There’s something in the water at that bookstore, isn’t there? Louie can’t stop dreaming about the off-her-meds Liz (Parker Posey) and feels drawn to return the bookstore where the met. I was looking forward to returning to this story, even if we didn’t really get any of Posey’s Liz this week. This became apparent when Louie goes into the bookstore to find another queen of indie cinema – Chloë Sevigny – as the new resident damaged bookstore woman. While Liz’s problems only came to light in the date, Sevigny slowly unwraps what makes her a bit strange in one episode.

When Louie enters the store and says he looking for the recently fired Liz, Sevigny offers to help Louie for the cause of a great romance. It would be another chapter in the storybook of life that Louie laments doesn’t exist, unless you’re a 20-something with plenty of life to live. Sevigny is a woman who is clinging to this idea. She offers to help Louie stake out where Liz lives and help reunite the couple. She fails when she bravely goes to the doorman and is shut down because she doesn’t know Liz’s last name. Defeated, they decide to go to a coffee shop.

Louie is ready to settle, saying that it just wasn’t meant to be. But Sevigny refuses to accept that. She thinks “not meant to be” is bullshit. So worked up, she begins masturbating next to Louie, part angry, part turned on. All mentally unstable. She reveals that she’s married and Louie shouldn’t show up around the bookstore and she leaves. It’s apparent she’s an unbelievably unhappy woman who regrets the turn her life has taken. Like the storybook stand-up portion of the top of the show, she hasn’t resigned to life being kind of shitty like Louie. She’s grasping at straws trying to find excitement, romance and a chance for her to hope that true loves and a happier life are around the corner. After she gets off, she leaves leaving Louie stuck where he was, resigned to the fact that he may never see Liz again. For the sake of what’s been the show’s strongest storyline, maybe ever, I hope he finds Liz – even if it doesn’t add a happy chapter to Louie’s life story.

The second half of the show opens in Lilly and Jane’s school. Louie quickly finds Jane waiting but can’t seem to fin Lilly. Ever the concerned father, Louie scans the gym until he sees Lilly, being teased by other girls. Louie approaches scattering the tormentors, but Lilly is clearly in a foul mood. Trying his best to figure out what happened and to cheer her up Louie takes the kids to a carousel. Louie gets nothing from Lilly, so the family heads home. When they arrive at the apartment, Lilly gives Louie some attitude, he yells at her and she goes off in a huff to her room. Louie takes a break (smoking and surfing the web while on the toilet) and tries to cool off himself. He comes out to apologize for losing his cool, but can’t find Lilly. When he asks Jane, she casually says that she just left. This is a parent’s worst nightmare.

Louie takes Jane outside, but can’t really leave the apartment in the event she comes back. This is a nightmare scenario for just about every parent, I’d imagine. Louie dreads the idea of calling his ex-wife to tell her he lost their daughter, the police is an easy call to make by comparison. CK does a great job directing the scene of Louie nervously scanning the apartment for his daughter. Using one long take as he goes around the apartment helped add to the realism of the panic. CK is often self-degrading when it comes to his acting skills, but the panic seemed real here, maybe because something similar to this has happened or he has run this scenario over in his head before.

Louie eventually calls the police and they coldly chastise him for not having called the mother to this point. As they are questioning him, Lilly walks by wearing headphones with a glass of milk and a book. She says that she was in the closet where she likes to read by herself.

Lilly apologizes for the way she acted, and it’s back to normal dad life for Louie. It’s a nondescript end for something that could have been catastrophic, which is often how panics end: not nearly as bad as they are in your mind. But CK did a fine job at realizing a universal fear for parents, and while it wasn’t as strangely appealing as the adventure with Sevigny, I always appreciate it when CK shows us the hopes and fears that go on in his head.

A quick aside, the tag at the end about how a parent's commitment to their children's safety flies out the window when thrown into a cab is absolutely true. If my mom, my brother and I had to go into a cab together, we'd often hold on to the strap in the back assuming that would save us from catostrophe in an accident. Too many broken seatbelts plus being in a rush means you're gonna bet on the driver not killing everybody.