The League: Episode 3.11 – “The Guest Bong”
“The Guest Bong” is an example of something that has probably happened before on television, but that a handful of obsessive pop culture observers dread: an entire episode where the jokes are variations on a meme. Normally, the way things have gone since the explosion of the Internet meme into our culture, television begets the memes: Tom Haverfoods from Parks and Recreation, for example, or to another extreme, the insane and kind of wonderful phenomenon surrounding My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This time, The League took a meme very popular this year and made it the key plot point of the episode: “The Guest Bong” is one giant string of “Damn You, Autocorrect” posts, a half-hour meditation on the (sometimes serious, but usually very funny) failures of predictive text and other technological foibles.
It’s playoff season in the league, and the Shiva draws ever closer. Kevin and Jenny have both clinched playoff berths, which means the remaining spots will be chosen in battles between Pete and Taco and Ruxin and Andre, whose team name is now The James Bond-Dres (“00Winner”). Previous winner Ruxin gives the video address, a tirade which involves a lot of threats that sound like rough drafts from Eminem’s comic book-character phase (the words “taint” and “taco” appear within several words of each other, to give you an idea). Only problem is, he broke the cardinal rule and used the work computers and software to make the video, getting him in hot water with HR. He tries to suggest the language is being used in case work, but apparently you can only use the phrase “balls deep” a certain amount of times.
And they’re off to Gibson’s, where Andre has developed a mysterious accent after attending a calf implant conference in London for three days and speaks in rhyming slang for parts of the episode and is generally uncomfortable and hilarious. Pete has a new girlfriend, Danielle, with whom he’s having autocorrect problems (he wanted to engage in “Alan Six”), setting up our theme for the evening. Ruxin, too, is having autocorrect problems: his email autocorrects “Andre” to “Andrea Kolotkin,” his cleaning lady, who is then subjected to the league’s filth and Ruxin must go see her production of A Christmas Carol for penance. Also, Ruxin has a Hotmail account, which leads to a few email service provider jokes. (According to The League, Hotmail is “the official e-mail of foreigners and poor people.”)
Ellie’s new BFF from gymnastics class, Chloe, is invited to sleep over. Only problem is, turns out Kevin prosecuted Chloe’s father, Gavin, on assault charges, and he was sent to prison for two years. They have an awkward reunion, and there’s a cheap prison rape joke in there, which is not outside The League’s sphere but is just generally disappointing when it comes to comedy writing. Kevin explains after this that what galvanized the rift between him and Gavin was the fact that he received a funny autocorrected text from Jenny right as Gavin was being taken into custody. (Something about a pen exploding in her bag, but “bag” being spelled “vag.” You kind of had to be there.)