23x08 Turd Burglars

[6.0/10] Well that was a weird episode. There’s the germ of a decent enough idea in this one. Parodying various de rigueur, Goop-esque DIY health treatments is a good beat. Having a character freak out over the knowledge that the world is covered in, and even made of, microscopic organisms is a solid concept. And even the Dune parody of the “spice melange” quest and the running gag of people thinking about it to themselves is a laugh.

But so much of this one was gross and often pointlessly so. The show found one decent point about the whole fecal transplant thing, and then just ran it into the ground over and over again. The whole quest to get Tom Brady’s poo was dumb outside of the Dune spoofing. And the bits about women talking shit (so to speak) behind one another’s backs felt really retrograde.

There’s a few nice touches here and there. I like that the stomach problems ended up being caused by dusty turkey basters. I appreciated the wordplay of Kyle, now reconciled with his microbiotic existence, deciding to “go with his gut.” And the rest of the boys becoming literal “turd burglars” to get a Star Wars game is the sort of absurdity I can appreciate it.

But this episode was mostly just a bunch of gross material in search of a point. I’m not above gross humor, but this wasn’t up to the show’s usual standards of cleverness in deploying it.