And when you really think about it, you can almost see a direct parallel between Louis’s character Louie and Henry in Eraserhead. Just think about the infamous dinner scene in beginning of Eraserhead in comparison to the season opening with Louie and his girlfriend in a diner. Both Louie and Henry are perennially wearing a face of perplexed anxiety or confusion as they kind of meander through life, just trying to get by while the duel fears of failure and parenthood loom over them. The absurd characters that pop up on Louie really do feel like they could have been plucked from Lynch’s own coffee pot, for example, that kid who “diarrhea’d in the bathtub” or the parents that just pounce on Louie for help, it seems, whenever he goes to pick his daughters up from school. There’s also Louie’s use of long, painfully awkward takes that leave you questioning whether to cringe or to laugh, that feel inherently Lynchian in their almost uncanny delivery. Whether you can see the multiple comparisons or not, there’s no denying last night’s episode was one of the best of the season and proved not only that Louie’s writing just keeping getting better and better, but that if David Lynch really isn’t making movies anymore, then perhaps it’s time someone gave him his own late night talk show.
