The Louie season 4 finale just aired with episode 13, titled “Pamela Part 2,” and episode 14, titled “Pamela Part 3.” Our recap breaks down the events of the two episodes.
After “Pamela Part 1” aired two weeks ago, the story took a week off last week. The week off left a huge elephant in the room, and this episode of Louie surprisingly didn’t address it. The elephant is, of course, Louie’s forceful ways of getting Pamela to kiss him without her consent. “You can’t even rape well,” Pamela said to him, making the situation awkward, saying the thing that was on our minds. Louie then did a fist pump, something that raised the weirdness of the scene to an even higher level.
Fast forward to “Part 2” and the incident is barely mentioned. Perhaps Louis C.K. didn’t realize the imagery he was creating in the scene, but that would be a surprise given how carefully constructed all of his scenes are. We need not look anywhere besides episode 2, titled “Model,” to realize that C.K. knows what he’s doing with the male-female dynamic, so this is bizarre that the rape imagery scene seems to be pushed under the rug so much. After the conclusion of the night, it appears that it won’t be a big factor in the next season either.
The first episode opened with Louie trying to get Pamela to go on a date with him. After a while she relents, and Louie is happy. Their date begins at an art gallery where Louie and Pamela walk through and laugh at most of the art. As they go through, the art gets weirder and weirder, including a piece that makes it appear as if Louie shouts the N-word and concluding in a pile of dead bodies.
After the weird art exhibit, Louie’s date planning becomes masterful. They get Chinese food to go and head into Central Park (which nobody does at night), and Louie pulls out a blanket. They look up at the stars, and much to Pamela’s surprise, the sky is filled with shooting stars that they wouldn’t be able to see in the city. Pamela is very happy and begins to kiss Louie.
Back at Louie’s apartment, Pamela doesn’t want to do anything and wants to leave, something that really hurts Louie. “Either you want to hurt me or you don’t care, but either one is a person I don’t want to be with,” Louie tells her, and this gets through to her and upsets her. From there Pamela warms up to him and they end up sleeping together. When Jane and Lilly return home, they are clearly happy about this as they really like Pamela. Together, the three ladies tease Louie.
In the second episode of the night, Pamela has sort of moved in and has gotten rid of all of Louie’s furniture, saying that he needs better stuff in his apartment. Even in this situation where Louie is very upset, Pamela knows just how to make him laugh.
Louie then takes Pamela over to meet Janet as he drops off the kids, and it’s awkward. Afterwards, Pamela addresses the other elephant, one that’s long been ignored. She wonders how Janet, a black woman, could be the mother of Louie’s two white kids. It’s a big surprise to see this actually referenced on Louie as it’s long been assumed race has been less important on the show than acting ability. Later Louie takes Pamela to meet his comedy buddies, and it’s another awkward situation as Louie’s former best friend Marc Maron is creating a stink about Louie not being happy for him after gaining a TV show. Unlike Louis C.K., Louie doesn’t have a show. (This would be perhaps too meta and is probably for the best, at least for now.) Pamela acknowledges that Marc is being the horrible one by demanding that Louie congratulate him.
Later, at his newly furnished apartment, Louie tells Pamela he loves her. She can’t say it back, and Louie takes it badly. After Louie runs out, Pamela makes a bath for them. She then reveals that being emotional like that is something she can’t do. This could be seen as a way to excuse Louie’s actions in “Part 1,” as if it was seemingly okay since she wouldn’t have been able to respond any other way, but this doesn’t excuse Louie acting how he did when she clearly didn’t want him to.
But in the end, they’re both on the same page. They know how the other one is comfortable communicating, and they’re comfortable with the other communicating in that way. And if it’s good enough for them, and if they don’t feel uncomfortable about the events in “Part 1,” we guess that will have to be good enough for the show.
Louie has been searching for a woman to love for four seasons now, and it appears he finally has one that cares about him too. It’s good to see, and we’ll just have to see if it lasts.
Louie has played around with different formats this season. It’s seemed to drift further into the drama aspect and further away from the comedy, and a lot of that is C.K. is trying to say more things. We can certainly commend him for that.