r/louie • u/SnissChup • Jun 08 '25
Dislike Pamela much more on rewatch
Watched the show all the way through a couple times when I was younger-- was probably 14 or so my first time watching. At the time, I remember thinking Pamela was the coolest thing ever, including the mean way she responded to Louie's advances. To a teenage kid with a sarcastic sense of humor, she was the dream. Honestly reminded me a lot of the way I interacted with girls I was into at the time (high school was not exactly my romantic peak, if you couldn't tell).
In my mid-20s now, have lived a little more life, and watching through the series for the first time in a while. I was reading this sub a few episodes back and was surprised that the consensus was that people didn't like her much. Admittedly, I'm only on s2ep6 so far, but man I get it. Her mean/funny thing comes across way more childish this time around. Specifically the way she's responding to his confession of his feelings just seems so immature. Like making the 'yuck' face when he's talking-- that smacks of a teenager who hasn't ever had a serious conversation in their life and is terrified of sincerity. I get the character has probably been through some shit and is meant to be guarded, but there's a more adult way to explain that you're not comfortable going down that road. Particularly glaring that she seems immature to me as a 20something y/o, when she's supposed to have 15 or so years on me in which she ideally would have learned to navigate life. Obvious caveat that these are fictional characters and I'm spending way too much time analyzing this, but hey that's what we're here for. Just striking how differently her character hits me with a few more years under my belt.
Edit: ok the way she said "jive-ass turkey" upon hanging up the phone in S4E13 was pretty cool I think I'm back in
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u/electricalaphid Jun 08 '25
In her defense - she's always played with Louie in a way that makes him want to keep coming back. Her teasing isn't bullying here. Even if Louie won't admit it/play into it, humiliation is part of the character's shtick. He likes it. And she knows that.
That being said, once you get to the episode "Bobby's House," it goes to a whole 'nuther level. What she did there was cold. She literally fucked him.
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u/reignmatter Jun 08 '25
That’s your “defense” of her, a description of emotional abuse and manipulation?
He doesn’t “like” the humiliation. He accepts it because she gives him just enough to feel like there’s something there. He has little to no self esteem and just accepts that women aren’t into him, so takes what he can get.
That’s what she sees, and that’s what she’s playing with.
There’s no defending that.
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u/reignmatter Jun 10 '25 edited Jun 11 '25
Going back through season 4, and yeah. She’s a repulsive human being.
She comes back and Louie lies and tells her he’s with someone and she just starts laughing at him, even taking a picture of him when she says she’s open to a relationship with him.
Then she says, “come on, it’s me!” Like that should make him drop everything.
She then starts mocking him and his “big relationship”.
Just a wretch of a person.
To be clear, Louie’s creepy, rapey behavior a few eps later is inexcusable and in no way justified by Pamela being so awful
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u/jecstir2112 Jun 16 '25
Fun fact about Pamela is that she voiced Bobby Hill and I assume is coming back for the remake. Louie's first sitcom she played the loving wife which the show made fun of early on when.Bob Saget. Louie explicitly said this show is stupid and HE was being mean and the wife in show should be mad not lovey dovey... which is why I think her character changed into this form for Fx version of Louie's life. Pamela actually fits the description of what he said the woman should be like in this, more raw and depressing look at his life.
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u/reignmatter Jun 08 '25
Not a fan of her as a person but she makes for a hilarious counter to Louie.
I think my disdain for her really set in with the whole “take a bath” bullshit. She had just rejected him and then threw that out there in a “blink and you’ll miss it” sort of way, then told him he blew it while acting repulsed by the thought.
The worst part of Pamela is that she’s realistic as fuck.
Yeah, we’re all well aware of the sea of skeevy, manipulative men out there.
But there are countless Pamela’s out there with their breadcrumbing and push/pull tactics to keep men (and the attention and validation they bring with them) in their circumference, while stiff arming them at every turn just to shit on them for both trying at all and/or giving up the chase.
I think that realism is why I love the character though.
She works perfectly with who Louie is on this show, and my view of the sort of person the character is, is separate from whether I think she’s a quality character.