“The Tie” = the most bro-tastic, fantasy football-centric episode of The League to date.
There are few things in life more powerful than the bond between a group of guys who have been friends for years. They have goofy nicknames for each other, they speak in esoteric shorthand that excludes the uninitiated, they laugh at each other when they fall, then give a hand to pull them back to their feet. Generally speaking, having a group of friends that go back forever is awesome, but there is a downside to all of the bro-love; “unmentionables”.
You know what unmentionables are, they’re the extraordinarily embarrassing things you have done in the presence of your buddies over the years that they have promised to take with them to the grave but secretly snicker about amongst themselves when you aren’t around and every once in a while, will use against you in a heated argument.
Unmentionables are the things that keep me up at night, not global warming or collateralized debt obligations or terrorists in Yemen. I lay in bed worrying when one of my buddies is going to get drunk and tell a room full of people about the time I crapped my pants in my car, stuck in traffic on the Beltway.
Conceptually, “The Tie” was the best episode of The League this season. It wasn’t the laugh out loud funniest, but it did a great job of conveying what if feels like to be in a fantasy league with a group of friends who love to hate one another. Plus, “The Tie” gave us a lot of good fantasy football related material, which is something I have been asking for more of since the show’s first season.
The B and C-plots are silly and make very little sense, but that doesn’t really matter because they’re funny.
Like he has done so many times before, Ruxin (Nick Kroll) instigates the action by behaving like a complete jackass. When Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi), the league commissioner, refuses to make a last-minute substitution for Ruxin (who is stuck in traffic and can’t get to a computer), Ruxin posts a vicious message board attack. He calls the commish a “bureaucrat”, drops his drawers and zooms in on the brown eye, making an impression of Paul Rudd with the camcorder in his pants in The 40 Year Old Virgin.
This sets off a series of retaliatory team name changes across the league; i.e. Kevin’s Micro Dong’s, The Ruxin Looks Like a Middle Aged Lesbians, The Andre Cried While Watching Jumanjis. Ruxin crosses the line when he renames his fantasy squad The Fear Boners, a reference to one Kevin’s unmentionables. (On the way home from a bar during college, Pete, Ruxin and Kevin are approached by an intimidating guy.
The dude just needs directions but Kevin thinks he is about to rob them. The terror of the situation gives Kevin an erection and his friends accuse him of being “cowardly, gay, homophobic and racist” all at once.) This is the last straw for Kevin, who relinquishes his position as commissioner.
Kevin couldn’t have picked a worse time to abandon his post. After finishing the fantasy week with a tie score, Ruxin and Andre (Paul Scheer) need a commissioner’s ruling to break the tie. Without an authority figure to decide the outcome, the two are forced to decide a winner the old-fashioned way, a foot race. (The race included a very funny moment where Taco (Jonathon Lajoie) whips out real gun instead of a starter pistol to mark the beginning of the sprint. When the guys freak out and make him put the weapon away, he reluctantly agrees saying, “Fine, but this race is no longer official.”)
Andre wins the race but the result is disputed by Ruxin who claims that Dre pushed him. Luckily, there is a gay wedding ceremony going on in the background with cameras pointed in the direction of the finish line. The fellas steal the tape and, upon further review, determine that the push was incidental contact.
Andre’s victory celebration is cut short when the gay couple whose tape they stole tracks them down, chases them through the city and into a park. Ruxin and Andre are hiding in a bush when they are spotted and apprehended by police officers who mistake them for lovers using the park for a sexual rendezvous. Kevin bails them out of jail, but only after Ruxin apologizes and reappoints him commissioner of the league. The episode ends with Kevin and Taco singing a duet about fear boners, “You have a fear boner raging in your pants / Don’t be afraid / In time it will return to its flaccid state.”
Some stats and info about The League, “The Tie”
TV SHOW – The League
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 8
AIRED ON – November 4th, 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.