Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
I was ready to point out that this was yet another episode with no Louie standup – but then realized, hmm, we did get some vintage Louis C.K. footage at one point, so that kind of counts, right?
Louie has always been a show without a set formula, but this season has begun to subvert even our expectations of the non-formula. For instance, I was really surprised to have such a direct “sequel” story with Delores (Maria Dizzia, in a full guest appearance, after her amusing little cameo recently), complete with a couple of flashbacks to Louie’s night with her last year. This hadn’t seemed like a show where we’d get such a genuine follow-up, but I think Louis C.K. is proving again that this show is whatever he wants it to be week to week. Most of the time, these stories are self-contained. But if he wants to continue a storyline from a previous episode…. Well, then he will.
And more power to him! Because Delores proved to be as messed up as ever, as she tried to get Louie to go to therapy with her and offered him a blowjob if he’d help her shop at IKEA. Louie’s eventual meltdown at her demanding he help her decide whether she should buy a rug or not was a classic Louie scene, with some amazing quotes: "It’s a rug. It doesn’t solve all my problems. But it doesn’t make me angry… It’s not coated with AIDS and it’s not a portal to another place.”
And yet Louie being Louie, he not only ended up tucking her into an IKEA bed when she had another emotional breakdown, but he left the door open for seeing her again sometime – after all, she still owes him that blow job!
It was almost a bit odd to return to Delores, whose crazy is basically all played for laughs, on the heels of Parker Posey's character, whose issues were played with far more drama beneath them. But again, this is a show that has no set tone, and it's interesting to compare and contrast the two - and honestly, it was nice to just get some good laughs from Delores' presence in Louie's life gain.
This episode actually had three fairly separate stories – While the title referred to two, only seeing Louie having just showered at the beginning of the third connected it at all to the second.
I really enjoyed that second story, which had yet another love interest, Maria, return, in a scene I actually found funnier than her previous appearance, as she told Louie she had crabs and thus, he had crabs. But since she didn’t know who gave who crabs, “F**k you or sorry. I don’t know which one.”
As for the scene with Louie at the pharmacy, it was great to not have it go the obvious route and turn into a (more) embarrassing moment for Louie. That pharmacist never turned his loud, uncaring attention to Louie – we just shared Louie’s experience of seeing an old woman have to answer way too many indiscreet questions about her urination and bowel movements.
The final story felt almost uncomfortably real, as we watched TV’s Louie watch footage of actual Louie C.K. when he was younger, thinner and had more hair. Louie looking at himself in the computer screen contrasted with his young self, clearly unhappy with the differences, felt very honest – but also with that knowing, humorous tinge that this show manages to capture in many of its more moody moments.
No, it didn’t have to be Sarah Silverman and Marc Maron playing themselves to make what followed work… but man, it felt right that it was. Both the real and fictional Louie have a long history as a comedian, and seeing these other famous comedians as people he’s known for a long time again added to a really compelling fly on the wall feel to it all. Last week, I wondered if Louis C.K. and Robin Williams really had never met and this week I wondered if Louis C.K. sometimes calls up Sarah Silverman, just to chat. This look behind the scenes at the lives of stand up comics is a really compelling part of this series.
The Marc Maron bit I can only assume is not real at all… but hell, who knows? Maybe he and C.K. did have a falling out at some point. (Someone's gonna totally know the answer to that in comments, won't they?) Either way, the joke of Louie not only realizing he was the one at fault but then being called out by Marc for making the exact same apology he made five years earlier was hysterical. You could kind of feel Marc’s punch line coming, as he said maybe he and Louie could have coffee or dinner sometime, “or we can just do this again in five years,” but it was a joke you wanted to hear at that point.
Oh, and Maron's outfit, boxers and socks (without shoes) included? Sublime.
Source : ign[dot]com
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