Louie - General Discussion

[benteen]

The show seems to be descending more and more into surrealism.  I agree that nothing this season can match up to the Letterman arc.  Six episodes of Amia also couldn't match up to that one date episode with Parker Posey.

[peeayebee]

Fun to see the restaurant, MariVanna, in this episode since I was there a few weeks ago. However, it's Russian, not Hungarian so I was confused about how close the languages are and whether or not a Russian speaker could translate so easily.

 

I assume within the show this was a Hungarian restaurant.

 

I liked this ep. Of course there was the comedy -- the news report about the hurricane, the weird guy looking for a dog (not his dog) -- but I thought it was very sweet how it ended. I loved the line in Amia's note that she had lots of feelings that she's put in a bottle and can perhaps give to Louie some day. I also liked that Louie had just assumed she was ashamed of having had sex with him. I guess that goes to his self-loathing.

 

The waiter wiping his own tears away was touching.

 

Louie being a hero by rescuing his daughters and ex, as well as comforting her, was like his (the character's) fantasy. I'm not sure what it means. Maybe showing that despite losing this woman, Amia, he still had a lot in his life that he would literally go thru hell or high water for.

[peeayebee]

Well, THAT was uncomfortable, as I'm sure it was meant to be. Louis CK is a smart enough guy that he knows Louie's behavior with Pamela in the apartment was wrong. It doesn't matter that Pamela had said a couple of days ago that she was interested in pursuing the relationship because now she has changed her mind. His forcing a kiss was terrible -- and yet, Pamela's reaction was hilarious.

 

Of course he was on the rebound. The speed and overtness of it was astounding, but then this is a sometimes surreal show. When he comes home and finds Pamela lying on the red couch, he thinks back on the first time he saw Amia -- sleeping on a red couch. But he's just a complete mess.

 

As always, I loved the doctor's words of wisdom. Yeah, it's weird to say that love is all about missing the person, but he has his wife in mind, so it makes sense that that would be his opinion. Still, as usual, even though a lot of what he says is wacky, there are kernels of truth. That sadness that Louie feels really is his love for Amia. Missing a person is a good thing. It lets you know that you care about the person. 

[Lakewood27]

I really didn't care for this last episode. Was I supposed to find that funny? I was too disturbed by Louie dragging Pamela by the arm to laugh at her anger that even his attempted rape was a fail.

[CodeNameDuchess]

This episode was really unsettling.  I can't believe Louie would get all rapey like that, especially with his girls in the apartment! 

 

Six episodes of Amia also couldn't match up to that one date episode with Parker Posey.

 

Definitely.  I thought it was interesting that he took Amia to Russ & Daughters where Posey's character originally took him on a date.
 

[Lone Wolf]

I don't know whether the broken English translation made it seem more emotional than it would have been otherwise, but I thought the letter was very sweet, as was their relationship in general, again possibly more so just because of the communication difficulties.  I too liked the waiter wiping away a tear, and also the fact even though Louie was speaking directly to Amia he was initally gripping the waiter's wrist. 

 

Did anyone else catch how Lilly and Jane were smiling when Louie and Janet were hugging?

[Lone Wolf]

Maybe I'm too much of a romantic, but I'd like to think that within the show's universe they left the couch behind for Louie because that's where he met Amia, even though given this show’s hard New York City edge, the truth probably is that there just wasn't room left for it on the truck.  Regardless, him finding it moved the plot along nicely for Louie's counseling from the doctor (whose dog, remember, doesn't have 3 legs, but enough legs).  In addition to that perspective, I liked his philosophy that forgetting about a relationship is what should really make you sad - kind of a variation on "Better to have loved and lost...".

 

I was getting nervous about the borderline attempted rape, so it was a comparative relief when Louie explained himself.  But that didn't make it right.

[annzeepark914]

Did anyone else catch how Lilly and Jane were smiling when Louie and Janet were hugging?

 

Oh yeah...and you just know these little kids were hoping this meant mommy & daddy would get back together--even in the midst of a terrifying hurricane!

[ganesh]

I'm surprised Janet was losing her cool. I mean I know it was a bad hurricane, but she seemed really scared. 

 

I liked the the whole story. It meant to me that even though you're older and have kids, and baggage, it doesn't mean you still can't have something.

