the afghanistan duck?

i'm gonna go watch it again!

i didn't think of the afghanistan duck! that's a nice touch.

someone translated the chinese dialogue:

The guy with the three-wheeled truck misunderstood Louie. He thought Louie was referring to the closest river.

Louie: Excuse me. I'm looking for the Yangtze River.
Driver: I don't understand what you're saying.
Louie: Yangtze River, with ducks. Yangtze.
Driver: (A) River?
Louie: River. *in Mandarin*
Driver: River.
Louie: Yea.
Driver: I'll take you there. Take a seat in my ride.

Once they arrive, driver gets off the truck.

Driver: Follow me.

As Louie walks across the "river".

Driver: Slowly. (Or "take it easy". Something like that.)

Once they stop.

Driver: This is a river. River.
Louie: River? *in Mandarin*
Driver: Yes.
Louie: Yangtze River?
Driver: Yes.
Louie: That's it.
Driver: Yes, this is it.
Louie: OK.
Driver: If that's all, I'm going to leave now.

Driver walks away. Scene.

The second scenario is very sweet, especially if you understand what the people are saying. Louie is basically invited by a bunch of strangers to have a meal. There were no mentions of money, or anything monetary for that matter, in case you're wondering.

Louie meets nice old lady.

Louie: Hi.
Lady: Hi.

Lady leads Louie into the house.
Somebody: Someone's here to eat.
Guy in hat: Come over! Come over! Come over! Please take a seat.
Louie: OK.
Somebody: Take a seat.
Guy in hat (to lady): Grab a bowl. (or rice, could not tell)
Everyone: Eat! Eat! Eat!

A nice woman gives Louie some vegetables.
Another nice woman: Eat! Tasty!
Louie: Thank you very much.
Guy in black suit: Which country do you belong to?
Louie: What? I don't understand.
Everyone: Where did you come from?
Guy in white suit: Which country did you come from? America?
Louie: America. *in Mandarin*
Guy in white suit: England?
Louie: England *in Mandarin*
Guy in white suit: France?
Louie: France *in Mandarin, pronounces it wrongly* [perhaps pronouncing it like 'melon'?]

Everyone laughs.

Guy in hat: You came all the way to Beijing to my place to be my guest.

Louie repeats after the guy in hat.
Everyone cheers.

that's great!, ty for posting

so i guess now we know why tape recorder was acting a little off that night she went out with louis? why she was double fisting it & getting hammered at the bar not long before? that little wistful look before she didn't jump off the building, etc?

from an interview w/pp in july, as it happens:

"She’s haunted. That’s what you see in that moment is not someone pretending so much but, you know, something that came up that made her shut all the doors. That kind of depth of pain in someone can be very real, and the happiness and the force that you see in how much she wants to live and connect is medicine. She’s reaching out. All of that is to save herself. You heard about her cancer, right? She tells him everything, she really opened up. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, but a person can frost over. Like, I said too much!"

i actually don't remember if she mentions it in that episode or not

She talks about being ill as a child in the date episode.

was just about to say, she tells louis about having cancer as a teenager in pretty deep detail on their date. wow, that's really haunting!

what is rad is how in a ny mag interview, iirc, she also played dumb, convincingly, about whether her character would return, & said she wasn't in the season again with a kinda showbiz "but we'll see!, i hope so!" attitude. the way she's threaded through this season - inc in her absence, cf the sevigny ep = is dope. louis is a big fitzgerald fan, i think, & he has the KILL ALL YOUR DARLINGS thing down.