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

I just can't watch it anymore... it's gotten too bleak for me and, yeah -- the jokes are few and far between. Still love his stand-up. The end to Season 3 was just great but S4 is like, soul-crushing.

at this point the show seems to be about promising that anything can happen, which draws you in, and then delivering ... nothing. (THAT'S THE JOKE)

I agree. It's 'excellent' but it's not a lot of fun.

honestly the biggest lol this ep was noticing they didn't have the money to pay for Zep's "No Quarter"

I miss the opening credits :(

Micah | Daba | Jenny | Lenny | Jacky

Not just No Quarter...the whole thing was filled with fake versions of well known songs. I definitely think I made out fake Blue Oyster Cult and fake The Cars. I found it kind of charming.

what do we think of that most recent episode with pamela? is this a good direction for the show?

Him sort of assaulting Pamela every episode? No, that would be a bad direction for the show.

there's two more episodes in the pamela storyline so i'm withholding judgement but that scene was pretty rough & gross obv

honestly the biggest lol this ep was noticing they didn't have the money to pay for Zep's "No Quarter"

Dude should use more Who songs. Townshend let him use "Who Are You" for $15,000 (which is apparently insanely cheap, as licensing goes).

i definitely look at the character differently after what he did to pamela. honestly though, that seemed kind of out of character for louie but maybe that was part of the point. i don't know: it bugs me because so much of the success of the show hinges on his likability. i mean, many of the arcs concern him learning something and it's harder to care about the emotional/intellectual development of a guy who assaults women.

i was wondering what the songs were, pretty good fakes.

can't imagine that the other parts of pamela won't wrestle with this monstrous side of louie in some intriguing way that spawns a million thinkpieces.

yeah the thinkpiece thing bothered me. the episode almost seemed opportunistic.

*louie sits behind desk, adjusts glasses* "I'll give those needlenecks at slate something to really talk about!"

you don't think it's plausible that he thought something like that?

kid louie looks like jack's kid from lost.

Halfway through and man this is grim.

legit more gripping than any "will they find the terrorist" bit on pick-yr-action-hour-thriller.

did anyone ever have a teacher as cool as the science teacher in these episodes?

yes

i fuckin wish

Reminded me of Prezbo on The Wire in a couple of ways, both his approach to teaching (connect the students' lives to the subject) and the teacher-student relationship.

Man everybody who is complaining that Louie is shit because it isn't funny anymore can get the fuck out of this thread

• After the bully gets beat up by his bro, camera panning right over Brad & Louie and then rests on a passed out kid who I didn't even know was in the room
• Renner intimidating Louie then hugging his cat after Louie leaves

Sort of got the impression Renner's character didn't want to be such a horrible arsehole to Louie in that scene but knew he had to be.

I def had science teachers like that.

complaining that Louie is shit because it isn't funny anymore

I don't think anybody's said this tbf

I do think he's better at being funny than he is at whatever it is he's doing now tho. I wouldn't say it's shit cuz it's still so odd and unique.

Thought the fake versions of the classic rock songs actually worked well. Added to the dark, surreal tone. I think hearing Van Halen or whatever would have ruined the mood.

if i had science teachers like that, my life might have taken a different turn.

Man everybody who is complaining that Louie is shit because it isn't funny anymore can get the fuck out of this thread

― 龜, Friday, June 13, 2014 12:09 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this thread is super frustrating imo but yeah this ^^^^ & also applied to all mathematical dissection of episode/segment success rate. it is so beyond that.

it doesn't seem to add up to much to me. or is that too much math for you.

like I haven't sat down and watched an entire ads-free season in one sitting, is that how it's supposed to be digested, as some sort of coherent whole? I kinda don't buy that.

this thread is super frustrating imo but yeah this ^^^^ & also applied to all mathematical dissection of episode/segment success rate. it is so beyond that.

Yesss. I often wonder how people who do this make it through an entire BOOK.

lol patronize much

Sometimes, man. Sometimes.

Loved the art show.

Wow. Meta Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

What I liked about this season is the way it somehow reminded me of Three Women. I like that some episodes rambled on as if someone was sitting in front of you telling a story and there are these non-sequitors, distractions. It flowed really naturally to me.

This season was very good, probably my favourite since the first, but I felt like a lot of the storylines wrapped too neatly, with forced little epiphany moments that undermined their complexity - or maybe Louie just sucks at endings. Although the Pamela episodes were probably the worst of the set, I liked their commitment to ambiguity, or at least the fact that they didn't end with one of Louie's patented dopey "and this is what this all means" moments (although the Marc Maron scene came close).

Re: complaints about it "not being funny anymore" - sure I get that, but really? It's still been plenty funny. More Annie Hall than Interiors.

Although the Pamela episodes were probably the worst the best of the set,

fixed this for u

prob excepting the maron scene tbh -- felt like lou was going for a mike yanagita vibe but it was off base imo

"it's true, my daddy poops out his back"

He's given himself something close to the freedom that a short-story writer has, so if he wants to mess with dark for a few stories, mess with epiphanies, mess with ambiguity, he has a rare-for-TV amount of flexibility to do so.

I'm not anti-epiphany - I just think he's clunky with them: the speech in the third episode, the fall at the end of the Afghanistan show, owning up to his science teacher - etc. The rest of the shows are usually so good, though - I'm just being nitpicky.

so if he wants to mess with dark for a few stories, mess with epiphanies, mess with ambiguity, he has a rare-for-TV amount of flexibility to do so.

yeah and I admire this, the show takes a lot of risks structurally and narratively. I just didn't like a lot of what happened this season I guess. The whole arc w Pamela just seems gross (she's a horrible person! and then there was the whole creepy proto-sexual assault thing ugh). lol @ directly addressing the race thing with his ex-wife and kids though.

Washington Post columnist Alyssa Rosenberg gets harsh:

I think Jane and Lilly are a critically important part of what this season felt like a tragic core to “Louie.” The same man who trusts so much in the minds of his daughters and tends them so carefully shows none of the same concern and respect for grown women’s brains and bodies. Louie may be raising Jane and Lilly to be smart, independent, even strange women. But he is also exactly the same kind of man who might make Jane and Lilly’s lives difficult and painful when they grow up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/06/18/the-tragedy-of-louie/

portrayal of Louie committing what appear to be two very different sexual assaults.

what was the second one, did I miss something? I can't really tell if Louie wrote Pamela in such a loathsome way so as to excuse his sexual assault-iness or what, the whole relationship is just gross.

When he tries to have sex with Amia, she resists him for a long time before acquiescing.

Adlon has writing credits on the last two eps fwiw

I think Pamela is weirdly/effectively Louie's dream girl, a perfect and toxic. She has the temperment of his fellow comics and mirrors his low self-esteem while also pushing him by breaking rules.

Side note: when the last episode starts with movers hauling out furniture, I assumed the Grodin character had died.