 

Although yeah, I'd be studying Hungarian every day. I mean, come on.

[slasherboy]

I couldn't listen to what the waiter was saying because I was so distracted by the small piece of paper.  He kept reading and reading and reading and I thought surely he'd either turn the paper over or there would be another page. But no, that whole thing was written on that itty bitty piece of paper.

 

But that's just me.....

[ganesh]

I'm also sure that Louie CK knows this isn't acceptable behavior, so I'm interested in seeing where this goes. It's creepy that his episode, which was produced probably several months ago at the least, aired nearly on the heels of the shitstain in Santa Barbara. With nearly the same justification; I'm taking control now. 

 

So does Pam let him off the hook or what? I mean, that's sexual assault. 

[DrSpaceman]

Completely agree with uncle benzene, I found that girl annoying. I have the general idea what her point was, and its fair.....I mean Louis was just on the OTHER end this time. He usually is hitting on women out of his league, now he saw it from the other side

Still I saw it as one big guilt trip from her. He isn't attracted to her in that way yet she wouldn't give up. If a guy tried that routine, would come across as a creepy stalker

[annzeepark914]

He kept reading and reading and reading and I thought surely he'd either turn the paper over or there would be another page. 

 

Me too!  It was driving me crazy...I was so distracted, wondering...how small did she write to get so many words, paragraphs onto that little piece of paper.

[DrSpaceman]

It was a nice letter and a touching finale for the two, but I found the storyline boring.

IN general I find this show very hit and miss. Its sureal and at times some of the stories I just don't connect with

This story was a miss for me.

[Milburn Stone]

I am a huge Louis CK fan.  I even watched his old show and I never miss him if I know he is going to be on a talk show. Loved his earlier seasons but I am just not loving this season.  I don't see any humor in it.  The whole lack of "continuity" thing didn't really bother me that much until I had to give too much thought to whether the white lady in his flashback was his ex wife or was he showing us that he was married before.

 

I might be in the minority, but I loved the flashback to young Louis and Janet. It seemed so true to how people are in their twenties, the choices they make and the choices they avoid. (At least in my experience.) Louis' colorblindness to casting (a white actress to play the young version of a black character? why not? we wouldn't object to a Greek-American actress playing the young version of a Jewish character) is awesome; the world would be a better place if everyone felt race and ethnicity mattered as little as Louis apparently does.

[Jenny K]

I think the only thing I'm liking this season is Charles Grodin.

[Wordy]

This was a horrifc episode.

Incredibley smart but also horrific.

 

Like a shark that tells really really good jokes.

[Pallas]

I loved the flashback to young Louis and Janet. It seemed so true to how people are in their twenties, the choices they make and the choices they avoid.

 

Beautifully put: the choices they make and the choices they avoid.  

 

I too thought that scene was extraordinary.  The context: holed up in a hotel -- the fakest of fake homes -- to escape the daunting, much-too-real specificity of one spouse's childhood environment.  The uncanny acting by Conner O'Malley as Young Louie, which reminded me of DeNiro as Young Vito in Godfather II: not an imitation but a fecund suggestion, a furthering of what we knew.  And the awful irony that the "best sex" was like mutual masturbation, only shorter...and then, topped by the life-changer that this "best," "last" act had in fact created new life.  Two forms of new life: a living child, and, a dead marriage transformed into a zombie.  

 

Louie's scream mid-session, and the extending of the joke to show him, the teeny-tiny screaming man, way up in the faceless office building in some faceless midtown block.  Followed by his returning to his seat like a kid who threw up at his desk in first grade, his absence and eruption ignored.  The therapist's getting down to brass tacks, and the couple's fleeing this possibility of getting somewhere.  United in their hapless allegiance to the status quo.  (Butch and Sundance: "Well, we tried going straight...")

 

A marriage and a divorce where we're shown that what's gumming up the works, is bullshit.  And past bullshit, maybe there are no "works" at all; maybe there never were.  I love all the different "Nope, that's not it" suggestions for how it might get done.  Divorce: well, shit; doesn't work a whole lot better than marriage.  Therapy: it's not a funeral; it's a celebration!  So let's try connecting with a partner from across the sea, love without words or sex: and whoops, congress is not in session, but still, we've got gridlock.  

