The League: The Complete Second Season [Blu-ray] by 20th Century Fox

Actors

• Katie Aselton
• Mark Duplass
• Nick Kroll

Format

• AC-3
• DTS Surround Sound
• Subtitled
• Widescreen

Editorial Review

Season two of The League finds our gleeful and endlessly petty competitors launching into a new football season–and because well-to-do nebbish Andre (Paul Scheer of comedy troupe Human Giant) won the last Shiva Bowl, he takes schemer Pete (mumblecore auteur Mark Duplass), hapless Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi), insecure Ruxin (Nick Kroll), and dimwitted Taco (Jonathan Lajoie) to Vegas, where he has pimped out their trophy in his own image. Kevin's wife Jenny (Katie Aselton) follows, demanding to be let into the league, which the men resist. But the series (now increased to 19 episodes) quickly returns to its natural environment of the urban and suburban wilds of Chicago, where everyone tries to undermine and take advantage of everyone else in the name of winning. Season two has found its groove, nicely balancing league skullduggery with other storylines, ranging from Kevin and Jenny's daughter developing a potty mouth to a monkey stolen from a petting zoo to a high school reunion. The show occasionally veers into antics that are just a little too absurd (a sequence in which Ruxin drags Andre into a trial as an expert witness stretches credulity); it's much more effective when the it digs into the well-observed social interplay, such as when Pete grandly lets Ruxin choose his lineup for an impending match, sending Ruxin into a frenzy of second-guessing. Also, the writers have a knack for coining terms and phrases that genuinely sound like the in-jokes of close friends, such as “rosterbating” and “chameleon boyfriend” (to mention some of the more printable ones). It's hard to comprehend why these reprehensible people are engaging to watch, but somehow they are. The League will give you no understanding of how fantasy football leagues work, but you will come away with a play-by-play diagram of the male ego. –Bret Fetzer