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HBO's 'Vice Principals' is Infantile and Too Often Just Vile
July 17, 2016  | By Ed Bark  | 4 comments
 

The timing will never be right for a particular extended scene in the new Danny McBride “comedy” Vice Principals.

But seriously, could the timing be much worse?

Early in Episode 2 of this HBO series (premiering Sunday at 10:30 p.m. ET), festering high school vice principals Neal Gamby (McBride) and Lee Russell (co-star Walton Goggins of The Shield and Justified fame) break into the home of North Jackson High’s new principal, a black single mom named Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Hebert Gregory). Both very much wanted her job, and now they’re conspiring to drive her out before resuming their f-bomb-laced rivalry.

They begin by impulsively breaking her possessions one by one. And then trashing the whole place before burning it completely to the ground. This isn’t portrayed as a racial hate crime, although these two neanderthals would be fully capable. Given what’s happened over the past two weeks, though, this extended scene is completely and irresponsibly out of bounds. It’s also destructive on so many other levels. Yes, it obviously was filmed before the shootings in Louisiana, Minnesota and Dallas. No, that shouldn’t matter in the least. Because this isn’t comedy -- unless perhaps you’re a Klan member.

Based on watching the six episodes made available for review, Vice Principals can be coarsely amusing in fits and spurts. But when it’s bad, it’s horrid. As it is again in Episode 3, when Coggins’ Russell describes in beyond vile terms how the new black principal smells. This episode also works in a nude scene involving a high school girl on a field trip. (The actress presumably was “of age,” but the image is still beyond gratuitous.)

McBride, who co-created Vice Principals, certainly did not make nice during four seasons of HBO’s East Bound and Down, in which he played a washed up pitcher turned middle school phys-ed teacher. While on that job, his anger issues made Charlie Sheen look like Gene Wilder.

In Vice Principals, which features an opening cameo by Bill Murray as the departing principal, McBride apparently feels the need to up the ante and be even more crude and abusive. His character is matched and then some by Goggins’ conniving, amoral Lee, whose Asian-American wife has a live-in mother who does nothing but rant in her native tongue.

McBride has gotten notably beefier to play Neal. He’s stuffed into his clothes and otherwise full of himself, whether cursing students as though they were dockworkers or trying to make moves on a sweet new blonde English teacher named Amanda Snodgrass (Georgia King).

Neal also has a chunky daughter, Janelle (Maya G. Love), from a previous marriage to Gale (Busy Phillipps), who’s now the wife of well-meaning motocross racer Ray Liptrapp (Shea Whigham). Although regularly referencing his daughter’s weight, Neal is halfway refined in her presence. But his main objective is to one-up his ex- and Ray, who have custody.

There’s also a jive-talking school cafeteria worker named Dayshawn (Sheaun McKinney), who’s reminiscent of J.B. Smoove’s recurring Leon Black in HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Curb likewise exults in bringing political correctness to its knees. But it does so with sharply honed humor and sometimes even substance. Vice Principals, in contrast, is a sitcom that immediately steps in dog crap and then can’t scrape it off. HBO has ordered just 18 episodes and plans to spread them over two seasons before calling an end to things. Perhaps the end could come sooner, though. Maybe before that second episode ever gets a chance to soil a network that by now should know much better than this.

GRADE: D

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net

 
 
 
 
 
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4 Comments
 
 
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Dec 13, 2023   |  Reply
 
 
Olivia
"Neal also has a chunky daughter" are you really attacking the body of an actual child? You understand that is an actual person, right? And a child, at that. Disgusting.
Mar 5, 2022   |  Reply
 
 
steven craig gardner
wow, just wow...when did danny mcbride and jody hill shit in your cereal
Jan 12, 2022   |  Reply
 
 
Dan
What a horrific disgrace of a show. And the real crime is wasting the considerable talent of Walton Goggins, a fine actor. I know Walton needs a paycheck, but what was he thinking? I watched the first episode with my wife, who is a retired Elementary School Principal and she was horrified. She decried this as a mockery of all hard working school administrators in this country who would never behave in such a manner. We realize this is supposed to be a "comedy", but it is way over the line. Since we didn't even make through episode 1, I am not surprised about the content of episode 2 and further, but in these troubled times, that nonsense is troubling. HBO, take this off the air.
Jul 20, 2016   |  Reply
 
Tom jackson
Funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t care less if in these troubled times you can’t just sit back and enjoy the show. Boo! Hoo! Hoo! Everything in life doesn’t have to be politically correct. Danny and Walton make a great team. Keep up the good work!
May 6, 2020
 
 
 
 
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