 

Romance as a malady for which there will be no ribbons on our lapels.  Louie's an amazing diagnostician, and I don't ask for a protocol.  

[Fisher King]

I loved the switch to the younger stand-in couple discussing a rational, kind divorce, then having the best sex ever with their clothes on. The lady therapist was a total waste of time and money and told them nothing they didn't already know. They've always gotten along very well as divorced parents and things seemed to be going well with the girls for the most part. Jane's violin playing just slays me, it's so beautiful.

 

The longer story arcs have definitely given this season a different feel. It lags for me a bit in places but the good parts are good.

 

The TV weather people are nuts.

 

Woman: Hurricane Jasmine Forsythe wreaked havoc in the south, packing winds of 1600 miles per while and gusts up to four. Damage from the storm is upwards to thrumple dinuziti dollars and 18 cents.

Man: Storm center experts say there's a seventy ten chance that Jasmine Forsythe will make landfall in NY.

Woman: Weather guy? What can we expect from Jasmine Forsythe now that Cuba is gone?

Weather Guy: Well, technically Cuba is not gone. It's still there, it's just under the ocean now.

[peeayebee]

Here's an interesting article by Matt Zoller Seitz, one of my favorite TV bloggers.

[LindaT]

Well, I have had to change my expectation of the show in order to appreciate it.  It was always quirky but still funny.  There aren't many TV sequences that can make me laugh like Louie trying to get that doll ready for Christmas morning.  Now I view it as an art piece that won't make me laugh or even chuckle but will make me think.  When I go into the episodes like that I enjoy it better.  Maybe this season is more of a character study of Louie's relationships with women.  Not funny... at all... disturbing at times... but still good (I may be trying to convince myself).  Sigh, I want head-sawing, Letterman-taking-over, Louie back!

[hincandenza]

I liked that article, but I disagree with the use of the word "trolling". That term used to mean the kind of immature commenter who would intentionally say shit stirring, extreme things they didn't really even believe, just to get a rise out of people.

Louis/Louie is being *provocative*, and art can be very uncomfortable. I think the author of that essay really hit on one facet of this season, Louis tweaking our real-time outrage reactions to TV.

I disagree with some posters here, because to me watching, that scene was not "borderline" at all: that was as clear and sadly as realistic as any sexual assault I've seen on TV. It wasn't some snarling, cartoonish predator who'll be dead or in jail by the end of the CSI or L&O episode. It was our hero, our star, and generally a decent guy... who frighteningly will not hear "no". Kudos to Louis and Pamela for having the guts to write and film that scene. I also think a parallel can be made to the season 3 episode where Louie is raped by the woman in the pickup. Both were extremely uncomfortable, but this Pamela one especially so because the other shoe hasn't dropped.

Theres a theory that I can partly buy into (especially with the hurricane episode this week) that the childish surrealism means this season is taking place largely inside Jane's dream. Me, I think Louis CK the creator is egalitarian enough that this season is like a surreal dream of Louie's: his own worries and fears at the world his daughters will grow up in, and at elements of sexism with which they'll have to struggle, and our shared difficulties as a society mapping out our transition to a more equal and safe future.

[hincandenza]

This episode has cemented in my mind that some part of this season really is Janes dream. While Louie has often used surrealism or fake language (like the nonsense doctor talk in the episode last season when Liz dies) in service of comedy, I think the absurdity of the recurring news casts, and the whole Louie rescuing his family heroically and embracing Janet plot, seems like a child's narrative. Even the random guy in the street looking for a dog is like a childs nightmare of what their parents warn them about, strangers who get too close, offer candy, or for help "to find my puppy".

Also, I absolutely loved this episode for its cinematography and symbolism; he really is like a younger Woody Allen in his prime, and I'll have to rewatch this for some of the beautiful shots.

Oh, one in particular: when he was following Amia to the church, did anyone else read that as "vampire", like she went into the church so he couldn't follow? The fake rain amping up until it looked like some guy out of frame was just spraying him with a fire house had me in stitches.

Tara, I have to disagree that the language difference is some frustrating flaw of Louie's, to date a woman he can't really have a relationship with; I think that's a conscious choice artistically to highlight how difficult it is for men and women to communicate sometimes, and for Louie in particular.

