Welcome to my recaps of season 3 of the FX television series Louie. Join me as I try to dissect what I hope will be another excellent season from one of my favorite shows currently on TV. I think what makes this show work is the ability for Louis C.K. to be self loathing and artful at the same time in unique and clever ways. Also, keep an eye out for my Breaking Bad Breaking Half column set for upcoming Mondays.
What should you know about Louie going into season 3? Absolutely nothing. As a consistent watcher, the one joy that I have gotten out of this show has been the lack of consistency episode to episode. I also enjoy that I never know to expect one solid narrative, or multiple stories spliced into one 30 minute chunk of time. Adding that Louis C.K. is an insightful, miserable every man with kids, a stand-up career, and a lot going wrong.
It seems only fitting that season 3 continues this tradition in the episode "Something Is Wrong." It begins with a stand-up bit in which C.K. describes his dick to be getting blurry and finds it reason to buy new glasses. When he realizes that his dick is really just blurry and his sight is fine, it opens up to discussion of getting a new one and why rich people haven't considered it before. The routine is familiar ground for the episode to start off with. It is also fitting that we start with one of the most personal problems (physicality) and move onto issues that seem less problematic in comparison.
The actual story begins as C.K. is trying to park his car. He sees multiple signs that contradict each other on whether or not he could park there. These signs include "Parking of Vehicles Only Authorized," and "Parking Permitted Anytime After Midnight." The sense of logic baffles him and another man (Steven Cambria) that while the segment ends with C.K. eventually just accepting his parking spot, it comes back during the closing credits for a humorous analysis of each sign.
Soon he meets up with his girlfriend April (Gabby Hoffman) for lunch. When he orders dessert first, it causes Abby to be confused on if he had lunch already. He claims that he didn't, but it causes her to get self conscious and begin rambling off reasons that he would be mad at her. Most of them include avoiding dinners with families, though she eventually considers that he's breaking up with her. The silent C.K. manages to take the blame without any assurance that this is the case. When her food comes, she angrily just pushes it to his side and walks away.
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| Left to Right: Adam Sietz and Louis C.K. |
As C.K. is getting set to leave, he notices that construction is happening around his car. He consults a construction worker (Adam Sietz) about this incident. The worker simply claims that C.K. shouldn't have parked there. C.K. is just upset because there were no signs that this should have been the case. It eventually comes to the point where a nearby piece of machinery smashes his car into a cube, causing C.K. to have to walk home.
During this time, he decides to stop by a motorcycle shop and see if anything captures his interest. While he does, he talks to the enthusiast owner (Stivi Paskoski) about random scars he has gotten and how cool it is to ride them. The curiosity slowly turns into a purchase and C.K. rides off into the day.
During this time, French music plays and things are going well. This is until other motorcyclist drive by. They are popping wheelies and intimidating C.K. It distracts him enough that he ends up colliding with a big shipment truck.
He wakes up in the hospital where a doctor (Peter Y. Kim) explains that he has no injuries, despite C.K. complaining about massive pains that cause him to limp. When he explains that it was a motorcycle accident, it causes the doctor to laugh at him and call it stupid. He has his head in bandages and is looking around miserable. He ends up having to call his ex-wife (Susan Kelechi-Wilson) to explain that he can't pick up the kids. When he reveals that it is a motorcycle accident, her sentiments are similar to the doctor's and that he is a fool for actually purchasing one.
The episode ends with him lying down on a couch with April attending to him. After he admits to feeling better, she decides to leave. She claims that she will take care of him, but is still hurt over the incident from that afternoon. She doesn't believe that they could be a couple. When it is suggested that he join her at a retreat with her family, she claims that it would only complicate issues and that things are better off this way. She walks out on him and he sighs with relief.
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| Left to Right: C.K. and Gaby Hoffman |
While I have come to enjoy the spontaneity of the show, I do enjoy when they tackle one story throughout an entire story. Sometimes it works, and others it doesn't. Here it works perfectly, if just because it is a slow burn of bad events happening one after the other. His dick is blurry, the signs make no sense. These are more believable things than what the rest of the episode dives into. However, the work never loses it's sense of reality. C.K. is on a quest to better his day, and only continues to make things worse. He becomes a sympathetic character and it works so perfectly because each move is plausible, and the general motive of the day (April) manages to come full circle by the end of the journey.
The biggest achievement in this episode is not that C.K. manages to wreck both a car and a motorcycle, but that he can convey complex human emotion without a word. It reminds me of old Groucho Marx rants from Duck Soup in which he starts off talking about meetings and ends up declaring war without anyone interjecting his speech. This is how I feel about the April story here, in which an insecure woman who doesn't like her relationship simply dumps him because he ordered food without her. It is a brilliant routine and gives a strong start to the season.
I'm sure that this will go down as one of the more understated episodes, but the series of unfortunate events is such a brilliant concept and rarely gets executed without some sense of delusion. While it just continues to contribute to C.K. realizing he's old and decrepit in some senses, it shows him at his best self deprecating moments.
Even a gag over confusing parking signs, which bookends this episode nicely, is a great touch. It is moments like this where Louie goes from being a self deprecating show about masturbation jokes and becomes so much more about human struggle. Most of all, the routines are as familiar as airplane peanut jokes. He brings a nice touch to it and while it is one of the more innocent moments of the show, it is also one of the more entertaining.
I am also just a really big fan of C.K.'s ability to use actors that we may not recognize and give them strong, prominent roles in his universe. They help to flesh out the low key familiarity of everything and those little character moments help to define the show in ways that bigger names probably would have become distracting.
Favorite moment: Definitely the diner scene in which April goes from asking why C.K. ordered food without her to running down a list of reasons he could be mad at her only to land on the idea that he hates her. It is a nice touch that C.K. is quiet for most of the routine and when he tries to speak, is silenced by her desire to be right. However, the one moment that I really enjoyed was towards the end of the speech when she asked for 17 seconds of silence, only to break it five seconds later. That summed up her character nicely and was a deserved slap in the face for anything that would happen after.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Check out more of my work at www.nevpodcast.com where I post every Wednesday and have a podcast called Nerd's Eye View.
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