# Louie: Season 5 of Louis CK's FX show **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 11, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389 "2015-04-11T00:37:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/21 "2015-04-20T20:16:55Z")
Yes, that is interesting–thanks. (And I was surprised to hear him say that the FX producer/decision-maker told him they would pay only for a partial season). ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/22 "2015-04-21T01:19:58Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Yes, that is interesting–thanks. (And I was surprised to hear him say that the FX producer/decision-maker told him they would pay only for a partial season). I believe it was because they had already planned on it not being on and there was no money set aside in the budget. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/23 "2015-04-21T02:01:21Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I’m curious about the French film clip. Seemed strangely familiar but the actress is given her own credit with nothing to indicate it was a previous clip. Same here. It either reminded me of a film from an earlier episode in the series, or it reminded me of Liz (who is dead now). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/24 "2015-04-21T02:03:38Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Possibly an interesting fact: Louie wanted to take a year off and not do a season this year. This season is a [bad idea he had while high](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJIsjuokKJo). He mentions how he had an idea where he meets Eddie again, and Eddie has cleaned up his act. That would be a good episode, because I love Stanhope. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/25 "2015-04-25T00:40:45Z")
Michael Rapaport was as good in the latest episode (“Cop Story”) as he was in _Justified_. That guy’s got _range_. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/26 "2015-04-25T12:26:38Z")
I loved the opening scene. “Maybe I’ll take my business elsewhere.” “Please do. Try Williams-Sonoma; they’ll be very indulgent with you.” Ha! ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/27 "2015-04-25T23:16:26Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > I loved the opening scene. > “Maybe I’ll take my business elsewhere.” > “Please do. Try Williams-Sonoma; they’ll be very indulgent with you.” > Ha! Yeah, that was well-done. LCK does that a lot: sets up a situation in which someone seems to be inexcusably rude to him…but then you can see him actually considering whether she might have been _right._ You could see him wondering if he, on some level, really _did_ just want a young Asian chick to pay attention to him–and that maybe he wouldn’t have asked to see the pans if there had been a male clerk there, instead. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/28 "2015-06-04T12:16:34Z")
Just watched it this week and really loved it. There were some moments that were a bit off for me, but I still want more Louie. It felt like he took it to an even darker place this season. Maybe because so much of it felt designed to humiliate himself? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/29 "2015-06-04T20:36:09Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Just watched it this week and really loved it. There were some moments that were a bit off for me, but I still want more Louie. It felt like he took it to an even darker place this season. Maybe because so much of it felt designed to humiliate himself? Very Freudian! (Sorry!) But, yeah. I’d put it more in terms of LCK having an interest in exploring the consequences of being born to the society-granted privilege inherent in being a straight white male–what do you do with that? Feel guilty? _That_ can’t be right, but on the other hand… My guess could be wrong, of course, and everyone sees different things in a work of art (which I’d strenuously argue is a fair description of _Louie_). But this guy returns to the topics of relationships between the sexes so often that I can’t help feeling he’s fascinated by the questions of what’s fair and what’s reasonable and who owes what to whom. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/30 "2015-06-05T10:49:43Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Very Freudian! (Sorry!) But, yeah. I’d put it more in terms of LCK having an interest in exploring the consequences of being born to the society-granted privilege inherent in being a straight white male–what do you do with that? Feel guilty? _That_ can’t be right, but on the other hand… > > My guess could be wrong, of course, and everyone sees different things in a work of art (which I’d strenuously argue is a fair description of _Louie_). But this guy returns to the topics of relationships between the sexes so often that I can’t help feeling he’s fascinated by the questions of what’s fair and what’s reasonable and who owes what to whom. Yes, true–I felt that in the scene where he’s beaten up by a girl and can barely bring himself to fight back. And on top of that, his daughters laugh at him and his girlfriend emasculates him. And then dumps him! Also, in that scene where the store owner berates him for what she sees as his entitlement–telling him that the store doesn’t exist for him to get his ego stroked by an attractive Asian clerk. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/31 "2015-06-05T20:12:21Z")
He’s also clearly (I think) struggling with the question of how he can reconcile his guilt over not being as kind to people as he could be, with his wish to do as he damn well pleases. (This may have been most strongly presented in the episode “Untitled”–the one with the nightmares–but also came into play in the first part of the two-part season finale.) ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/32 "2015-06-06T07:11:55Z")
It almost feels like a lot of these are conversations he’s had with people in real life but he’s saying what he wishes he could have said, like when he started to tell off Lenny in Cop Story or when he was talking to the store owner who didn’t show him the copper pots. Of course, it usually ends somewhere else or with Louie getting schooled. I’m reminded a little of a scene he cut from I think season one involving a woman bumping into his daughter and then refusing to apologize. But now it feels like he’s going a step further–he’s not just putting in wish fulfillment scenes that represent what he’d like to happen. He’s kind of putting himself in his own place, too. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2015, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389/33 "2015-06-06T13:15:02Z")
I’ve caught up now. Weird season. Some really poor quality stuff. The worst is when he resorts to standard sitcom tropes. The “see it coming a mile away” stuff. I.e., the basic humor bits. The best is the non-comedy stuff. When he’s dealing with harsh, uncomfortable or even surreal things. The show might be better if the comedy was left out entirely. There was a documentary about life on the road for comedians a few years back: [The Unbookables](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379206/). It is really bad for comics in the “never were/never will be” range. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/louie-season-5-of-louis-cks-fx-show/717389.md?page=1)