“Bang, bang. What’s the hang?” – Taco
As a critic, it’s important to be objective and to keep your personal biases out of your reviews. Well, you know what? I just can’t do that with FX’s The League. I love this show. And not because it’s clever, or because it’s generally well-written, or because at times last season it was arguably the funniest show on television. No, I love it because it featured a cameo (in last season’s episode “The White Knuckler”) from Baltimore Ravens pass-rush extraordinaire Terrell Suggs. The League created the blueprint for how to squeeze a positive review out of a cynical dude like me: simply cast one of my favorite players from my favorite team in a supporting role. Either that or mail me a check. One or the other, your choice, FX.
Needless to say, I’m thrilled The League is back. As I mentioned before – in the middle of my desperate attempt to get the show to cast more Ravens players or send your boy a little payola – The League has shown the potential to be the funniest comedy on the air. I made the argument last year that The League was consistently better than its Thursday night FX running mate, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And while “The Lockout”, the show’s third season premiere wasn’t The League at its best, it’s still nice to have Ruxin (Nick Kroll), Pete (Mark Duplass), Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi), Jenny (Katie Aselton), Taco (Jon Lajoie) and Andre (Paul Scheer) back on my TV screen.
While the episode is called “The Lockout”, it doesn’t actually deal very much with the actual NFL lockout that threatened to strip the American public of our glorious past time. And by glorious past time, of course, I mean fantasy football. If the NFL lockout had persisted and the season, or part of the season, were lost, it would have been very interesting see how The League handled it. Now in its third season, The League has built up enough mythology and character development that I don’t think it necessarily needs to always be “about” fantasy football. Also, I imagine that the writers would have been able to wring a ton of comedy out of the characters’ misery over the lack of a season. But Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith were able to come to an agreement (thank god!), so we will never know what The League (the show) would look like without The League (the NFL).
The big thing everyone is going to be talking about is the Seth Rogen guest spot. Rogen appears as Dirty Randy, a character that his been mentioned a bunch of times in previous episodes, but never before seen. Dirty Randy is a friend of Ruxin’s brother-in-law Rafi (Jason Mantzoukas) who directs porno movies for a living. The crew brings him into the fold in order to play a prank on Andre, winner of the Sacko Trophy, which is awarded to The League’s last place contestant. The idea is to force Andre to leave his apartment, hold the fantasy draft at his place, then have Dirty Randy film a porno in Andre’s living room. The plan backfires when the crew gets locked out of Andre’s apartment and their respective teams are selected by a computer’s auto-draft function.
Lingering thoughts on “The Lockout”:
- I think the writers thought Ruxin’s “Shiva Bowl Shuffle” music video was funnier than it actually was. Although, I did enjoy this line: “He likes fine wine and risotto with truffles. And now he’s doing the Shiva Bowl Shuffle.”
- Kevin and Jenny get a puppy and Jenny realizes that she can use the same techniques to train both Kevin and the dog. She finds out later that Pete has been training Kevin for years and can make him do his bidding with nothing more than the click of a ballpoint pen. I have two thoughts on this. First, it’s a little strange that How I Met Your Mother had a very similar storyline in the recent episode “The Ducky Tie” in which Barney trains Marshall to respond to the sound of a sneeze. Secondly, when did Kevin become an easily manipulated, mindless automaton? I thought Taco was supposed to be the idiot of the group?
- Speaking of Taco, his role on an Algerian soap opera was one of the funnier parts of the episode. He played Buck, “an American rapper/cowboy/cautionary tale.” I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of his catchphrase, “Bang, bang. What’s the hang?”
Some stats and info about The League, “The Lookout”
TV SHOW – The League
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 3, Episode 1
AIRED ON – October 6th, 2011
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.