According the information FX included with the screener they sent me for the first two episodes of their new comedy series The League, an estimated 30-35 million people participate in fantasy football leagues. Maybe you’re one of them. Maybe you can explain to me how fantasy football works… or even how football works but let me save you the time and effort. I don’t care. I’m not a fan of football so the subject of football in fantasy form… draft picks, trades and league rules… it doesn’t interest me at all. That needs to be said because The League follows a group of fantasy football players (is that what they call themselves?) as they obsess over their fantasy teams. So off the bat, my interest in the series wasn’t really piqued but after viewing the first two episodes of the series, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter if you care about fantasy football. The show is hilarious.
The comedy series follows Pete (Mark Duplass), Ruxin (Nick Kroll), Taco (Jon Lajoie), Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi), Andre (Paul Scheer) and Jenny (Katie Aselton) as they struggle to create and maintain the best fantasy football teams possible, competing against each other to win a crappy trophy and the glory of having dominated the season.
While the fantasy football league is the thing that ties this group of friends together, the series focuses on everything else going on in their lives. Being in their thirties and still clinging to their adolescent joys, they have normal grown-up struggles, including parenting issues, marital struggles, and silly suburban drama. The first episode introduces us to the characters, showing just how frantic these people are in getting the perfect team together. This is demonstrated when one of them uses a kids potato sack race to determine who gets the first draft pick.
Kevin is fortunate enough to be married to a woman who not only understands his love for the League, but is also an active participant in it. Pete is not so lucky, being married to Meegan (Leslie Bibb of Iron Man), a socially ambitious and bossy woman who doesn’t care about his League obsession and thinks his time would be better spent doing things that matter to her. Ruxin’s wife Sofia (Nadine Velazquez of My Name is Earl) believes their baby should come before anything else, including their marriage. While Pete, Ruxin and Kevin are all married, Taco is single and loves the ladies. Andre is also single, however despite being the most successful of his friends, he’s still treated like the group punching bag, never fully having outgrown his status among his old pals.
I think fans of football and fantasy football will appreciate a lot of the humor that focuses on that aspect of the show. That said, The League has a lot to offer in the way of guy-humor (much of which girls like me can appreciate) and marital humor. This isn’t just a show about fantasy football. It’s about people struggling to balance their adult lives with the things they’ve always loved and will probably always love, because who says you have to give up your adolescent obsessions entirely?
Finally, FX has The League set to air after It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and it’s an extremely fitting timeslot for this new series. Expect swearing, explicit sexual conversations, implied (and sometimes more than implied) drug references and all sorts of adult humor that might offend some people. Also, be prepared to add new terms to your vocabulary, like “vaginal hubris” and “Eskimo brother.”
The League is a clever new comedy that doesn’t pull punches with the humor. The characters are messy and amusing and I’m glad to see that the show isn’t relying entirely on sports related humor. If you’re not easily offended by crass humor (or if you’re a fan of it), The League is definitely worth checking out.
The League
Starring: Mark Duplass, Nick Kroll, Jon Lajoie, Stephen Rannazzisi, Paul Scheer, Katie Aselton, and Nadine Velazquez
Premieres: Thursday, October 29th at 10:30PM ET/PT on FX.
