I’m the furthest thing there is from a sports fan, but for some reason, I find The League—a show about a group of friends stressing and fighting over their Fantasy Football league—so hilarious. And with each season, the show just gets more and more outrageous.

The third season finds Ruxin (Nick Kroll) the returning champion of the annual Shiva Bowl. To rub in his victory, he creates his own Shiva Bowl Shuffle video to send to the guys. Andre (Paul Scheer), on the other hand, is still suffering his Sacko punishments from being last year’s big loser. Meanwhile, Taco (Jonathan Lajoie) has returned from his trip to Algeria, where he became a soap star. Rounding out the gang are Taco’s older brother Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi), Kevin’s wife Jenny (Katie Aselton), and three-time former league champion Pete (Mark Duplass).

This season, the guys are still up to their crazy antics, and once again Andre is the punching bag for the rest of the gang. In the season opener, the guys arrange to have a porno called “My Orgy at Andre’s” shot in Andre’s apartment while he’s away. However, karma strikes as the guys get locked out of Andre’s apartment and can’t participate in the draft—and this is just the start of the craziness of the season. The third season also brings Taco producing Andre’s singles ad, a pet guinea pig that may have ended up in the meal, a hot au pair getting between some of the guys, and the invention of Taco Lent. Plus, Kevin discovers Ellie’s new friend’s father is a man he put in prison, Ruxin goes overboard with his raunchy trash talk, iPhone autocorrect causes some misunderstandings, Kevin and Jenny get in over their heads with a drug dealer, and so much more.

Many of the highlights of the third season for me revolve around Taco’s half-baked schemes. In “Bobbum Man,” Taco announces he has created his own offline social network called My Face, complete with a phsyical Facewall posterboard containing photos, post-its and actual chains “linking” the items; and in “Yobogoya!”, Taco enters a jingle competiton for a sketchy fast food restaurant. Taco is also a source for totally inappropriate but hilarous songs. This season Taco sings the politically incorrect “Bang Bang, What’s the Hang?” and his Yobogoya! jingle, plus he provides the backbeat for Ruxin’s Corn Dog rap.

One thing I really enjoyed about this season is the fearlessness and total commitment of the cast—Nick Kroll and Paul Scheer will do anything for a laugh, no matter how ridiculous they look. These guys don’t know the meaning of shame—with each episode Andre’s outfits grow more and more absurd, and so do his antics—from urban forraging to talking in a cockney-accent.

I also love the sarcasm and the interplay among the cast. These actors have such great chemistry. Their ability to play off one another allows for some hilarious improvised insults, conversations and arguments. The dialogue sounds so effortless and natural, and the characters really do feel like age-old friends who enjoy ribbing one another.

The third season of The League also brings some amazing guest stars to the series, including Will Forte, Brie Larson, Brett Gelman, Eliza Dushku, Ray Liotta, Seth Rogan as porn director Dirty Randy, Jeff Goldblum as Ruxin’s dad, and Sarah Silverman as Andre’s sister. Jason Mantzoukas also returns Ruxin’s perverted brother-in-law Rafi. Plus, there are a lot of cameos by professional athletes, but those were lost on me.

The League Season Three is so much fun—even for a non sports person like me—I could rewatch these episodes over and over. And since this DVD set offers extended versions of almost all of the episodes, it’s like a whole new viewing experience! I can easily recommend picking up this set!

What’s Included on the DVD:

Episodes:

• All 13 episodes of Season 3 (286 min)
  
  “The Lockout“, “The Sukkah“, “The Au Pair“, “Ol’ Smoke Crotch“, “Bobbum Man“, “Yobogoya!”, “Carmenjello“, “Yobogoya!”, Thanksgiving“, “The Out of Towner“, “The Light of Genesis”, “The Guest Bong”, “St. Pete“, “The Funeral”
• Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DD 5.1
• English SDH, Spanish, French subtitles

Extras:

• 10 Unrated and Extended Episodes
  Almost 29 minutes of extra footage integrated back into the episodes. This is my favorite way to view deleted footage, but for those who prefer to watch the episodes as they originally aired, this is also an option.
  
  • “The Lockout” (aired 23:29, extended 26:07)
    
  • “The Sukkah” (aired 21:29, extended 25:15)
    
  • “The Au Pair” (aired 21:22, extended 23:45)
    
  • “Ol’ Smoke Crotch” (aired 21:23, extended 22:48)
    
  • “Bobbum Man” (aired 21:21, extended 21:31)
    
  • “Carmenjello” (aired 21:22, extended 26:38)
    
  • “Thanksgiving” (aired 22:23, extended 24:22)
    
  • “The Out of Towner” (aired 21:23, extended 29:29)
    
  • “St. Pete” (aired 21:42, extended 22:30)
    
  • “The Funeral” (aired 23:05, extended 25:30)

• Deleted Scenes (13:31)
  Fifteen more deleted scenes—it’s amazing they had more stuff that wasn’t in the extended episodes!
• Alt Nation (14:09)
  Some hilarious alternate takes for the season’s quips, insults and one-liners. You can really see how great these guys are at improvisation—most of these are just as funny as those actually used in the episodes.
• Taco Tones (5:46)
  Full music videos of “The Shiva Bowl Shuffle”, “Bang Bang, What’s the Hang?”, “Bobbum Man” and “Yobogoya!”, as well as Ruxin’s Corn Dog rap.
• Gag Reel (11:29)
  Fun with the cast as they flub lines, crack up, goof off and deal with prop malfunctions.

Final Thoughts:

This series airs in HD on FX, and also received a Blu-ray release. The picture quality on this Standard Definition set is quite clear and I don’t really have any complaints about it or the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

As for the Bonus features, it would have been nice to get some behind the scenes featurettes and audio commentaries. However, with a fun gag reel and the inclusion of the unrated/extended episodes, this set definitely has its benefits.

In it’s third season, The League continues to give this non sports fan a lot of laughs, and the episodes have great replay value. This DVD set is an easy recommendation.