‘Louie’ Recap: The 7 Most Soul-Crushing Moments From ‘Ikea/Piano Lesson’

If Louie has taught me anything, it's that eventually, you're going to be let down by something or someone you love. "Ikea/Piano Lesson," for me at least, was that something.

I've really been enjoying season three so far, especially the last three episodes (parts one and two of "Daddy's Girlfriend" and the tub-tastic "Barney/Never"), but "Ikea/Piano Lesson" wasn't as revelatory as the former or as funny as the latter. It felt disjointed, like C.K. tried to pack in too much (this was partially due to an abbreviated first act, and also that "Piano Lesson" was really three separate stories, about a piano lesson, crabs, and resolving grudges; the last two were tangentially related, but very loosely). That's not to say I didn't like the episode — the bit about the Ikea rug just being fine because "it's not coated with AIDS, it's not a portal to a netherplace" was great — but what it was trying to accomplish, to highlight that when you try to make amends with others, you're only doing so for purely selfish reasons, never quite landed.

Also, although my opinion of the bathing suit-as-pants-wearing Marc Maron ranges from blood-boiling fury to begrudging acceptance, which are also the names of his cats, I was still looking forward to "The Marc Maron Episode." But compared to Louis's classic WTF appearance, Maron's Louie was about as memorable as a sad "thank you for taking me to Ikea" blowjob. Or so I've heard.

• A step in the right direction: Louie had the balls to say no to therapy.
• Now that's how you use a flashback. As Louie remembers, so does the audience.
• During Louie and Delores's fight in Ikea, it was bizarre when the camera changed perspectives, and we saw what that intolerably perfect young couple was seeing. A Louie first? Also, calling your girlfriend "hasenpfeffer," a German word for rabbit stew, is horrifying...Unless he was referring to the Laverne & Shirley theme song, in which case, now I want to see a Louie montage set to C.K. "doing it his way, yes, his way."
• The actress who plays Delores, Maria Dizzia, last seen in "Bummer/Blueberries," looks a lot like Lindsay from Freaks and Geeks. That's not a bad thing.
• That Ikea in New Jersey is AWFUL, which still means it's one of the best in the country.
• "So, f*ck you or sorry. I don't know which one."
• The old lady explaining her poop patterns at the pharmacy was a one-note joke that went on for too long. It could be redeemed, however, if you pretend the pharmacist (played by No Country for Old Men's Gene Jones) isn't actually a pharmacist. Instead, he's a homeless guy who beat up the actual pharmacist, took his clothes, and gets off by asking senior citizens about their sh*t. The kid working the register wouldn't have noticed and/or cared.
• Where were Marc's cats?
• Louis from the 1980s (though it seemed like the '90s to me) looks like the kind of Boston jerk you'd want to punch if you saw him in a bar. Unlike '80s/'90s Sarah Silverman, who was adorable, if a bit too "LOOK HOW CUTE I AM."
• Line of the night: "It doesn't make me cum, but it's fine."
• Line of the night 2: "It's nice to feel sorry for other people. Who else is dead?" "Richard Nixon." "Awww."