K-SCORE: 19
(with The Rise of Thadland)
Creators: Eric Falconer, Chris Romano
Starring: Darin Brooks, Alan Ritchson, Chris Romano, Ed Marinaro, Omari Newton, Rob Ramsay, James Cade, Frankie Shaw, Page Kennedy, Sam Jones III, Gabrielle Dennis, and Denise Richards (for some reason)
Spoiler Level: Moderate
“perhaps more macabre than the writers realized”
I approached Blue Mountain State with one mission: determine whether or not it’s satire. Tragically, after thirty-six grueling episodes and a plotless ninety-minute movie, I can confidently declare that this is not satire. It’s just really really really really stupid. I usually hate football culture and everything to do with college, so you might not be surprised that this wasn’t high on my list of favorite TV shows. But Blue Mountain State, following the hijinks of a college football team, has next to no football and straight-up no college. I despised it for different reasons.
The only redeeming characteristic of Blue Mountain State, which is otherwise a random, mean-spirited, and unfunny bacchanalia of the collegiate sex, drinking, and drug use, is that occasionally the writers accidentally wrote storylines so truly horrific in their content and presentation that it's amusing to think about afterwards that they could be continued to be delivered with the American Pie campy lighthearted tone. In one episode, every member of the football team has drug-free pee pumped into their respective urethras to pass a drug test. In another episode, the idiot mascot best friend character (and unfortunately one of the show’s creators) is part of a kidnapping of an actual goat, which is subsequently cruelly murdered as a result of boundless irresponsibility. Yet another episode with him has him trapped under a bench-press bar and cutting off his own nipple with a broken glass bottle in a misguided attempt to free himself from a situation most reasonably intelligent people would find easily extricable. In the finale of season two, the school riots to celebrate a perfect 12-0 season from the football team (no games or even plays depicted), and as a result of their mob mania, all the cheerleaders lives are imperiled. In the episode I found personally most distasteful, a virgin is sacrificed by the football team to the lacrosse team as a means of creating peace between them. The final shot of her being led away by all the muscular lacrosse players is perhaps more macabre than the writers realized it would be, for all that can go through one’s head during such a scene is a gruesome imagining of the endless gang-raping soon to befall her.
“Watching... truly wears on your soul”
The show treats all of its characters like they are good people who stumble into silly shenanigans from time to time even when their behavior is life-ruining for those around them, the essence of selfish, and crude. Watching them for as long as Blue Mountain State runs, a merciless three seasons, truly wears on your soul. Every ten minutes I hoped coach Marty Daniels would be curb-stomped by one of the players or coaches he abused, knowing there was little hope of that. I wanted the shot of Thad Castle, face covered in cocaine, in trouble with the NFL, to be the last shot, and for there to be a quiet report regarding his overdose demise. After the episode where it was revealed that Sammy failed to attend any classes in any semester of his first two years living on the school campus, I wanted him to be dragged home by his parents. If they insisted on checking in with him, show me that he’s started to turn his life around taking a job working in sanitation for his local town. And as for Alex Moran, oh Alex Moran, I see plenty of decent conclusions for your story. None of them involve you not having syphilis.
“Each episode is gratuitous in its nudity and yet there’s no nudity.”
But you know, this stuff was expected. Blue Mountain State is a senseless show obsessed with beer, boobs, and football. Honestly, it’s biggest problem isn’t the characters or plots, weak and amoralistic though they are. It’s biggest problems is Spike TV and the censorship bureau that prevented them from making the product they actually wanted to make. Each episode is gratuitous in its nudity and yet there’s no nudity. Not a bare breast to be found in all nine-hundred minutes. The opening theme song has a girl lifting her shirt to flash her tits to the camera and she isn’t even granted the courtesy of a face, but those tits are covered in a bra and so is the show. Blinded by a big black bra. It’s as if the show is a guy trying to talk dirty, but all he’s allowed to say is, “Here’s where I’d say something raunchy.” The reason I watched the stupid movie, The Rise of Thadland, was because I was curious what would happen with those characters and concepts when the gloves came off. Nothing. They had no ideas. They just put boobs into a few frames and filmed nonsense until a merciful explosion put an end to the idiocy.
I guess I get it. There are some for whom the only thing they’re looking for in their entertainment is an escapist delusion that all relationships are untethered with emotional attachments, all women are perfectly beautiful and willing to have sex with you always, constantly, and in groups, and drugs are free, universally accepted, and come with no negative side effects. Real college probably does better than much of the rest of our society at recreating this fantasy land, but it’s still a distant and thankfully impossible dream. I can’t credit Blue Mountain State too much for delivering this however because apart from a few moments where you say, “Wait, what are they doing?” it’s just a lot of boring, low-stakes stories that don’t make sense. And if you think I’m wrong about the show: I challenge you to a bet. Take me to a party where I can bathe in a mojito hot tub with a girl like this. If it happens, I’ll issue a retraction. If it doesn’t, I get to check you into rehab while telling you that your alma mater is nothing more than a cult.
