The League S03E02: The Sukkah never trades

Trades. Every league wants trades. They keep the league competitive and promote inspired conversation between league members. But it’s very difficult to maintain the culture that allows for them within a league because they are the most dangerous version of in-season gambling.

Play a trade well…and you’ll have the envy and hatred of the rest of your league. You’re team will be better, stronger, and more playoff-bound, but you’ll have to endure plenty of ridicule from those who feel you unfairly improved your team through a trade.

And make the wrong play? Well, if you lose on a trade, you’re just going to be apologizing for the rest of season to your league as they lose to the monstrosity of a team you allowed your trade partner to create.

Much like the delicate rain forest ecosystem, trading is hard to sustain. Eventually, the trading parties dry up. Fewer teams are willing to trade, and those that want to trade fear getting screwed by the other party or being mocked by the rest of the league for making a bad deal.

It’s a true test to the type of league you have if you can pull your league out of that nosedive to no-trade land. And this is where we find the league in the second episode.

When we last left the league, they were locked out of their own draft while Dirty Randy and Rafi filmed a porn inside Andre’s apartment. Now they have to deal with the consequences.

Jenny’s hitting the streets (and park bench advertisements) again as a real estate agent. Ruxin’s tasked with getting Baby Geoffrey into the best Jewish prep school.

That leaves Pete tasked with successfully fixing the league by encouraging trades to balance the teams they autodrafted. But no one trusts Pete…or anyone else in the league, and why would they when your league is tossing out trades like Dwayne Bowe for Owen Daniels or Owen Daniels for LeSean McCoy and Tolbert (A little much, no?).

Unfortunately for Jenny, her first park bench ad for her return to the real estate game becomes the bed and motorboat of choice of a homeless man. Jenny tasks Kevin with evicting him, but Kevin confessing to the homeless dude that it was “that time of the month” only makes things worse.

Kevin ends up following Ruxin’s example to get the problem solved, which is never a good way to solve a problem and come out clean.

Since the draft, Andre’s noticed a few strange things in his apartment…but he hasn’t caught on to what went on in there. Even though the rest of the league is disgusted to even enter his place, he only picks up on the hints when he contracts thrush through “immaculate infection.”

Andre threatens the league with an offer: he’ll trade any player to anyone who’ll give him info about what went on in his apartment during the draft.

The ultimatum scares Kevin, always the weakest of the league, as he fears Ruxin will cave to Andre about “Sexfest 2011” to benefit from the trade. And upon hearing what the rest of the league did, Andre might, in anger, confess to Ruxin that the draft order was falsified when his name was drawn first overall.

The fear leads Kevin to allow Ruxin to throw his Sukkot, a Jewish harvest festival, in Kevin’s own backyard. Ruxin’s own house had to be ruled out because he was captured by Google Earth spray-painting a swastika on a pothole to get the city to fix it.

The Sukkot starts to get a little more like Festivus when Pete proposes an airing of grievances to reestablish trust in the league (even though the lies continue).

Once the ruse of truthliness is complete, Pete launches into an eight-way trade proposal, balancing the teams and filling all the position holes the autodraft created. It’s actually quite impressive. Bravo, Pete. Bra-vo.

In the process of Pete’s trade genius-ary, we get a glimpse of the full league roster, including the strangers we’ve never seen before. There’s Jenny, Taco, Kevin, Pete, Ruxin, and Andre plus the mysterious twosome of Chuck and Ted.

Will we ever meet Chuck? Or Ted? One can only hope they make as great a first impression as Dirty Randy…and they better have really good excuses for drafting from afar all these years. Live drafts are the only way to fly.

With the fantasy football work done, the league gets to the Sukkot-ing, but the party is destined to fail as soon as everyone sees how deeply involved Taco is. He’s made plans to host “Taccot,” his own combination Jewish festival and shroom rave after the Sukkot in the same tent, but he’s not content to keep the party elements at bay until the rave begins.

For starters, he volunteers his weed as the “plants” for the lulav tradition in the Sukkot ceremony, despite Ruxin’s groans. Oh, the bitter herb. Luckily, the representative from the Jewish prep school Ruxin is trying to impress doesn’t realize what she’s working with during the ceremony.

Meanwhile, the trades have all gone through. Pete’s happy to see that everyone’s teams have improved, but Kevin comes to tell him that Andre has declined his trade with Pete. Andre wants to take Pete’s place as “patient zero” of the league this year, the one who benefits from others misplaced trust, and he does so by screwing the master himself.

As Taco’s intruding on the festivities continues, Taco sends Ellie to put a “sukkah” DVD that he made in honor of the festival, we’re smart enough to know where this is going.

Instead of Taco’s DVD, Ellie finds the first copy of the “Sacko” porn Dirty Randy filmed in Andre’s apartment, and Ellie plays it for the masses at the Jewish ceremony on the outdoor screen.

Ruxin’s hopes of Geoffrey going to private school? Ruined. At least he’ll be able to hold his own in the preschool fantasy league.

Memorable quotes from Episode 2:

TACO: “What if she’s in a terrible accident one day, and someone has to tell them how to put her titties back together?”

TACO: “Woah! He is motorboating those fakies.”

TACO: “It’s like a Jewish Bonnaroo?”

RUXIN: “Yes, minus the patchouli and underlying sadness.”

RUXIN: “I’ve called the city 100 times, but they do not care about the plight of the upper-middle class white suburban male at all.”

KEVIN: “We do not get our periods at the same time.”

RUXIN: “Does a man ever tire of looking at the sunrise…when he’s balls deep in Kevin?”

RUXIN: “It’s like you trolling around the bar looking for a hand jibber, every once in a while, someone says ‘yes.'”

TACO: “I was in the room. There was so much semen.”

RUXIN: “And second, if I did look inward, which I won’t, I think we would find that my Judaism is the least objectionable thing about me.”

JENNY: “Problem plus swastika equals problem solved.”
RUXIN: “Tell that to the Jews.”

ANDRE: “This is not about me. I am the accuser. ‘Cause I know there be a witch in this town, and you’re all suspects, you cowpokes. And this dark city of Gotham’s got a gloomy cloud…’cause I’m gonna ride my horse right down Main Street.”

HOMELESS GUY: “She’s the floating muse, a dreamscape of femininity.”

KEVIN: “I’m not going to be trade-raped by my own wife.”
JENNY: “I’d be so gentle.”

KEVIN: “Maybe he’s like a menstrual medium.”

JENNY: “Are your brain and mouth connected, Kevin?”
KEVIN: “Sometimes.”

TACO: “Taccot is an ideal plane of existence where the 12 tribes of Israel come together with people who are high on mushrooms and groove to Aphex Twin.”

What is Aphex Twin, you ask? This…
http://youtu.be/5Az_7U0-cK0

PETE: “We’ve crossed the distrust horizon into the land of no trades.”

JENNY: “You are the patient zero of distrust, Pete.”

RUXIN: “Wait — an eight-way? But Andre’s sister’s not even here.”

TACO: “I like kickers. They’re the toughest.”

ANDRE: “It’s like a useless Good Will Hunting.”

RUXIN: “I’m keeping her and her family of conquistadors away until Geoffrey’s acceptance into the school.”

ANDRE: “I didn’t realize that sukkah was a high holy day.”

JENNY: “You promise me. Never smoke the lulav, okay?”

TACO: “Let’s get blazed, mother-sukkahs!”

KEVIN: “‘I’m Baby Geoffrey Ruxin. I’m in the cul-de-sac, son!'”

And just because you’ve been good, here’s the full version of Ruxin’s Shiva Bowl Shuffle from the season premiere.