13x22 Amelia

Listen. My one surefire weakness is giving Louise a plot where she cares about something, where she’s vulnerable. I’ve cried over the movie because of this, and this is the second time I cried this season because of it after the Christmas episode. In the early seasons, Tina was the most dynamic character in part because they were still figuring her out, and so she grew from an awkward completely socially inept neigh hermit to a confident weirdo who’s found her niche and is unabashedly herself and upfront about what she’s into. She still has struggles and anxieties, but it’s often filtered now into frustrated or proud rebellion about what’s trying to hold her back, like with Tammy’s show, and along the way she genuinely grew into the insightful older sibling with advice. Still great stories with her, but she’s much more set than she once was.

Louise was from the beginning the character the writers were most excited about, first as just the funniest character, the agent of chaos, the shock value fountain, the most unique and distinctive draw in a show still trying to figure itself out. And as it did, it’s like they realized, ‘Okay, Louise can still be that, but she can be more too. We don’t want her to fall by the wayside or be ill fitting with the reputation we’ve developed as a show for weirdos, a show with heart. We want her to embody that just like she embodied our wild start.’

And we got Kuchi Kopi. We got her easy bonds with Bob and Gene, and the hard fought ones with Linda and Tina. We got Rudy, we got Jessica. We got her attachment to her ears in the movie and how it ties her to the grandmother she never knew. We got how she can downplay herself for the sake of the rest of the family and to protect herself in this season’s Christmas.

And now we got this, a look into her anxieties and insecurity. So much of her actions in general are a desperate need to be seen and heard. Nothing gets to her like being dismissed for being ‘just a kid’, like being overlooked, like the possibility of a family member drifting away from her. Or the concept of her personal space or autonomy being invaded.

Part of what makes Louise such a unique character when it comes to kids is what makes her ‘bratty’ is framed as cool, endearing, valid. In a world where children are often reduced to being parental property, to having wants wantonly ignored, to have agency dismissed, Louise fights for hers and never gives in, and the show never tries to strip her of that.

But she is still a kid, and a girl at that. And kids have worries, and girls unfortunately deal with being overlooked for the loudest, most condescending, dismissive, and yes, male voices in the room.

I forgot how obnoxious Wayne can be, and I was even worried it might be too much, but he played his role perfectly. He’s not the wild absurdity of Millie or the personal animosity of Logan, he’s just a jerk. An annoying personification of that dismissive force in a way that Louise can’t really strike out outrageously in turn like she can with the other two.

He wiggles into her head and makes her feel stupid for caring, and then she feels stupid for feeling stupid for caring, and her fears of being overlooked start to feel like they’re becoming a reality.

Her frustrations and outbursts are so often played for humor and taken to wild extremes as she starts plotting retribution and vengeance, setting up the big laugh or catharsis. But here, as she shouts in frustration looking over her pages of spy stories or on Mother’s Day when faced with a block, it’s played like just a kid trying to disguise her frustration at herself and having trouble expressing what’s really wrong, putting up her walls. And just like the Christmas episode, she tries to downplay it and put her mom first, out of love for her and out of dismissal of herself as not as important or as not worth the hassle. If she gives up on herself first, it won’t matter if anyone else does, and so when things seem truly doomed to fail that is often her first line of defense, like when they were being buried alive.

John Roberts might deliver his best dramatic performance as Linda yet. In a role that so often demands hammy exuberance and over the top, in your face personality- just see last week’s episode- this episode asks him to underplay it for once. His delivery has never been so soft, so caring, so selfless. It’s helped by subtle expressions and great framing- Linda’s face in bed overhearing Louise about to throw in the towel is a key example. It’s even more rewarding seeing this after their first big episode together, all those years ago in Mother Daughter Laser Razor, and how much trouble they had connecting. And now Linda just gets her. She channels it in another direction, but she has that same need and demand to be heard.

It all crescendoes into Louise’s finish for her paper, and she’s never sounded more like a child baring her heart and hoping it’s not stepped on, hoping she’s understood. Kristen Schaal has been this character for so long and is such a big part of her success and you can feel the love she has for this role as she speaks, just as you can feel the writers’ affection for her, and how they’re speaking their own experiences through a character that somehow against all odds became the one they’d use most often for that, even over Tina’s burgeoning sense of self and confidence.

Right down to the tender credits, this is an episode that will stick with me and remind me why I love this show, this family, and most of all, Louise Belcher, who along 13 seasons and over a decade of knowing her has become one of my favorite characters in just about anything. Here’s hoping for a decade more.