[ganesh]

Louis CK isn't trolling. I actually don't think Louis gives a shit about the internet. This is the problem with television right now. We're in probably the best age of tv because there's a lot of room for all sorts of shows, and even more now that netflix has proved original content can be delivered by different platforms. But watching the show isn't enough anymore. TPTBs feel the need to go online and explain every little thing about an episode or bloggers have to split hairs and dissect everything so they have something to write about and this means seeing things that just aren't there.

 

True Detective was a perfect case study of this. Viewers obsessing over the color of a dress. At the end of the series, TPTBs (to their credit didn't say much during the run of the show) were dumbfounded that so many people thought there would be some supernatural element involved in the conclusion. People don't just watch a show anymore and miss the context as a result. 

 

Of course, I have no problem talking about a show online like this, but there's a critical threshold wherein you get to this level. Louis has literally total control over the show and its content. He's doing what he wants. This year he's trying something different. Whether it works or not is a legit discussion. But he's not doing it to troll the internet. 

 

 

Bottom line: I wonder if the show's creator and star Louis C.K. is aware of how Twitter and Facebook and recap culture have changed the way we watch TV, particularly by putting social pressure on viewers to have a loud and definite opinion on an episode right now.

This is absolute drivel and garbage. If you want to use Twitter and FB (and here) to enhance your viewing experience, then that's great. It's not on Louis to be aware of how people watch tv shows and then adjust how he makes his show accordingly. If you're a TPTB on a show and you're using social media as a crutch (*coughMentalistcough*) then you have a shitty show and you're doing it wrong. 

WTF does Louis CK care how people watch his show? And why should he? 

[LindaT]

I might be in the minority, but I loved the flashback to young Louis and Janet. It seemed so true to how people are in their twenties, the choices they make and the choices they avoid. (At least in my experience.) Louis' colorblindness to casting (a white actress to play the young version of a black character? why not? we wouldn't object to a Greek-American actress playing the young version of a Jewish character) is awesome; the world would be a better place if everyone felt race and ethnicity mattered as little as Louis apparently does.

 

 

My comment wasn't about a race thing. Of course the world would be a better place if...  Having his wife played by a woman of a different race made me have to put thought about if the flashback was actually about her or not.  I questioned whether he was adding a layer to his character that he was married to someone else before.  His lack of continuity is not brilliant it makes his show that much less entertaining.  His stand up comedy is brilliant, his story telling is brilliant, his business model with his web site is brilliant.  Hiring a white actor to play a black character is not brilliant. 

[benteen]

With all the attention the last scene with Pamela is getting, I'm surprised there wasn't more attention for a similiar scene from last week's episode when Louie dragged an uninterested Amia into his apartment and forced himself on her until she finally responded in kind.  Like I said, Louie has been very rapey this season.

[peeayebee]

Also, I absolutely loved this episode for its cinematography and symbolism; he really is like a younger Woody Allen in his prime, and I'll have to rewatch this for some of the beautiful shots.

 

I loved the shot where Louie and Amia were in a gazebo, I believe, and it was foggy, then she just walks away. It reminded me of the final scene in The Third Man, though the two scenes are not exactly the same, but still, my mind went there:

[Ronin Jackson]

Hiring a white actor to play a black character is not brilliant. 

 

I'd say it's been the other way around since the Janet character was first introduced.  It's a black actor playing a white character.  The kids are not bi-racial and were introduced much earlier, so the far more vexing aspect of it was when Janet was introduced played by a black actor.  Is that brilliant?  No, but I don't think it's trying to be.  It's different.... it's one of those things that can only happen on this show because it's one of the only shows on television where one person has complete creative control.  Personally I'll take things like this that can at times be vexing about this show because I applaud being able to watch something on television that is truly an example of one person's unique creative expression.  

[Ronin Jackson]

I think the whole point of the relationship and the arch of this story was that Louie was falling in love with someone with whom he can't communicate.  Of course he could have learned Hungarian, or she could have learned English, or they could have used Google Translate, but that's not the point.  The relationship was more symbolic and surreal than realistic... that's pretty much the case with the whole show.

 

The show is hit and miss for sure, but I love it because it's one of the only shows on television which allows one person to have such a unique creative vision.  If television executives could review the script and put the kibosh on various aspects of it, it would be a completely different show.  Some of the more awkward, painful moments would be gone, but so would some of the best things about it.  I'll happily take that trade... I wish there were more shows where television executives had zero input.

