Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The League: The Complete Season Two Blu-ray Movie Review

The League of Extraordinarily Crass Gentlemen

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater October 10, 2011

I have next to no interest in fantasy football. Its esoteric scoring system is completely lost on me. The emphasis on stat-tracking is way too left-brained for my decidedly right-brained self. And even the term “fantasy football” puts me off. It sounds like the complete opposite of what it actually is; I imagine players wearing frilly uniforms and riding unicorns down a rainbow-striped field, not guys hunched over their laptops, tinkering with their player rosters at two in the morning. I just don’t have the mentality, I guess. That said, I’ve come to have a love/hate—but mostly love—relationship with FX’s The League, which is and isn’t about fantasy football. Yes, it uses the simulation sport as a starting point and backbone, but the show is much more intrinsically about the weirdness of male friendship—the combativeness and competition, the cruel pranks and affectionate name-calling. For a lack of a better word, it’s about bro-mance and all the awkwardness that it entails. If you’ve ever referred to a friend, to his face, as a “gullible little sucktard”—or something similar—you’ll definitely be able to relate. The show debuted on FX in 2009 with a kind of “trial run” first season of only six episodes, but the network brought it back for a thirteen-episode second season that’s funnier all-around, even if it does drop the metaphorical ball on a few occasions.

Here, the start of the second season is literally the start of a second season, as the gang of five immature late-thirtysomething friends go to Vegas—think The Hangover on a smaller scale—for their annual league draft, hosted by none other than Patriots wide receiver Chad Ochocinco. To recap, these overgrown fratboys include Pete (Mark Duplass), a shaggy work-a-day slacker who seems like a cross between Jim from The Office and Peter from Office Space; district attorney and league commissioner Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi), frequently emasculated by his wife; fellow lawyer Rodney Ruxin (Nick Kroll), a selfish and self-doubting ass who describes himself as looking like “a Nazi propaganda cartoon of a Jew;” filthy rich and tasteless plastic surgeon Andre (Paul Scheer), who has atrocious fashion sense and uses characteristically black catch phrases like “child, please” to sound cool, and unemployed ladies man Taco (Jon Lajoie), who is usually stoned and fond of breaking into explicit or generally inappropriate songs. This year, the gang is joined—for the first half of the season, at least—by Ruxin’s comically macho and clueless brother-in-law, Rafi (Jason Mantzoukas), the kind of guy who wears gold medallions, says “bro” at the end of each sentence, and gets “murder boners” at the thought of killing someone. The other guys reluctantly let Rafi join the league, but he’s such an awful, impossible-to-stand human being that they eventually find a way to kick him out. He’s replaced by Kevin’s wife Jenny (Katie Aselton), a trash-talker extraordinaire who puts her husband to shame with her fantasy football prowess.

As with the first season, the actual ins-and-outs of the league—the trades, roster adjustments, and weekly games—give the show a kind of skeletal structure, but the real meat and gristle is the pre- and post-game squabbling, the gang’s ridiculous exploits, and their callously mean but somehow still loveable way of treating one another. The show inherently gets a simple male truth: Most men are uncomfortable displaying genuine fondness for their guy friends, so they resort to good-natured cruelty, teasing, and name-calling. The gang’s favorite whipping boy is Andre, who has the perfect combination of poor taste, extravagant wealth, and complete gullibility. In one of the season’s best episodes, he gets savaged for buying a $25,000 abstract painting—a “Kluneberg”—that the other guys all agree looks like “a penis bird attacking ass mountain.” And you can imagine the ribbing he gets when he reveals his favorite drink is a salty sports beverage called S.P.U.N.K. Which leads me to one of my few complaints about The League. Most of the insults the characters spew are challenges to one another’s masculinity, which is expected whenever you get a group of guys together, but unfortunately the show sometimes skirts a bit too close to misogyny and homophobia for my tastes, with copious put-downs of women and a general fear by the characters of any behavior that might at all be construed as homosexual. I get it—the guys in The League are all reprehensible asses, and the show is in effect making fun of the ways in which they’re stereotypically male—but this sometimes crosses that vague line into distastefulness. Not often, but often enough to make it worth mentioning.

