[7.6/10] Really, there’s only one dud in the episode, but it’s a big and lengthy dud, so it drags things down considerably.
The opening bit about the protestors who can nigh-magically get whatever they want through protesting is a silly premise, but the show takes it to absurd and amusing lengths. I got a kick out of follow-up sketch, about a news channel that’s always “on the spot” of breaking stories...because its reporters cause them. It gets dark in places, but again, it’s a wacky premise taken to wild extremes. The police “arresting” the channel was a solid button to put it.
But then came my favorite sketch in the episode and possibly the series so far. The skit where they take a couple of bros from an MTV Road Rules knockoff and put them in Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam is just inspired. It threads the needle between dude bros trying to maintain their slackadaisical, self-involved, ironic attitudes toward everything when confronted with a humanized symbol of one of history’s greatest horrors. It wrings the uncomfortable but incisive commedy of their practiced chill running aground on something emotionally and morally harrowing without overplaying their hand. It’s a fantastic sketch, with great character work and an amazing premise that they just own.
That’s part of why I like the episode’s closing sketch (albeit not as much), which features a Satanist and a Christian priest who are not only jointly protesting the cartoonification of the devil in popular culture as something that weakens his severity in the public consciousness, but who are kind of adorable best friends. It’s an underplayed bit with a loony premise that’s filled out by the stellar character work Bob and David do as both the priest and the devil-worshipper seem fully-realized very quickly.
The other little interstitial bits are generally cute though not overwhelming. The ads for ointment for kids’ aches and pains nicely satirizes companies trying to market unnecessary products for kids and an unnecessary treatments for things, and the closing Nickelodean-esque spoof, “Let’s Get Sloppy” lets the main duo do some fun physical comedy. I also enjoyed the bit with Bob as Jack Webber, the anti-communist propoganda filmmaker who realized his ideas were insane, especially for the old timey newsreel presentation of it.
The anchor that weighs this episode down is the bootleg “make a wish” sketch. It goes on forever, and it’s a one-joke premise that never finds another gear. It’s a lot like the “basketball recruiters with toddlers” sketch where there’s an amusing enough idea there, but Bob and David try to go down to earth with it, and it just becomes dull rather than funny.
Overall though, an episode that can boast one of the show’s greatest sketches is nothing to sneeze at!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2018-07-24T18:14:03Z— updated 2018-07-29T17:04:42Z
[7.6/10] Really, there’s only one dud in the episode, but it’s a big and lengthy dud, so it drags things down considerably.
The opening bit about the protestors who can nigh-magically get whatever they want through protesting is a silly premise, but the show takes it to absurd and amusing lengths. I got a kick out of follow-up sketch, about a news channel that’s always “on the spot” of breaking stories...because its reporters cause them. It gets dark in places, but again, it’s a wacky premise taken to wild extremes. The police “arresting” the channel was a solid button to put it.
But then came my favorite sketch in the episode and possibly the series so far. The skit where they take a couple of bros from an MTV Road Rules knockoff and put them in Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam is just inspired. It threads the needle between dude bros trying to maintain their slackadaisical, self-involved, ironic attitudes toward everything when confronted with a humanized symbol of one of history’s greatest horrors. It wrings the uncomfortable but incisive commedy of their practiced chill running aground on something emotionally and morally harrowing without overplaying their hand. It’s a fantastic sketch, with great character work and an amazing premise that they just own.
That’s part of why I like the episode’s closing sketch (albeit not as much), which features a Satanist and a Christian priest who are not only jointly protesting the cartoonification of the devil in popular culture as something that weakens his severity in the public consciousness, but who are kind of adorable best friends. It’s an underplayed bit with a loony premise that’s filled out by the stellar character work Bob and David do as both the priest and the devil-worshipper seem fully-realized very quickly.
The other little interstitial bits are generally cute though not overwhelming. The ads for ointment for kids’ aches and pains nicely satirizes companies trying to market unnecessary products for kids and an unnecessary treatments for things, and the closing Nickelodean-esque spoof, “Let’s Get Sloppy” lets the main duo do some fun physical comedy. I also enjoyed the bit with Bob as Jack Webber, the anti-communist propoganda filmmaker who realized his ideas were insane, especially for the old timey newsreel presentation of it.
The anchor that weighs this episode down is the bootleg “make a wish” sketch. It goes on forever, and it’s a one-joke premise that never finds another gear. It’s a lot like the “basketball recruiters with toddlers” sketch where there’s an amusing enough idea there, but Bob and David try to go down to earth with it, and it just becomes dull rather than funny.
Overall though, an episode that can boast one of the show’s greatest sketches is nothing to sneeze at!