Other than the occasional murder, this season of Delocated has been relatively PG thus far.
Previous episodes about potato skins bars and cooking shows featuring sleepwalking chefs, though absurd, would be suitable to air in primetime under the TV Parental Guidelines. But Delocated airs at midnight, when the kid gloves can come off. And last night’s episode, “Camping,” truly earned its “Mature Audience Only” rating.
We can thank the hilarious Todd Barry for that.
Barry, the stand-up comedian known for his languid delivery, plays a fictionalized version of himself on Delocated. Usually he’s a peripheral character who hangs out with the Mirminskys at their Brighton Beach Russian Social Club and gets limited screen time. But on the rare occasions when Barry gets to shine, like in the Season 2 episode “Fidence” when he pays off his gambling debts to the Mirminskys and receives his first “kill boner,” he never disappoints.
“Camping” was another case in point. In this episode, we learn Barry is extremely fond of sex with prostitutes, so much so that his go-to Wang Cho prostitute is essentially put out of business when Barry decides to settle down and marry his favorite Mirminsky prostitute, Svetlana.
The Wang Cho prostitute is crestfallen, and barges in on Barry’s nuptials to break up the ceremony. When she pulls him aside and tells him that he’d promise to marry her, Barry delivers the hopelessly romantic line, “Marry you? That’s some cute little thing I say after I blow my load.”
You won’t hear that on Must See TV. Nor would you hear the line he fed to Svetlana as he asked her hand in marriage: “Before I was just paying for sex and blowjobs. Now I’m paying for sex, blowjobs…and love.”
It’s great. I can only imagine the shit-eating grins on the faces of Jon Glaser, John Lee, and Vernon Chatman (and Joe Mande, who got the teleplay credit) when they wrote those lines knowing they could get away with them. They also must get a kick out of fucking with Barry, as later he’s subjected to torture and rape by his Chinese prostitute for betraying her.
But “Camping,” as you can probably tell by the title, wasn’t solely about Barry.
Delocated is “Jon’s” show. And in his latest terrible idea, he decides to take David on a camping trip and abandon him in the woods for 24 hours so David can prove his manhood by conquering Mother Nature.
Naturally, things go wrong, and “Jon” gets taken hostage by a backwoods private militiaman and his wife.
Just as TB is about to save the day and rescue “Jon” from the gun-toting radicals, he barges into their cabin and finds “Jon” having a threesome with them under the covers. It turns out the suicide pills they thought they were taking – and forced “Jon” to swallow at gunpoint – when they heard TB coming were actually ecstasy pills.
David, the only sane person on Delocated, winds up hitchhiking home after his father forgets about him.
He’s disappointed when “Jon” when he returns home, but he goes from disappointed to proud to revolted in a matter of seconds when TB shares the news of what happened.
“Your father looked death square in the face, and won,” TB says.
Incredulous, David asks, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He butt-fucked an old couple.”
Wholesome entertainment.
