Christina Murphy
Columnist

The fourth episode of the fifth season of “Louie” begins with Louie’s brother, Bobby, solemnly telling him that he’s happy for all the success Louie has in his life and how he wishes he could attain the same.

The episode is called “Bobby’s Place,” and although only one scene of the episode takes place in the apartment, it is brought to Louie’s attention that he never actually visited Bobby’s before, which makes sense considering Bobby and Louie’s detached relationship.

Bobby laments about how he has “no money, no skills, no twitter” and is envious that Louie makes money doing the things he loves. The episode ends with Bobby laughing uncontrollably at what a mess Louie is. Why did he have this change in heart about his brother? Well, it all begins when a ravenous woman assaults Louie while waiting at a bus stop.

Louie tries to calm a fight that has broken out between the woman and a man, but gets caught in the crossfire himself. This woman is fed up with all men as a gender, so she takes to sucker punching strangers on the street. Seems reasonable. Louie then has to go home to his two daughters and explain that a woman caused the bruises on his face. He stresses how it was a “woman” and not a girl or lady, as they keep referring to her, because “women are strong.”

His final stop on his tour of emasculation is Pam, who too laughs at his face because he got “beat up by a girl.”  But Louie is not there to get laughed at, he’s there because he needs her. He has two shows and does not want to explain the origins of his bruises and scratches to an audience of people.

While making him up, Pam suggests that she completes his look with lipstick and eye shadow so that he can have “the greatest sex of his life.” Pam throws on a baseball cap and they engage in a gender swapping role-play. Louie’s drag persona is a soft-spoken southern woman named Joanetha, naturally.

During sex, Pam violates him in such a way that has him screaming “no.” Of course Louie is no stranger to odd sexual encounters, although this one takes him out of “weird people who are into weird things” territory and places him into the category of “victim.”

Afterwards, Louie tries to start a conversation about his feelings towards Pam and question where their relationship is headed. Pam shuts him down and tells him it’s over. Louie is left all raw and vulnerable with black eyeliner running down his cheeks and mismatched concealer smeared across his forehead.

“Louie” is always pushing the envelope, so to speak, with the take-away messages of each episode. CK enjoys taking your perception of one issue and completely flipping it on its head. Considering how Bobby admires Louie’s life on the surface, but then truly seeing how he feels always being out of control and pushed around, is true to how most of us live. We never really know what’s going on up in someone’s apartment.

“Louie” shows on Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. on FX and is also available on FXnow.