I was almost apprehensive to even talk about The League this week because its FX predecessor, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, was just so wonderfully dumb and hysterical that it seemed as though The League would have a really tough act to follow. And the only way to follow Charlie, is with a little bit of Rafi.
This week’s episode of The League actually covered a lot of very typical ‘sitcom’ material: struggles with parenting (lesson of the week: toddlers are disgusting, vile creatures who are totally okay with eating ice cubes out of the urinal and we’d all be better off if kids would just skip that phase in their development), realizing that occasionally you do need your hellish, greasy-haired mess of a brother-in-law (the return of ‘El Cuñado’), crazy get-rich-quick schemes and meditations on aging.
“Ol’ Smoke Crotch”; picks up where “The Au Pair” left off. Pete is still dating Ashley, Ruxin’s au pair, who is, well, keeping her from doing her job and Heaven forbid, leaving Ruxin to actually pay attention to Baby Geoffrey. Ruxin’s reaction to his son’s gross, obnoxious, typical toddler behavior (throwing breadsticks and the aforementioned) is priceless, culminating in holding the kid over his head while he stands at the urinal, screeching “FOREVER UNCLEAN!” He devises a plan to fire Ashley, but when a classic cringe-worthy sitcom case of “it’s not what you think” strikes leading Ashley to believe Rux was gratifying himself to her image, she decides to hold it over his head lest he cross her and she sue for sexual harassment, or worse, rat him out to the wife.
Ruxin, left with no other options, calls upon the help of an old friend: Rafi. Rafi moves into Chez Ruxin in an effort to thoroughly disgust and creep out Ashley until the point where she quits on her own accord. Their introduction even trumps the Andre porn for this season’s most unsettling moment so far, including a consent joke that left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, but it is definitely in character. It ends up working the exact opposite of what Ruxin had hoped: Ashley had been trying to get Pete to try a new position involving multiple partners, and the rather free-spirited Rafi ended up being just the candidate she was looking for. The ensuing bedroom scene is delightfully awkward and the day belongs to El Cuñado, who also totally wins his scenes in typical fashion.
It wouldn’t be an episode of The League without Taco and another fantastic product from TacoCorp, one that perhaps could be useful. Taco has been using Kevin and Jenny’s old wedding napkins as a ‘pee bib,’ to catch excess drops post a trip to the toilet. He tries to get them patented, and the brainstorming about spinoff products (‘a pee helmet,’ suggests Andre, to the ire of everyone else) is gold.
Once again, Kevin is relegated to the ‘B’-Plot, but this time, it’s actually well-executed and gets at the heart of some very real feelings men of a certain age tend to have. He’s starting to go grey, but well, not at the top of his head. Confronted with the actual fear of getting old, the character of Kevin is actually given some complexity rather than his usual role of being the goofy but generally less offensive wingman or suburban sitcom dad. Andre takes him for a spa day, which doesn’t exactly help, but does make his face nice and shiny and make for some entertaining TV (although Parks and Rec’s spa-day scene from a couple weeks ago beats this one by a country mile). His younger pals berate him, calling him “Ol’ Smoke Crotch” (the episode’s title), and we see a suddenly defensive, very vulnerable Kevin, and The League ultimately tackles the issue in the only way it can. By making it about Kevin’s crotch-region greying as opposed to his balding or going grey on top, The League can simultaneously be its crude bro-humor self while handling a rather delicate issue many couples face, the question of how aging will affect their intimacy, how it’s not just about preserving youth where everyone can see it, but for yourself in those private moments too. And for that, it’s one of the season’s high points so far.
Miscellaneous extra goodness:
Ruxin’s exasperation when he says, “I am dealing with a child.” And once again, we are reminded that none of the members of The League (except maybe Kevin and Jenny) should really be allowed to reproduce, let alone Ruxin.
Kevin: “This is like a thousand Christmases rubbing up against my balls.”
“I think she’s thoroughly disgusted with you.” “Challenge accepted.”