It's been an uneven third season for The League, one with some serious highs ("Thanksgiving") and some sadly unfunny lows ("The Sukkah"), and this week's next-to-last outing landed somewhere in the middle. I know I've done my fair share of complaining about the rough patches the series has gone through, and "The Guest Bong" had many of the elements that drag the show down, including overly ambitious plotting and too complex a set-up for some of the ending jokes, but it also had a lot of the sharp humor that makes the show worthwhile. I'll be looking forward to the recently green-lit season four next fall.
Tonight's episode began as all good episodes should: with Ruxin spewing disgusting, incredibly entertaining trash talk from his computer. The levels of depravity the writers are willing to go to in these sessions are always impressive, but Ruxin perhaps reached a new pinnacle of eye-wincing graphic horribleness in his descriptions of eviscerating Andre. Alas for Ruxin, the HR guy at his firm happens upon the vulgar recording and restricts his computer access. Ruxin, after trying to explain that "balls deep" could, in fact, apply to a recent suit against a playground's ball pit, shrugs it off: "Years from now, they're going to call that poetry."
Of course, this means that he has to send his threats via e-mail, and, thanks to the vagaries of technology, managing to copy Andre's cleaning lady Andrea instead of his intended target. To prevent her from quitting, Andre promises to go to Andrea's community production of A Christmas Carol bringing Ruxin in tow. During a heartfelt lull at the end of the play, Ruxin learns that he is heading to the Sacco and lets loose a stream of expletives, seemingly directed at Tiny Tim. And who is Tiny Tim's dad? Why, obviously, it's the aforementioned HR rep. Though I appreciated the earnest return of Ruxin's potty-mouthed rampages, the whole plotline seemed too pat, and too restrictive. Nick Kroll has done a great job this season with Ruxin (again, his interaction with Jeff Goldblum in the Thanksgiving episode was one of my favorite television moments all year), but it seems like the show continually stymies him by putting his character in situations where he has to act his way out of a slapstick jam instead of giving him some room to just riff.