Parker Posey and Louis C.K. (courtesy FX Networks)

“Daddy, when are you gonna have a girlfriend?”

As a forty-something father, that’s probably something you’d rather not hear from your 10-year-old. The silver lining was that Louie went out and actually met someone at a bookstore.

What was nice about this girl (played by Parker Posey) was that unlike the other women Louie has had the misfortune of running into, she was the down to earth girl next door that wasn’t damaged goods.

In other words: normal.

But my, how a week changes things. It’s not quite fair to say that this woman, who initially only offers the name “Tape Recorder,” is damaged goods, but she certainly isn’t all there on this date with Louie.

A visit to a bar with Louie ends quickly when she’s declined a drink “after what happened last time.”

Louie misses that moment and she tells him the place is too crowded, so the pair spend the evening walking around Manhattan. While on this evening stroll, they go into a shop where she asks Louie to put on a dress. It’s something she says she’s never asked a guy to do before and after his initial objections, he puts it on. She laughs, we laugh and Louie’s facial expression says anything but. 

Later, when they pass across a homeless guy on the street, she sticks around and talks to him. The guy sees snakes everywhere without his meds, of which he is currently out. So after a bit of prodding from Posey, Louie, being the good guy that he is, buys the guy a full pill bottle.

Not too long after that, they enter a building where she prompts Louie to climb story after story of stairs to get to something that “will be worth it.” That turns out to be a nice rooftop view of Manhattan— probably not what a gassed Louie had in mind.

When she sits on the ledge, Louie gets very nervous—who wouldn’t, right? — and she asks him to join her, which he declines and instead pleas for her to get down. She says that the only reason he’s afraid is because there’s a chance he might jump because "it's easier", something he has no reponse for. This is a liberating moment for her. She doesn’t want to jump, she’s “having too good of a time.”

As she gets back down onto the rooftop, she asks if they can go home now, and finally gives the well-deserving Louie her name: Liz.

If you took any one of these incidents and had it by itself, I think you could chalk it up as Louie meeting someone “interesting” or even “free-spirited.” Put together however, you have someone who treads the boundary of being crazy.

To a larger point, yes, some-- most-- guys would be willing to put up with that from a cute girl—Louie being a case in point. Many television shows have had the "crazy" girlfriend trope, but "Louie" sets out to make that person real and someone you can actually have empathy for. At least in my book, mission accomplished.

Ultimately, Posey sells this episode and she joins Melissa Leo in a line of strong female guest star performances this season. I’m not sure I (or Louie, for that matter) could handle having her around more this season but it was nice to see Louie go out with somebody who was a nice kind of crazy.

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