Louie returned for Season 4 and he returned with more of a whimper than a bang (not that that’s a bad thing as I’ll explain). Yet, within those whimpers are moments of heart and alienation that are more in tune with real life than anything on TV. Rarely does a premiere go without a big laugh and instead deploys awkwardness that forces you to laugh as a way of dealing with your discomfort. The biggest laughs of the night were the two cover stand-up spots which also discuss Louie’s feelings of alienation throughout the episode’s long story (two fantastic bits about how we discover alien life might not go the way we want it to and how racist comments coerce friends his friends to speak in Penguin’s voice) finds him trying to reconnect with people he was previously in contact with.
While I’m unsure this isolation is not caused by Louie herself, she seems to make the same connection subconsciously when she puts a guy to sleep while he is talking to himself (“Oh my God, I’m a boring asshole”). I say this is unconscious because throughout the storyline Louie still continues this behavior. When she asks to go for a potluck dinner, he insists on making fried chicken even although there is no need for any other dinner dishes. Or when a lady she knew through her daughter wanted her son to join her for violin lessons, she honestly told him no, her daughter was better than his and he would not accompany her.
Louie is a observer of the contestants, never involved in his own stories. Even when he initially connects with one other outsider in the episode, his words are a bystander as he tries to comfort her. Her encouraging words to him were mentioned in the same breath “I’m leaving” and when she finally connected with him, her actions instantly pulled the two apart. The only lasting thing Louie does in this episode is piss off a lesbian mother-to-be. For a premiere, this has a really odd tone, but the awkward laughs and cinematic feel make this a superb entry into the Louie canon.
Louie premieres this Thursday night on FX
