6x06 Breast Awareness Month

[6.2/10] This is a really hard episode for me to grade, because pretty much every storyline here proceeds from some awful premise, but also features the group getting hoisted by their own petards and karmically punished for their misdeeds, which somehow makes that feel a little OK.

Take the most obvious misdeed here -- Jenny accidentally portraying herself as someone who has breast cancer, only to then cash in on the misconception to get out of social disapprobation for not contributing to her daughter’s school bake sale. It’s truly shitty behavior, and the initial jokes about it are pretty bad. But then, the ruse backfires on Jenny, forcing her into a support group and disturbing her daughter and eventually having her lie exposed, which is the kind of “terrible people suffer consequences for their shittiness” vibe The League should do more of.

But therein lies the problem, where Jenny is only really exposed for her lie when she’s talked about as though she had a mastectomy, and it’s the culmination of a lot of “Jenny is flat-chested jokes” that (1.) aren’t funny or clever and (2.) are in poor taste. But hey, on this show, I guess you take what you can get.

There’s a similar deal at play with Pete’s story here, where he has to “space out” his dating his previous asian girlfriend and dating another asian woman, lest he be labeled someone with a fetish. That’s a horrible, fucking retrograde notion to found a storyline on, especially when his solution to this problem is to manipulate a white woman at his office with a desperate crush on him to date and break up before his date with the new asian woman. And yet, somehow the entire backwards storyline feels better when the whole thing backfires on him, and not only does the desperately obsessed gap-filler date end up breaking up with him, but the asian woman was only using Pete as her own similar gap-filler. Again, it’s a storyline that proceeds from an awful premise, but at least shows our “heroes” suffering for it.

The only true crap in the episode is Taco’s titular “breast awareness” campaign, which is more lazy sophomoric humor without the slightest wrinkle or layer to it in order to make it more than one big “hah, he’s talking about boobs” joke. The same goes for Andre’s “salami grip” which is yet another dumb idea to build a storyline around.

But at least it ties into Kevin’s story, which is another instance in this episode of one of the characters being kind of a jerk, but having that backfire on him. The premise that Kevin is afraid of the fact that the doctor is gay is more retrograde, homophobic bullshit. But the fact that the “awareness” attire, his injured wrist, and his exam squeamishness get turned around on him with the doctor thinking Kevin just can’t admit to his own sexual orientation is at least an amusing reversal that feels like Kevin getting his own mild intolerance thrown back at him.

Overall, this is a weird one, that at least doesn't play the “these guys are all the best because their assholes” card, but still has them act like unlikable assholes.