The League Episode 3.1: “The Lockout”
The third season of FX’s dude-humor fantasy football comedy The League begins with a tribute to one of football’s most iconic contributions to popular culture: the 1985 Chicago Bears’ ill-conceived but thoroughly entertaining rap number, the “Super Bowl Shuffle.” For the season’s inaugural braggin’-rights video, a triumphant Ruxin employs members of his fantasy team—Maurice Jones-Drew (running back, Jacksonville Jaguars, guitar), Brent Grimes (cornerback, Atlanta Falcons, drums) and Sidney Rice (wide receiver, Seattle Seahawks, saxophone)—to perform a tacky but endearing rendition with new, yuppified lyrics like, “He likes fine wine and risotto with truffle / Ruxin’s here to do the Shiva Bowl Shuffle!” Oh, and Sidney Rice is definitely more into it than the other two.
When we last left our semi-lovable heroes, Ruxin had won the league and made a championship ring to accompany The Shiva, Jenny (Katie Aselton) finally became a regular member of the league, Taco (Jon Lajoie) was getting ready to travel the world and poor Dr. Andre (Paul Scheer), whose homemade trophy, “The Dre,” didn’t quite get the reaction he’d hoped, finished last in the league, winning the decidedly cruder distinction of the “Sacko” trophy. Andre must complete his “Sacko” punishment by not shaving and playing the flute in public, with stunning Ian Anderson-evoking creepiness.
The first Gibson’s scene of the season is a reminder of what this show does best: insults. Although there’s a few tired jabs in the bunch (Andre’s flute-playing leads to a “skin flute” joke, because, duh), there are also some gems, be they biting (Ruxin’s “pathetic, also-ran shit-sippers”) or the ones from left field where you still somehow know exactly what they’re talking about (upon seeing the unshaven, badly-dressed Andre, Taco asks him, “When did you become a high school music teacher?”). And it’s a testament to how the majority of friend groups work, regardless of gender (although this may be more of a guy thing) or interest in football: people get together, have a few drinks and then proceed to make fun of each other. For all the ridiculous, esoteric and sometimes a little bit too gratuitously crass things that happen on The League, there are lovely, digestible grains of truth about the way we interact with one another.
Some guys recognize Taco at the bar and the guys naturally have questions, leading us to the first thoroughly bizarre plot development of the season. We find out that while traveling, Taco landed a role on Sands of Passion, an Algerian soap opera, as Buck, an American “rapper-slash-cowboy-slash-cautionary tale” whose catchphrase is “Bang bang, what’s the hang?” It’s weird and likely to offend, but Taco’s deadpan-stoner explanations of his role and time on the show are ultimately pretty funny.
The other new development is that Kevin (Steve Rannazzisi) wants another baby, but Jenny does not. Instead, she opts to get a dog, and in a B-plot that perhaps eclipses the primary story arc in terms of hilarity and timing, we find out that she has been conditioning Kevin, Pavlov-style, using the same dog training techniques. The punchline? Pete and Taco have been doing the same: Pete (Mark Duplass) clicks a pen to get Kevin to do his bidding, while Taco hypnotized him at a young age and can send him to sleep with a trigger word. It’s the kind of thread you’d expect to find in the heyday of The Office—messing with a character so subtly but so expertly and in turn, revealing a whole lot about the instigating characters.
The draft-order selection starts off a bit disappointing, and initially one can’t help but miss the ridiculousness of the backyard sack race that determined the draft order in the pilot episode. The rest of the league meets sans Ruxin, who is late (getting the Shiva ring fitted), so they decide to pick the draft without him. Ruxin’s name is drawn first, and so, amid groans, the frustrated group decides to re-draw and tell Ruxin he got the fifth pick so it seems natural, with Andre playing the patsy as his last Sacko punishment. When Ruxin arrives, it seems for a second like he buys their explanation, before calling the group out and repeating their entire plan back to them almost verbatim. You kind of see it coming, but Ruxin’s lawyerly “clown car of lies” speech redeems the predictability of it.
Rafi (Jason Mantzoukas), Ruxin’s obnoxious, scummy brother-in-law (“El Cuñado”) and the breakout character from last season, is back (we first see him getting drunk in a library), and Pete and Kevin enlist him to administer Andre’s final Sacko punishment: Rafi and porn-director pal Dirty Randy (guest star Seth Rogen) will direct an adult film starring an Andre character in his home while he drafts in a nice restaurant. Rafi is a welcome return, and bringing in the ultimate dude-humor icon on the ultimate dude-humor sitcom makes sense—maybe it’s because of Zack and Miri, but porn director just seems like the role Seth Rogen was born to play, and he performs as expected. Nevertheless, the porn subplot just feels excessive for an episode that already has a lot going on, and yes, there’s even a cringe-worthy Schindler’s List reference.
Dirty Randy is, however, the recipient of one of the best insults from the season premiere (“You look like an illiterate wolverine.”), and a conversation about the importance of puns in the adult film industry is the high point of the exchange.
The draft scene itself becomes surprisingly tense, as the gang waits on Andre’s balcony while Rafi, Dirty Randy and the team shoot, and as guilt starts to rip at Kevin over trying to screw Ruxin out of the draft, they get locked out and the computer goes to auto-draft, culminating in Plaxico Burress ending up on Andre’s team and him frantically flipping through his reference book and pleading with some probably confused diners to tell him whether or not Burress is still in jail. Andre’s consistently drafting retired and incarcerated players has been one of the series’ best football-related running gags, so it’s nice to see that this has continued in the season premiere.
The league members fail to rescue their draft picks in time, but poetic justice is served in the form of Ruxin’s Shiva ring and ‘Andre’s’ fist being shoved somewhere I probably cannot mention in case of some delicate eyes among you. It’s a bit too over-the-top and an ultimately predictable ending for a show whose inherent naginata-wielding weirdness is what often makes it so enjoyable, but it’s still a cheap laugh, and sometimes it’s best to just submit to the power of cheap laughs. The League may have started the season in a bit of a ‘rebuilding’ state, but it definitely had its moments and it looks like a great season is ahead.