[LindaT]

If LCK decided to hire a black actor to play a white character or a white actor to play a black character, that is fine.  All I am saying is that if you go to a flashback of the same character 20 years in the past and now the character is played by an actor of another race, it is confusing and can turn some viewers off.  I don't think that by doing that it makes LCK brilliant, other aspects of him do that.  On talk shows he talks about how he doesn't care if there is a show or not, this is a symptom of that.  It is a 40+ year old millionaire version of "Look what I can do and get away with it".    Show runners who care about another season, building their audience etc... would care more about continuity.  That is all I am saying. 

[Fisher King]

I completely understand your point, metalgirl. The thing I learned early on is to expected the unexpected. Louis has always thrown continuity out the window. That's one of the things that makes this show unique, for me anyway.

[Milburn Stone]

I'm surprised Janet was losing her cool. I mean I know it was a bad hurricane, but she seemed really scared.

 

Don't forget, everybody in Brooklyn is dead.

[Ronin Jackson]

I understand the point as well... I mean it confused the hell out of me too.  And on a different kind of show that sort of thing would bother me a lot more.  I mean 99.9% show runners do care about building an audience, and about continuity on some basic level.  On this show, it's been established over and over again that LCK isn't concerned about continuity, and yeah he'll do things just for the sake of being different and because he's the only one on TV who can.  This is an example of that, no doubt, and I certainly don't think it's brilliant or really don't have an argument that there's any point to it.  I'm just happy there's one guy on TV who has enough control over his show to get away with things like this, because it makes so many other aspects of this show possible that I truly do appreciate.

[Tara Ariano]

Louie remembers his past.

[Ronin Jackson]

I still get laughs out of the show, but it's definitely been delving deeper into the darker uncomfortable realms, which I don't think is new to the show.  It's just been more prevalent.  LCK is obviously acknowledging the "rapey" aspects... which is as uncomfortable and taboo a place as he's ever taken the show.  I do think he's got a responsibility if he's going there to do something with it (not just go there for the sake of going there), and we probably won't find out what or if has anything in store until the end of the season.  

[ganesh]

Honestly, if he pulls that with Pamela again, she needs to kick the shit out of him. 

[Irlandesa]

With all the attention the last scene with Pamela is getting, I'm surprised there wasn't more attention for a similiar scene from last week's episode when Louie dragged an uninterested Amia into his apartment and forced himself on her until she finally responded in kind.  Like I said, Louie has been very rapey this season.

 

I brought that up elsewhere in  a discussion of last week's episode.  It was not received well by some other commenters.  I guess because Amia eventually reciprocated, it's okay.  It's "seduction" or "foreplay."  Now, obviously she gave in and I never claimed it was rape.  All I was saying was that I found it unsettling that Louie never let go of Amia, even when she was trying to leave.  It reinforces some really old fashioned stereotypes of "seduction" that I don't like very much at all. 

 

 I don't know if Louie meant for the scenes to be different or two shades of the same thing but clearly the recreation wasn't unintentional. Ultimately,  both "consented" although with Pamela, it was clearly against her wishes.  Giving in  was a way to get out and not make the situation uglier.  So I'm very interested where he takes this the rest of the season because there is some kind of theme going on, I just am not sure what it is.

[peeayebee]

I don't know if Louie meant for the scenes to be different or two shades of the same thing but clearly the recreation wasn't unintentional.

 

I feel pretty confident in saying that this was a deliberate parallel on his part. Amia, in a sense, had no voice, contrasted with Pamela who was very vocal about what she wanted and didn't want, and yet Louie wasn't really hearing either one of them. I don't know. When the last ep airs, I'm tempted to rewatch the season binge-style.

[Milburn Stone]

Ultimately,  both "consented" although with Pamela, it was clearly against her wishes.  Giving in was a way to get out and not make the situation uglier.

 

I can tell that I saw a different scene than those who have commented so far, but I'll share what I saw. I saw a Pamela who was fighting her own demons, more than she was fighting Louie. She has intimacy issues; when, ultimately, she consented to whatever strained level of affection she did, that was with her consent, not under duress. She didn't yield (in her limited way) to save herself from worse, she yielded because that part of her needed to, even while another part couldn't handle it. All respect to those who saw nothing more than the simple black-and-white of a man not hearing that "no means no," but I saw something a little more complicated than that.

