Seinfeld was branded as "the show about nothing," to which Letterkenny could say, "Hold my beer." Most of the 42 episodes of the show have little in the way of narrative structure or even much of a point. To write a plot description of most episodes would be pretty pointless. It'd basically be: a lot of rambling, drinking, and occasional fist fighting. The end.
The eponymous town in Ontario has three main groups of people: hicks, hockey players, and skids. The hicks are led by a young farmer named Wayne, his younger sister Katy, and his friends Daryl and "Squirelly Dan." They start off pretty much every episode with some kind of discussion that usually has nothing to do with the rest of the episode. A couple of them they actually go through the alphabet from A to Z with some words or phrases relating to each letter about...whatever. Other times they all do parts of what is sort of a monologue.
Unfortunately then most every episode has to devote time to these two douchebag hockey players: Jonesy and Reilly. If you watched the original Mighty Ducks movie there was one nerdy kid who'd be like, "Trip. The Tripster. The Tripmeister. The Trippenheimer..." Imagine two of that kid going on like that for five goddamned minutes. And like the beginning of the show it really has nothing to do with what else is going on. In season 1 they're just normal junior hockey players, in seasons 2 & 3 they go up to senior hockey, season 4 they just hang around the gym with a couple of gay guys, season 5 they're assistant coaches on a women's hockey team, and season 6 it's back to the gym with the gay guys. Besides the gay guys they have a coach whose catchphrase is "It's fucking embarrassing!" after which he kicks something. And when they or the gay guys aren't riffing for an uncomfortably long time, they have an enemy named "Shoresy" whose face is never shown and is usually doing a naked handstand in a shower. All he does is make jokes about fucking their moms. Occasionally they do interact with the hicks, especially Katy, whom they've both dated individually and together.
The third group is the "skids" who are a small group of emo meth heads led by Stuart. They deal meth and other drugs and most of the series dress sort of like the gang in A Clockwork Orange. Stuart likes to use fancy words and imagines himself to be a great DJ though when he has a concert in town Katy is the only one who shows up. They briefly went out before her even briefer modeling career. One season a girl named Gae joins their group and she and Stuart become a thing. She returns in season 6 to get Stuart in rehab and then they go to "the city" to sell GHB. The skids don't usually get as much air time as the hockey players so they're slightly less annoying.
There's often something that almost resembles a plot. Like in the first episode Wayne had sworn off fighting when he was with some girl, but once they broke up he decides to prove he's the toughest guy in Letterkenny by beating some of the other local toughs one-at-a-time in his driveway. That season ends with the seemingly dramatic announcement that a Native girl named Tanis is pregnant with Wayne's kid and Katy is going to "the city" to become a model.
Well don't worry there won't actually be much story from this. Tanis gets an abortion and Katy comes back with blonde hair and two dudes who leave after one episode. And we'll never speak of any of this again. Similarly at the end of season 4 Wayne has been seeing a girl named Rosie but is tempted to get back with Tanis. Well don't worry, the start of next season he goes to Rosie and she's just up and decided to move to Vancouver. Problem solved! Wayne and Tanis go out for a couple of episodes before breaking that off. At the end of season 5 Wayne meets a French-Candadian girl and at the end of season 6 he has a ring to propose to her, but I wouldn't expect anything to come of that.
There are a few episodes that actually did a fair job of having something close to a real narrative. Like one where Wayne and Katy get a $5000 inheritance from a dead relative and so decide to host a Shark Tank-like thing in their barn where the various characters try to convince them to fund some stupid project. In the end they just use the money for a big drinking party. Another episode they have a town spelling bee. For some reason the hockey coach tries to rig it for the two dickweed players by giving them really easy words, though in the end Katy wins.
Though the best episode was when Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder, She's Out of My League, Goon) guest stars as "Hard Right Jay," an alt-right asshole who shows up in town to organize a protest of renaming the Letterkenny Chiefs soccer team to something less racist like Rough Riders. They're holding their own Charlottesville-style rally on the field when the hicks, hockey players, and skids all band together to beat the shit out of them.
I guess the thing is that when they get all the factions together then it becomes something like a real show. Otherwise it's just three groups doing their own shit and nothing really comes of it. That's probably why the holiday episode at the end of each season (there was a Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and I think two Christmas ones) is usually better than many of the normal episodes because it brings the characters together for the most part.
You might ask then, why the hell did you watch all 42 episodes? Boredom, mostly. But also I think it's like the Union Station books that I've talked about a few times where there's not much in terms of a narrative or conflict resolution but there are enough amusing bits that it makes it mostly enjoyable. I just fast-forward through most of the hockey player shit.
The thing with the hockey players reminded me of when I was watching the second season of NBC's AP Bio on Hulu. When Jack the AP Bio teacher and his students are concocting some harebrained scheme the show is great. It's just that I hate all of the secondary characters. I mean almost literally all of them. Like if 99% of them were written out of the show I would not give a shit at all. The hot redhead accountant they added in the second season is the only one I'd keep. The rest can die in a fucking fire. If there were a season 3 I'd hope for that to happen as a "very special episode." In the same way if the hockey players got a contract to play for the Siberia Huskies and were never heard from again that would make me happy. And if the skids got thrown in jail for 3-5 years that wouldn't be bad either.
Really the parts with the hicks sitting around Wayne and Katy's produce stand or on the porch of their house reminds me of a live action King of the Hill only with more swearing and sex talk. So a gritty, younger, Canadian, live action reboot of that show. If they'd just taken that concept and run with it, using the hockey players and skids as true foils to the hicks then it'd be a much better, more coherent show.
So should you watch it? I'd wouldn't say that's a hard no. Now go get a fucking Puppers. (Puppers being their beer of choice.)
3 comments:
I've tried to get into this show, but it's rough. "Trailer Park Boys" is way better...like not even close, although some idiots say "Letterkenny" is better, but those people are wrong lol.
I had to do a little scrolling to find it, but here it is. Does not sound like you enjoyed it. Kind of missed the whole point that it’s mostly about how all these characters are ridiculously verbose. The language is pretty much the whole point, and how they view each other.
I don't watch TV shows or even read books for the language. Some of the "verbose" bits are funny and some aren't. It's like a sketch show like SNL or a stand-up comedy act that way. Probably more hits than misses, which is why I said on the whole I found it amusing.
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