For the most part, though, season two of The League is raunchy comic fun, consistently entertaining even if some episodes are definitely better than others. This time around there’s a higher percentage of “concept” episodes—ones that center around a big event or holiday—and these tend to be the most memorable. In “The Anniversary Party,” Ruxin is tricked into throwing an expensive bash for his wife, which goes hilariously wrong in all the right ways. Halloween special “Ghost Monkey” stretches credulity with a Taco-centric subplot about a vengeful baboon, but makes up for the kookiness with a great bit about the differences between “Children’s Halloween” and “Adult Halloween.” (Yes, sexy costumes come into play.) “The Expert Witness” finds Andre hamming it up on the witness stand during one of Ruxin’s court cases, and “High School Reunion” takes a familiar theme—trying to impress your former classmates—and runs wild with it. (Look out for Ruxin’s “vinegar strokes,” a term I’ll leave unexplained here.) “Kegel the Elf” is as demented and perverse of a Christmas episode as you’d imagine from the title, and of course, everything in the season leads up to “The Sacko Bowl,” the big championship game. What works best this season is that, with the exception of the perpetually baked Taco—who’s funny but never truly believable like the other guys are—the characters have finally begun to come into their own here, as the show has started to define, develop, and exploit their individual insecurities. Character moments from previous episodes are referenced in new ones, and the show is beginning to take on a sense of collective history—something fans can really appreciate when they revisit the series. It’s what gives shows like Arrested Development and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia such great replay value, and while The League isn’t quite as good as either of those, I’m willing to concede that it’s currently one of the funniest shows on TV.

The League: The Complete Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I might be wrong, but it looks to me like The League got a slight boost in its production budget for season two. Maybe they're using slightly better cameras/lenses? I can't say with certainty, but regardless, the show looks great on Blu-ray, each episode shot digitally and presented with a 1080p/AVC encode in a screen-filling 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The low-budget video characteristics I noticed in last season's release—aliasing, moiré shimmer, blown out highlights, and a general flatness—don't show up here, at least not to the same extent. Season two seems to be a bit more polished, with no overt compression problems or other distractions. The image in general is satisfyingly crisp, showing off ample fine detail in facial features and clothing textures, and color—while completely realistic—is dense and vibrant. Black levels are as deep as they need to be, and skin tones are warm and consistent. Overall, there are no causes for concern; The League: Season Two looks great in high definition.

The League: The Complete Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

When it comes to the show's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 presentation, I'm just going to reiterate what I said for season one, as there have been no significant changes to the The League's sound design. The mix delivers exactly what you'd expect from a show like this: clean dialogue, a loud theme song, and the occasional sound effect panned into the surround speakers. And that's about it. There's really not much else to say here. With the exception of music and the rare instance of rear channel ambience, The League's entire soundtrack is shifted up front and center. The show doesn't have much that could be called "action," so there aren't really any opportunities for more aggressive or intricate sound design. What we get, instead, are verbal sparring matches—nicely balanced and always easy to understand. Optional English SDH subtitles are available in easy-to-read white lettering.

The League: The Complete Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 7:59, 3:19): Each disc contains a short selection of deleted scenes, and as you'd expect, they contain some pretty funny stuff.
• Kluneberg Paint By Numbers (1080p, 6:45): Andre dresses up like Bob Ross, complete with afro, and teaches us how to paint "a Kluneberg."
• El Notario (1080p, 5:16): A commercial for Taco's notary services.
• Taco Tones Productions Presents (1080p, 10:38): Hop straight to Taco's ridiculous songs, from "I'm Inside Me" and "Naginta!" to Sophia and Rodney's Wedding Video and "Vinegar Strokes."
• Alt Nation (1080p, 8:21):The League is largely improvised, so here we see eight minutes of alternate takes, some more raunchy than the ones that made it to air.
• Gag Reel (1080p, 8:53)

The League: The Complete Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are still some kinks to work out—Taco's way-too-harebrained schemes, for instance, stand out awkwardly from the otherwise realistic elements of the show—but The League's thirteen-episode second season improves on just about everything that was great about the first. The semi-improvised banter is clever (and frequently filthy), the situations are rife with comic awkwardness, and the characters have become better developed and utilized. The raunchy humor won't appeal to everyone—I don't advise a blind buy—so check out some clips online first if you're completely new to the show, but if you've been a fan since the first season you'll definitely want to pick up this release straight away. It looks excellent, sounds great, and comes with some expectedly hilarious special features. Recommended.