Considering his lifestyle and the stories told about him, comedian Jim Jefferies should have been dead a long time ago. His stand-up is incredible, and his sensibilities are, while not exactly condoned by society, spot-on. What with all the booze and drugs he’s done, he should have certainly gone the route of Bill Hicks and died at an early age.
Nope. Now that he’s got a kid, he’s cleaned himself up, and now that he has a TV show on FX, it’s probably a good idea for him to keep his shit together. But just because he’s clean doesn’t mean LEGIT is a wishy-washy, pale imitation of his stand-up material. In fact, the premier episode kicks things off with one of his most questionable jokes.
If you haven’t heard his album, ALCOHOLOCAUST, you should do so before watching the show. At the conclusion of this one, he tells a story about taking his dying, wheelchair-bound friend to an Australian whorehouse so he doesn’t die a virgin. It’s a very detailed story, very offensive, and very, very funny. This is the subject of the first episode of LEGIT. The friend, Billy, played with mischievous glee by D.J. Qualls, is brought to Vegas instead (since the setting for the show is America), along with his brother Steve (played with a neurotic frenzy by Dan Bakkedahl), make for great awkward situations, especially since their parents are involved. Jim Jefferies, playing himself, staggers through the episode in a drunken stupor, and every single thing he says is either incredibly offensive, harshly abrasive, or just fucking dirty as all hell. One way or the other (or the other), it’s all funny as shit.
In the second episode, Jim decides to break Billy out of the hospital where he’s waiting to die. Inadvertently, they take along a guy with Down’s Syndrome, an uncanny ability to bowl a perfect game on Wii, and an unhealthy obsession with the Donald. The authorities think he’s kidnapped the poor guy, but when they send a nurse to pick up Rodney, she hangs out and gets drunk and/or high with them, instead. No subject is considered taboo on this show. Jefferies, who once told a joke on stage about a guy getting killed in a war zone, even goes as far as to joke with a suicidal Billy later on in the second episode.
If you like your humor in nasty, offensive packages, you need to start watching this show religiously. If you don’t think laughing at dying people in wheelchairs is funny, well, go fuck yourself. It’s all in how you look at it. Besides, even in the throes of the ugliest humor you can imagine, Jefferies does it from a place of love and good intentions. Billy is his friend, and he wants to help him enjoy the rest of his all-too-short life here on earth.
LEGIT is on FX on Thursdays at 9:30 pm Central Time. And don’t forget that Jefferies has an awesome backlog of stand-up comedy. Get on this shit, just in case he relapses and dies of a drug overdose. Then you can say you were a fan before he became posthumously famous.
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