[peeayebee]

I do think that Pamela has intimacy issues, but she was also very clear that she didn't want to kiss him. He kept pushing, so she gave in just to get it over with. I think the scene was much more about Louie not listening to Pamela than it was about her problems.

[Milburn Stone]

I think the scene was much more about Louie not listening to Pamela than it was about her problems.

 

To me those two things are inseparable, because the reason Louie keeps pushing is that he knows the deepest part of her wants some sort of intimacy with him. Now, yes, that's what probably half of all garden variety rapists think. What makes Louie different from any garden variety rapist is that Louie happens to be right. She does want intimacy with him, no matter how she denies that part of herself. Without this sureness of knowledge, a sureness that comes from his truly knowing her, Louie's actions would be indefensible. But with that sureness of knowledge--a sureness that, it bears repeating, is correct--his actions take on a somewhat different complexion.

 

I think we all probably agree on one thing, which is that Louie would not rape her. Even as overcome as he was by his own need for connection, he wasn't so far gone as to take things beyond Pamela's limit. Any Louie that would go beyond this point is a Louie none of us would want to know, let alone spend four seasons with. The fact that he is happy with a kiss--happy, completely fulfilled, to establish the most basic mutual bond with Pamela--is consistent with the Louie we know. If Pamela had felt violated by this kiss, not only would we condemn him, he would probably condemn himself. But she didn't.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Milburn Stone

[possibilities]

I don't understand why you think he's right. I didn't see anything in Pamela's behavior to indicate this was the case at all. It really does sound like the typical rapist self-justification, to say that despite what a woman says and does, the guy actually knows that what she really wants is what he wants, contrary to all evidence given in her words and her behavior.

 

The out of touch way he was all "YES!" after she left, to me just showed his profoundly delusional state.

 

When that woman raped Louie last season in the car, was she actually right that he really wanted it? He protested with less vigor than Pamela did in this week's episode, but I see no ambiguity in the fact that instance was rape, either.

[Milburn Stone]

I don't understand why you think he's right. I didn't see anything in Pamela's behavior to indicate this was the case at all.

 

I guess this scene really is like a Rorschach Test--different people will see different things in it, depending on their own life experiences, understanding of the way the world works, ideas of human nature, etc. That kind of complexity and nuance is part of what makes this show so great, IMO.

 

In a way, the scene fit a certain trope that romantic films have been exploring for decades (and romantic fiction and drama, comedic and otherwise, for centuries before that). One which requires agreement from the audience if it is going to work--and therefore may not work anymore, as the audience becomes more splintered in its response. Basically it could be expressed as: IF two people would be best off if they could both just realize how much they need one another, and IF it takes an act of audacity on the part of one of those people to make both people recognize the truth of this, THEN it would be a great shame if that act of audacity never happened.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Milburn Stone

[Lakewood27]

IF it takes an act of audacity on the part of one of those people to make both people recognize the truth of this, THEN it would be a great shame if that act of audacity never happened.

I guess sweeping a woman off her feet and taking her up the grand staircase doesn't happen in real life. In real life, the man awkwardly hovers over a woman, then aggressively moves in for a kiss, then drags her by the arm, tries to unzip her pants and take off her shirt, all while she's saying "no". I know life isn't like the movies, but this was too real. And I know Pamela has intimacy issues and probably needed a nudge, but trapping her as she's gunning for the door? It made me uncomfortable.

[Milburn Stone]

About the colorblindness in casting, here's what I take Louis to be saying: "Look, I get it that some of my casting choices might confuse some people at first. But the world would be a better place if we didn't even notice color. And so, dammit, I'm gonna act like the world already is that better place! Because there's no better way to bring the better world we envision than by making choices as if that better world were already here."

[Lakewood27]

Casting different actors to play the same character reminds me Deconstructing Harry. It's jarring at first, but you just kind of accept it as part of the storytelling.

[ganesh]

I think that was the point. Louis probably is going somewhere with this, since it was only part 1.

[Irlandesa]

All respect to those who saw nothing more than the simple black-and-white of a man not hearing that "no means no," but I saw something a little more complicated than that.

