“What if tonight we go out and get matching tattoos?!” – Rafi
The League’s concept is so straightforward – a group of friends compete against each other in fantasy football – that sometimes it is easy to forget how absurd and bizarre the show can be at times.
The League exists in a place that looks like Chicago but isn’t. It’s a place where drug smugglers mold cocaine into the shape of toilet seats, a place where people buy bad paintings by guys named Kluneberg for $25,000, a place a where (presumably) straight guys have sex with each other in the back seats of cars, a place where people aren’t ridiculed mercilessly for participating in eight-team fantasy leagues. Weird, I know.
“The Kluneberg” – which refers to a painting owned by Andre (Paul Scheer) that everyone but him seems to think depicts a “penis bird” — is an episode that deals with three main issues: getting Rafi (Jason Mantzoukas) out of the league, getting Taco off coke, and determining if an old friend is a sex addict or not.
Everyone hates Rafi. He’s loud, he’s obnoxious, and he is quite possibly mentally unstable. But he’s family (“He’s my Fredo,” groans Ruxin), so they can’t just kick him out of the league. Well, they could, but Sofia (Nadine Velazquez) would be bitter and cut Ruxin (Nick Kroll) off for a while. Instead, they decide to pretend to have a big spat, temporarily killing the league for as long as it takes for Rafi to lose interest, then restarting it with Jenny in his place.
Everything is going according to plan as Pete (Mark Duplass) and Andre orchestrate a slap-fight in the bar parking lot. Rafi is buying every second of it, going so far as to throw a knife between the combatants and shouting that one of them needs to “finish this! Fortunately, no one gets cut, but Andre and Pete use the occasion as an excuse to get some stuff off of their chests. Pete attacks Andre’s wardrobe and taste in art. Dr. Dre takes some shots at Pete’s failed relationships. When Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi) asks Jenny to take Rafi’s soon-to-be-vacated seat, she informs him that she will be joining the league run by Russell (Rob Huebel), an old friend just back from New York.
Rumor has it that Russell is a former sex addict, but Jenny doesn’t buy it. She feels that all guys try to bang anything with a pulse, so someone that does just that is simply more successful. To prove her point that all guys are dogs, and there is no such thing as a sex addict (reformed or otherwise), she decides to try to “trigger” Russell’s addiction. When she fails to turn him on, she gets kind of offended.
One of the stranger plot points of the episode (and that’s saying a lot) involves a toilet seat Taco finds while dumpster diving. Ruxin notices that Taco seems much more alert and focused than normal when he is sitting on the new seat. Kevin remembers a recent case in which Mexican drug cartels were caught molding cocaine into different shapes in order to make it easier to smuggle drugs into the States. When Taco refuses to get off the “throne,” the guys figure it’s time for an intervention.
The end of the episode devolves into glorious chaos, reminiscent of sketch comedy shows like Human Giant (on which Scheer and Huebel starred). The guys come up with a new plan to get Rafi out of their lives and their league. They will get him so drunk that he will black out and when he wakes up in the morning, they will tell him that he did something so awful that Sofia will understand when they give him the boot. Well, get drunk he does. And when he passes out, his face lands on the toilet. Taco’s blow toilet.
You know what happens next. He takes a breath, inhaling a bunch of powder in the process. In a zooted rampage he destroys the Kluneberg, and then runs out of the house with the toilet seat under his arm and into the street, where he encounters Russell. By the time the rest of the guys catch up, Rafi and Russell are making the beast with two backs in the backseat of a car. “I found two new triggers: cocaine and a man’s beard,” Russell says, with a white, powdery grin on his face. And just like that, Rafi’s got a new league to join. Like I said, weird.
Other thoughts on the episode:
- Aside from cocaine and beards, here are few of Russell’s other “triggers” fresh corn, old people, tiny tomatoes, marbles.
Some stats and info about The League, “The Kluneberg”
TV SHOW – The League
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 4
AIRED ON – October 7th, 2010
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FX /FXX/Hulu
GENRE – Comedy, Relationship Shows, Sports Shows
CREATED BY – Jackie Marcus Schaffer, Jeff Schaffer
CAST – Mark Duplass, Nick Kroll, Jonathan Lajoie, Stephen Rannazzisi, Paul Scheer, Katie Aselton, Jason Mantzoukas
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.