3x01 The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby

[8.3/10] If there’s one thing I always enjoy about IASIP, it’s the show’s great comedy through knowing just went to end a moment. I’ve talked about the editing on the show before, but I just love how perfectly the show cuts from the discovery in the cold open to the title card, or Sage tied to a tree interspersed with scenes of Dennis and Azrael, or the great cut to the credits after a social worker walks in on Frank, Charlie, and Dennis wrestling with a sword over the baby while Mac and Dee are painting it with shoe polish. It’s the exact type of absurdity, delivered in just the right doses, that makes the comedy work.

Each of the three stories works well. I think my favorite was probably Dee and Mac attempting to look after the baby, just because it’s them at their peak terribleness. Mac in particular is at his most awful and oblivious best here, between his two-minute waltz version of being a terrible husband/father and then his...uh let’s say misguided-at-best attempts to make the baby seem more ethnic to get cast in commercials and such. Their adventures at the tanning salon and bronzer vs. shoe polish debate is, again, just showing the depths of how ridiculously bad these people are in an exaggerated, amusing way.

Frank and Charlie going wild in terms of scavenging had its moments. It allowed both performers to be at their outsized best, and Charlie going insane about being an “abortion survivor” and questioning Frank about possibly being his dad had some merit to it. And Dennis had his own terribleness on display. I liked his Machiavellian plan to ingratiate himself with the hippie activists, steal Sage’s girlfriend, and then have the tree Sage was protecting knocked down anyway for how petty Dennis is and the amusing lengths he’ll go to after being slighted for being a poser about environmentalism.

Overall, a funny episode of the show that hopefully augurs good things for Season 3!