[6.7/10] My NFL team is the Dallas Cowboys. We’re presently closing in on a decade of Jason Garrett as the team’s head coach. In that span, the Cowboys have yet to make the playoffs in back-to-back years, yet to win more than one playoff game, and yet to make an appearance in a conference championship game, let alone the Super Bowl.
I don’t really expect that to change as long as Garrett remains the coach. I sincerely wonder whether it will change so long as Jerry Jones, who guest starred in an episode of The League, remains the owner, president, general manager, and general shot-caller of the team. And yet, I watch every game (more or less), read the daily Cowboys updates, and start each new season with a dose of naive optimism that maybe this will be our year, despite every indication to the contrary.
That’s the thought that pops into my head when I ask myself the following question -- why in god’s name did I watch eighty-four episodes of The League, a show that I never really liked all that much?
The best answer I can give is the same answer I’d have to give for why I still follow the Cowboys. They’re just my team. Theoretically I could just stop, or pick something else, or move on. But I’m not really built for that. I like football, an America’s Team has been my team, my entree into the world of professional football since I was a kid. There’s too much momentum to stop now.
So imagine my excitement at the prospect of a football T.V. show, one written from the perspective of an everyday fan, built around the inherent silliness and group dynamics that emerge from fantasy football. I kept chasing that promise, kept hoping that the tornado of shallow dick jokes and misogyny and “they’re likable because they’re assholes”-stye humor would eventually coalesce into something genuinely funny and able to wring the laughs out of absurdities of the NFL and the sports fan industrial complex built up around it.
Instead we have this, a middling finale to a middling-at-best show. What does “The Great Night of Shiva” give us? It gives us some throwbacks to the pilot, tying up parenthood questions, throwing out references to the first “joint” the group smoked together, and even bringing back “the oracle” for just a moment. Even The League can’t resist trying to go full circle.
It gives us one last dose of Rafi’s insanity, replete with his trademark pocket dogs and bizarre watermelon humping. It gives us another parting shot of Taco’s similar insanity, with him “vanishing” and reappearing without much to show for it. It gives us one final appearance of Shiva herself, who at least has the decency to declare that none of these guys have changed, and they’re all as stupid and obsessed with their league as they were when they started, a deranged correlary of Seinfeld’s “no learning, no hugging” mantra that co-creator Jeff Schaffer presumably learned from his time on the show.
Speaking of which, “The Great Night of Shiva” also features Larry David, who cameos as “Future Ruxin.” While it’s fun to see David’s schtick in pretty much any context, he’s not as amusing or convincing as an older-type equivalent to Ruxin as Jeff Goldblum is. And the whole It’s a Wonderful Life schtick with visions of a possible future just lean into the unfunny broad comedy that this series has resorted to time and time again.
That “vision” comes after Ruxin has pieced together that Meegan is pregnant with Pete’s child, not Andre’s, despite the fact that the reunited couple is having a gender reveal party together. There’s a modicum of intrigue from conniving, unscrupulous Ruxin trying to decide whether to spill the beans to Andre in the hopes that it will help him win the league by mentally destroying a competitor, or stay mum in the hopes that the good karma will help him in his fantasy football quest.
In the end, he chooses to stay quiet, and all it gets him is a tie and eventual loss to “the coin” (with a touch of his usual tinkering). The show explicitly makes the statement that none of them are worthy of winning the trophy, and I am hard pressed to disagree.
But that’s not all “The Great Night of Shiva” puts forward in the final race for the championship. Kevin and Jenny placed a bet on who’ll get a vasectomy/tubes tied based on how the pair finishes in the league. It’s a dumb bit to begin with, but naturally it ends with Jenny in advertently tossing a pair of scissors at her husband’s groin, resulting in a castration. At least The League died as it lived: making contrived and unnecessary dick jokes.
But it’s the last bet that really takes the cake. Andre and Pete made a bet on who would be happier at the end of the season. In the end, Pete has won a million dollars playing daily fantasy, but realizes he cares more about his regular, 8-team league than anything else. And Andre ends up having a family with Meegan. And they’re both happy. It’s one of the deftest things The League does in its finale, looping back to what Pete, Meegan, and even Andre wanted early in the series, giving it to them in different ways, and acknowledging in the show’s own fractured ways how things kind of worked out in the end, even if it’s not what any of them might have predicted seven seasons ago.
Instead of lingering on that minor bit of grace, of course, The League just uses it as one last way to be a giant dick to Andre, as we flash forward eighteen years to a video of the group telling Andre Jr. that Pete is his real dad, in the most demeaning way possible. Sigh. I suppose it’s my own fault at this point for expecting anything better, anything more, than this show just finding new, awful depths of assholery to everyone involved, and erasing what minor bits of likability it’s managed to muster up for any of these, well let’s say it one last time, shit-sippers.
That’s the beauty of The League though. The Cowboys will keep playing football until whatever divine or man-made apocalypse arrives to smite us all (save for Jerry, whose deal with the devil will leave him in charge of the team while the rest of us are smoldering corpses). But The League ends. It may not end well. It may not ever have improved. It may have, like Jason Garrett, given us week after week, season after season, of mediocrity, with moments of seeming competence and optimism only existing to dash our hopes that much more thoroughly.