 

 

Sure that scene was complicated but what justification is there for Louie ignoring her "no" as he did?  Your basic argument is that Pamela has issues.  Fine.  Possibly.  But why do those potential issues rob her of the right to make choices for herself? Why do her reasons not matter unless they are good enough to the man chasing her?

 

I don't know why we're so sure that deep down Pamela wants to be with Louie.  With the exception of a fleeting invitation to have a bath with her and when she got back from France, after separating from her ex and kid, she really hasn't expressed much desire to be with him.  It has been mostly on Louie's end.  Heck, one could even argue that her attempt to get close to him this season may have come as sort of rebound for her.  Speaking of rebound, Louie's on the rebound and Pamela recognized it which may also be why she said no.

 

Pamela feeling scared to get involved, or thinking logically they work better as friends or not wanting to get involved with a man on the rebound, all of those are good enough reasons to not want to get involved with/kiss/sleep with Louie even if she were desperately in love with him.  Pamela not shaving her legs that night and not wanting to sleep with Louie because of it should be enough reason for Louie to hear her "no."  Cuz you know what?  Her body, her choice.

 

I think we all probably agree on one thing, which is that Louie would not rape her. Even as overcome as he was by his own need for connection, he wasn't so far gone as to take things beyond Pamela's limit.

 

 

Do I think Louie is going to rape Pamela?  No, I don't think Louie CK will take him there.  But then again, I never though I'd see Louie raped like he was last season.  And I didn't think I'd ever see the character push a woman screaming "no" towards his bedroom. I don't think he'll go there but is he fully capable of surprising us in service of a larger, non-continuous message?  Yes.

 

I think time will tell if she felt her limits were violated but I want to talk about Pamela's "consent" in that you're right, our views on it will be shaped by experience.  At that point, she was trapped.  Louie was telling her that he was in control.  Pamela had two choices there.  She could play it nice or fight him.  Fighting him wasn't working. So she "consented" to the kiss because she figured if she let him kiss her, he'd let her go.  And that's what happened.

 

I see it that way because I have been in similar situations.  I've been groped without my consent in bars.  Pushing the hand away just means another replaces it.  But grabbing the hand that was on my ass and sort of start "dancing" until I get get away?  That works better than any 'no' would.  I was once pursued by an older married man who was a client at work.  I had to keep turning him down.  He didn't respect my "no"  until I invented a boyfriend.  Then he backed off.

 

A majority of men respect a "no" but all it takes is a few to not respect it and/or for the rejection to lead to ugly consequences for someone to realize it might just be easier to think of a rejection that doesn't come off as a full rejection (fake significant others, fake numbers, turning an attempted kiss into a hug per LCK's stand up) than it is to have to deal with someone who won't respect a "not interested."  Unfortunately, who will take which approach is hard to determine.

 

*Pamela parts II and III are coming up so of course this could be written as a non-issue.   But that would disappoint me because it would mean that there were two episodes in two weeks where a woman was depicted as saying no but Louie persisted and was "right all along."  Just another in a long line of fictions where women just don't know what they want which means more fake boyfriends for me.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Irlandesa

[Uncle Benzene]

I could be wrong, but I don't think Louis is really making any kind of "statement" about race per se. A long time ago, I read an interview in which he explained that she just happened to be their favorite actress among those who auditioned for the role. Nothing more, nothing less. And that they decided not to let racial continuity stand in the way of casting her. In my opinion Louis and crew deserve credit for that, and for not shying away from the inevitable questions the casting choice would raise (both in terms of the show and in terms of race in general) but I don't think making a point about race was part of the decision, just a side-effect.

 

Similarly, I'm not sure Louis really set out to explore (let alone make a statement about) what does and does not constitute sexual assault/rape with the Amia and Pamela situations. Again, I could be wrong because I haven't read any recent interviews, but I certainly don't think Louis set out to paint Louie as a creep at best and a sexual predator at worst. I'm sure he wasn't blind to the kind of reactions it would certainly generate, and again didn't shy away from that. But, again, I think it's more of a side-effect of the storytelling choices he's made, as opposed to the point of them.

[Milburn Stone]

Not that it's necessary for me to say this, but I want to: I value the perspective of those whose life experiences made them see things in the scene that are different from the things my life experiences made me see.