Happy holiday, Boon crew! Sorry for the lateness of this recap; I was having cable problems last night and couldn't watch the show until it went up on the TOON website. But here we all are, and we're gonna drop sci about the latest episode, featuring the return — sort of — of everyone's favorite unstoppable dickhead, Colonel H. Stinkmeaner.
This one starts out with Grandpa Freeman having a delightfully selfish nightmare about a 28 Weeks Later-style invasion of Woodcrest by an army of Stinkmeaners. After throwing everyone he holds dear to the ravenous zombie jerks, he awakens in a pretty good mood, and when Huey asks if he had a bad dream, he responds "Bad for you! I lived and you died." It's nice of the show to remind us that, at heart, Robert really isn't that much more decent a person than Stinkmeaner himself.
His dream is about to come all too true, though, with the arrival of Stinkmeaner's posse, the Hateocracy: three elderly cranks bearing a strong resemblance to Fred Sanford, J.J. Evans, and Aunt Esther, and gunning for Grandpa. After hospitalizing a typically race-sensitive Uncle Ruckus, they come gunning for the Freeman fam, displaying an astonishing degree of martial prowess for three old-ass niggas based on beloved TV characters from the '70s.
It turns out this is Stinkmeaner's old running crew, a gang of violent thugs he met in an old folks' home, which they terrorized by running amok on Lark scooters, engaging in wholesale Jell-O theft and Reader's Digest subscription fraud, and other forms of geriatric mayhem, before getting kicked out. After their leader was killed, they swore revenge against Grandpa. Riley has the brilliant idea of engaging Ed Wuncler III as their bodyguard, but typically, he fails to grasp the task at hand and just drives around taking potshots at any old people he happens to encounter. Huey's plan of hiring Bushido Brown proves no more effective; he soaks the Freemans for thousands of dollars and attacks anyone who gets near them, including Grandpa's dates, traffic wardens, etc. It finally comes down to a brutally funny — and surprisingly gory — confrontation at the Freeman home.
"Stinkmeaner 3: The Hateocracy" was pretty solid from beginning to end, not only incorporating lots of satire and social commentary with the Return of the Nigga Moment, but also pleasing the fans of the anime aspects of the show with tons of farcical kung-fu action, this time (unlike in "The Red Ball") harnessed to a much funnier plot. It also worked because it brought the focus back on to the Freeman family, who have more or less been A.W.O.L. for a number of episodes. Season 3 has really gotten off to an amazing start, and critics other than my bad self are finally starting to take notice; over at Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker is asking if, after this episode, The Boondocks is the best animated show on TV. I'm not sure if I trust Tucker's instincts about the show (he thought last week's excellent Jimmy Rebel episode was a dud), but, barring the return of The Venture Bros., this is arguably not only the best animated show on TV, but it's laid claim to that title since its second season.
There's still a bit of doubt about whether or not this will be the last season of the show (the season trailer says it is, but Aaron McGruder has kept stumm about it, and no official announcement has come from the Cartoon Network), but having registered another solid episode in a season that's firing on all cylinders, we're all but guaranteed that it'll go out on top. McGruder — who's doing the majority of the heavy lifting on the show, and is reported to do almost all the writing himself — has hit a balance, with "Stinkmeaner 3", between satire, family drama and goofy animated action that is exactly where this show should be, and if you're not on board by now, you better step before it's all over. This season is shaping up to be the sort of television that people talk about years later as a high point of its day.
Rating: A-
Stray Observations:
– I usually have a low tolerance for this show's fight-scene shenanigans, but something about watching Huey going full-on Jackie Chan against an elderly, pot-bellied version of J.J. from Good Times (sorry, "George Pissedofferson") just cracked my shit up.
– Ditto for Fred Sanford's crazy-ass speech about crabs, followed by a scene lifted straight from Master Of The Flying Guillotine. I guess they couldn't get the music rights from Neu!, though.
– "You'll find another white woman! Just run!"
– NIGGA MOMENT + NIGGA SYNTHESIS = COMPLETE FUCKIN' DISASTER
– "Oh, I bet you are. You lookin' for the numbers man, or the weed man, or the welfare man."
– "That's all right, granddad. I'd probably kill a man too if he embarrassed me like that."
– "Yes! Let's kill them before they kill us! That's a plan that can't go wrong!"
– "We don't need no reason to fuck shit up! That's why we drink Hennessy. That's why we smoke menthols. That's why we's niggas! We likes to ruin shit."
– "Ooh! The police! Thank God for the poli…I mean, uh, who snitched? Who called the po-po?"
– Loved Stinkmeaner & his crew scatting the end credits theme.