But it still ends. And now I’m free, no longer bound to keep hoping this disappointing port of call for a sport I both love and hate will get any better. What more can I say? Go Cowboys.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-10-24T05:34:08Z
[6.7/10] My NFL team is the Dallas Cowboys. We’re presently closing in on a decade of Jason Garrett as the team’s head coach. In that span, the Cowboys have yet to make the playoffs in back-to-back years, yet to win more than one playoff game, and yet to make an appearance in a conference championship game, let alone the Super Bowl.
I don’t really expect that to change as long as Garrett remains the coach. I sincerely wonder whether it will change so long as Jerry Jones, who guest starred in an episode of The League, remains the owner, president, general manager, and general shot-caller of the team. And yet, I watch every game (more or less), read the daily Cowboys updates, and start each new season with a dose of naive optimism that maybe this will be our year, despite every indication to the contrary.
That’s the thought that pops into my head when I ask myself the following question -- why in god’s name did I watch eighty-four episodes of The League, a show that I never really liked all that much?
The best answer I can give is the same answer I’d have to give for why I still follow the Cowboys. They’re just my team. Theoretically I could just stop, or pick something else, or move on. But I’m not really built for that. I like football, an America’s Team has been my team, my entree into the world of professional football since I was a kid. There’s too much momentum to stop now.
So imagine my excitement at the prospect of a football T.V. show, one written from the perspective of an everyday fan, built around the inherent silliness and group dynamics that emerge from fantasy football. I kept chasing that promise, kept hoping that the tornado of shallow dick jokes and misogyny and “they’re likable because they’re assholes”-stye humor would eventually coalesce into something genuinely funny and able to wring the laughs out of absurdities of the NFL and the sports fan industrial complex built up around it.
Instead we have this, a middling finale to a middling-at-best show. What does “The Great Night of Shiva” give us? It gives us some throwbacks to the pilot, tying up parenthood questions, throwing out references to the first “joint” the group smoked together, and even bringing back “the oracle” for just a moment. Even The League can’t resist trying to go full circle.
It gives us one last dose of Rafi’s insanity, replete with his trademark pocket dogs and bizarre watermelon humping. It gives us another parting shot of Taco’s similar insanity, with him “vanishing” and reappearing without much to show for it. It gives us one final appearance of Shiva herself, who at least has the decency to declare that none of these guys have changed, and they’re all as stupid and obsessed with their league as they were when they started, a deranged correlary of Seinfeld’s “no learning, no hugging” mantra that co-creator Jeff Schaffer presumably learned from his time on the show.
Speaking of which, “The Great Night of Shiva” also features Larry David, who cameos as “Future Ruxin.” While it’s fun to see David’s schtick in pretty much any context, he’s not as amusing or convincing as an older-type equivalent to Ruxin as Jeff Goldblum is. And the whole It’s a Wonderful Life schtick with visions of a possible future just lean into the unfunny broad comedy that this series has resorted to time and time again.
That “vision” comes after Ruxin has pieced together that Meegan is pregnant with Pete’s child, not Andre’s, despite the fact that the reunited couple is having a gender reveal party together. There’s a modicum of intrigue from conniving, unscrupulous Ruxin trying to decide whether to spill the beans to Andre in the hopes that it will help him win the league by mentally destroying a competitor, or stay mum in the hopes that the good karma will help him in his fantasy football quest.
In the end, he chooses to stay quiet, and all it gets him is a tie and eventual loss to “the coin” (with a touch of his usual tinkering). The show explicitly makes the statement that none of them are worthy of winning the trophy, and I am hard pressed to disagree.
But that’s not all “The Great Night of Shiva” puts forward in the final race for the championship. Kevin and Jenny placed a bet on who’ll get a vasectomy/tubes tied based on how the pair finishes in the league. It’s a dumb bit to begin with, but naturally it ends with Jenny in advertently tossing a pair of scissors at her husband’s groin, resulting in a castration. At least The League died as it lived: making contrived and unnecessary dick jokes.
But it’s the last bet that really takes the cake. Andre and Pete made a bet on who would be happier at the end of the season. In the end, Pete has won a million dollars playing daily fantasy, but realizes he cares more about his regular, 8-team league than anything else. And Andre ends up having a family with Meegan. And they’re both happy. It’s one of the deftest things The League does in its finale, looping back to what Pete, Meegan, and even Andre wanted early in the series, giving it to them in different ways, and acknowledging in the show’s own fractured ways how things kind of worked out in the end, even if it’s not what any of them might have predicted seven seasons ago.
Instead of lingering on that minor bit of grace, of course, The League just uses it as one last way to be a giant dick to Andre, as we flash forward eighteen years to a video of the group telling Andre Jr. that Pete is his real dad, in the most demeaning way possible. Sigh. I suppose it’s my own fault at this point for expecting anything better, anything more, than this show just finding new, awful depths of assholery to everyone involved, and erasing what minor bits of likability it’s managed to muster up for any of these, well let’s say it one last time, shit-sippers.
That’s the beauty of The League though. The Cowboys will keep playing football until whatever divine or man-made apocalypse arrives to smite us all (save for Jerry, whose deal with the devil will leave him in charge of the team while the rest of us are smoldering corpses). But The League ends. It may not end well. It may not ever have improved. It may have, like Jason Garrett, given us week after week, season after season, of mediocrity, with moments of seeming competence and optimism only existing to dash our hopes that much more thoroughly.
But it still ends. And now I’m free, no longer bound to keep hoping this disappointing port of call for a sport I both love and hate will get any better. What more can I say? Go Cowboys.