Louie’ is on an endless search this week, and in typical fashion doesn't get what he expects to find in either case.  ‘Louie’ season 3 frantically chases its ninth episode of the year, as Louie searches for Liz (Parker Posey) after their date in "Daddy's Girlfriend, Part 2," and later seemingly loses his eldest daughter Lilly as well.

Last week’s ‘Louie’ episode “Dad” saw Louie finding the prospect of seeing his father to make him physically ill, reluctantly agreeing to pay a visit at his uncle’s behest..   So how does “Looking For Liz / Lilly Changes” keep things moving forward?

Read on for your in-depth recap of everything you need to know about ‘Louie’ season 3 episode 9, “Looking For Liz / Lilly Changes!”

We open on our hero Louie at the comedy club, ruminating on stage about how he’s had trouble sleeping lately, though that doesn’t bother him.  By the time you get to age 44, you stop worrying about approaching death, and start to embrace the idea more as a relief.

That night Louie sleeps, haunted by flashing images of Liz, before settling on a longer image of the woman mouthing that she loves him, snapping him awake.  The next day, Louie heads to the bookstore in search of Liz, though the manager blithely tells him that she no longer works there.  Instead, yet another mysterious girl (Chloe Sevigny) seems to have taken her place.  Though Louie never got Liz’s number, the girl insists that he track her down in the name of love, even offering to help by finding Liz’s information in the store room.  She quickly gets rebuked by the manager however, and presses Louie to meet her after her shift in twenty minutes to continue the search.

Louie takes the girl to the exterior of Liz’s apartment, the last clue he had to her whereabouts, and after giving a brief description, Louie watches as the girl brazenly steps through traffic into the building.  Seeing as she doesn’t have a last name, the doorman denies her any information about Liz, and she leaves in defeat.  Cold, she asks Louie to accompany her elsewhere.

Later over coffee, the girl becomes more forcefully insistent that Louie not give up on Liz, in spite of his resignation that it wasn’t meant to be, and offers up a cousin that can track Liz down through insurance.  When Louie again balks at the idea of taking such invasive steps, she grabs his iced coffee and sticks it between her legs, suddenly crying out in ecstasy for all to hear.  Louie nervously glances around as she finishes herself off, before revealing that she’s married, and could get in trouble if Louie comes by the bookstore again.  Seriously…what?

Moving on.

On another day, Louie arrives to pick up his daughters from a school assembly, ignoring a teacher who asks for his help when he notices his daughter Lilly being bullied across the gym.  Rushing over to help scares off the girls picking on Lilly, Lilly herself remains angry and storms off.  And when Louie’s attempts to ask Lilly what happened fail, he takes both his daughters to the merry-go-round, and ice cream in hopes of cheering her up.  Still, Lilly only sulks, and the comedian flips her off behind her back.

Arriving at home, Louie directs his daughters to do their homework, but when Lilly snaps back at him, he raises his voice and tries to get her to cut the attitude.  Lilly storms off once more, and Louie resigns himself to the bathroom…with a laptop.   Eww.

Smoking a cigarette and using the computer from the toilet, Louie ignores his youngest Jane’s knocks, but upon exiting realizes that Lilly is nowhere to be found in the apartment.  Jane blithely claims that Lilly left the apartment, sending the comedian into a panic as he checks all around the house for his eldest daughter.  Taking Jane with him, he asks his neighbors (hey, remember them?) for help, though they’re too wrapped up in their own drama to assist.   Louie races downstairs with Jane in tow, calling for his daughter, but realizes he can’t leave the building should Lilly come back.

Later, Louie sits in his apartment explaining the situation to the police, though they balk when Louie reveals he hasn’t yet called their mother to see if Lilly’s there.  He reluctantly dials, though before he can explain the reason for the call, Lilly nonchalantly breezes by the officers and Louie.  The police leave in disgust, as Lilly reveals that she’d been in the closet the whole time with headphones on, common practice for her.  Regardless, she’s sorry about her mood earlier.

Later at the Comedy Cellar, Louie jokes about half-assing the safety of his children, making sure they buckle their seat-belts in the car, but never bothering when they’re in a taxi, and placing their lives in the hands of an exhausted foreign man for whom children dying isn’t very earth-shattering.  Oh well.

Sheesh, are there no well-adjusted single women in Louie's world?  We appreciate the effort to keep some continuity by following up on the Liz thread following Parker Posey's magnificent performance, but throwing in the next increasingly manic girl rather than offer any actual closure with Liz just winds up feeling hollow.  "Lilly Changes" feels like a much much more tense, organized vignette, but still doesn't really amount to much with it's (literal) cop-out ending.

Did you get your fill of awkward ‘Louie’ laughs?  What did you think about the episode? Let us know in the comments and check back next week for another all-new ‘Louie’ episode recap of “Late Show, Part 1” on FX!

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