This week’s episode of Louie may have had an unfair chance of living up to my own expectations. Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing that I knew ahead of time that the show was going to include Sarah Silverman, Maria Bamford and Marc Maron. With those three names, I expected the world, and that was a bit unrealistic.

But those juggernauts don’t appear until later in the episode. First we revisit one of many unstable women Louie’s met throughout the show’s run. My girlfriend pointed out to me that almost all of the women on the show are insane. Whether its this mom, who likes to get spanked and drag Louie to IKEA and play husband, or if its OSCAR WINNER MELISSA LEO. Sorry, she’s the type that necessitates all caps. So the only visibly sane women that come to mind are Pamela, who works on the show with Louie and appeared in the first two seasons and his ex-wife. “Spank me” mom drags Louie to IKEA because Louie won’t acquiesce to her request to going to therapy. In IKEA the two have a typical couple argument about a carpet. She freaks out and Louie doesn’t give a shit, as he shouldn’t. Louie is reliving the worst that marriage has to offer.

On the way back from the IKEA she says that he owes him a blowjob, further proving how off her rocker and in need of therapy she is. Louie decides to ask for a rain check on that. I can’t help but feel this is a way to replay life as married as a way to see how horribly mundane it is. I didn’t love this character in her first appearance and I’m still not much of a fan. This lead to the episode’s second half, which was solid, but ultimately left me feeling underwhelmed.

We get our first visit from one of the big guest stars when Maria Bamford interrupts Louie’s first piano lesson. As he’s chatting with the teacher, Maria calls to inform him that she’s got crabs and he probably does too, so “fuck you/sorry”. This provided the main laugh out loud moment of the episode, but it ultimately felt like filler. Louie goes to the pharmacy to witness a supremely awkward conversation between an old woman and pharmacist. It was probably the best segment of the episode, which speaks to my disappointment in the last act with Silverman and Maron.

Louie’s watching TV and sees his old stand-up from the 80’s. I love that we get to see some young Louis CK, Silverman and Maron from back in the day. We see Louie look at himself in his computer and compare it to what he looked like then. It was a great, but brief moment. This is more pointed when he sees Silverman perform back then and realizes that she actually looks better now (it’s true!). Marc Maron comes on stage and speaks the truth. He’s more political than Louie, Maron was and is a very smart, thoughtful comic. When Louie sees Maron perform, he remembers that there was some horrible thing that happened that ended their relationship – they haven’t spoken in ten years. Any fans of Maron’s WTF Podcast will know that the two did have a falling out and its explored in an epic (and required listening) two-part episode of WTF. This is likely why I expected more out of their confrontation once Louie realizes that it was all his fault.

Louie works his way through an apology as Maron listens like a therapist while Louie works through it. Louie explains how “that thing” was his entire fault and he feels bad that they haven’t spoken for ten years. Maron seems impatient and it’s justified when Louie finds out that he made the exact same apology five years ago. He cried that time, but not this time. Louie feels terrible, and Maron says he’ll see him in five years when he apologizes again. Maron asks Louie if maybe he can call once in a while. My expectations were certainly subverted by the direction Louie took this part of the episode. I was expecting another Dane Cook/Joan Rivers conversation, but maybe that’s what he wanted us to think. That Louie’s already done this and already screwed up his chances with Maron didn’t really make me laugh, but it was certainly unexpected.

This episode was fine, but not great. I’m sure many comedy nerds out there will go gaga for just seeing Maron and Louie on screen together. This episode made me just want to listen to the conversation again, which was incredibly in depth and personal. This felt like a joke that just fell flat. I would have never thought I’d miss Dane Cook’s face.