“There’s nothing racially insensitive about a dragon with a chainsaw penis.” – Taco
Certain shows — like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Curb Your Enthusiasm — work because the characters are such awful, socially inept people. FX’s The League isn’t one of these types of shows. The League succeeds because the characters are relatively normal people (albeit somewhat exaggerated), who just happen to take fantasy football way too seriously.
Last night’s episode, “The Sukkah”, falls short of previous episodes precisely because the characters cease to be well-adjusted adults with jobs and families and morph into immature cartoons. The episode builds an absurd house of cards that is both illogical and predictable. Everything comes together in the end, and the house of cards is knocked over, but the climax isn’t as satisfying as it usually is on The League.
“The Sukkah” revolves around a Sukkot party Ruxin (Nick Kroll) is throwing in order to impress the admissions lady at a fancy, Jewish private school. You know, ‘cuz God forbid his son attend a public school. Originally, the party is going to be held at Ruxin’s house, but the venue is changed to Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi) and Jenny’s (Katie Aselton). Ruxin’s image is captured on Google Maps spray painting a swastika over a pothole in front of his house. The city is too busy cleaning up racist graffiti to worry about potholes, so Ruxin decides to lure the road workers to his problem with some racist graffiti of his own.
Meanwhile, Jenny is dealing with a graffiti issue of her own. I don’t know if The League has ever made mention of this before, but apparently Jenny is a realtor. She rents space on a bus stop bench to advertise her business and is appalled to find out that a homeless man has made the bench his home. She forces Kevin to confront the man and ask him to leave, which he agrees to do after Kevin informs him that Jenny is on her period and is in a very bad mood. The homeless guy comes back that evening and spray paints “Jenny has her period” in block letters on the bench. Feeling guilty for telling a stranger about Jenny’s menstrual issues, Kevin takes a page out of Ruxin’s playbook and paints a swastika on the bench. His hope is that the city will be forced to come out and paint over the entire thing, period graffiti included.
Predictably, the Sukkot gathering becomes a complete disaster. First, Kevin’s daughter broadcasts the porno Dirty Randy (Seth Rogen) filmed in Andre’s (Paul Scheer) loft for the entire party to see. Then the admissions woman from the private school recognizes Kevin as a man who has been photographed painting swastikas on benches in the neighborhood. She calls them all Nazis and storms off. Chances are Ruxin’s kid isn’t getting into that fancy school.
Lingering thoughts on “The Sukkah”:
- “There’s nothing racially insensitive about a dragon with a chainsaw penis.” – Taco
- “After Sukkot comes Tac-coat!” – Taco
- “I like kickers, they’re the toughest!” – Taco
- “Everyone, you’re invited into the Jew fort!” – Ellie
Some stats and info about The League, “The Sukkah”
TV SHOW – The League
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 3, Episode 2
AIRED ON – October 13th, 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.