Legit: Season 1

Over the last fall I had a friend who was really into this comedian named Jim Jefferies. We listened to him multiple times and while I feel as though Jefferies can go too far sometimes to get a laugh and can be down right offensive, he can also go the exact opposite and hit it out of the park and make me laugh very, very hard. So when I saw that he had a TV show on FX I thought, well this should be interesting right?

Legit is just a down right strange show.

The show follows the comedian Jim Jefferies. This seems to be a thing that happens every once in a while, a comedian will do pretty well and get offered a television show. The show will usually be in an episodic format and put the comedian through wacky hijinks with his friends who are more than likely made up.

Legit does just that. It follows the sort of fictional, sort of real life of Jim Jefferies the comedian as he goes through wacky hijinks with his friends, living out funny stories, many of them are stories that Jefferies has told on stage.

The main story the show derives from is the story of Jim going to visit the brother of a friend who has muscular dystrophy. (In this case the friend is Steve played by Dan Bakkendahl, and his brother Billy, played by DJ Qualls.) The story goes that Jim goes to visit this kid and the kid makes a request of Jim. Billy has never gotten laid and wants to hire a prostitute.

Jim of course, thinks this is a brilliant idea and gets Steve to go along with it.

Now Jim in this show is portrayed as an outspoken asshole who actually has a heart of gold. So despite the fact that he brings Billy to a brothel, does weed and cocaine, gets Billy high and drunk, for some reason, after the first episode, him and Steve are allowed to bring Billy back to their house and take care of him. And that's the set up for the entire season. A comedian, his doofy friend, and the kid with muscular dystrophy living in a really shitty apartment in LA.

If this sounds horrible (not bad, just horrible) than you are right. The show is a very raunchy comedy that focuses on a lot of drugs, prostitutes, a lot of jokes about disabled people, and a pluthera of jokes that makes me say you probably shouldn't watch this show with your parents. (I mean unless your parents are into that stuff, its really up to you) And a lot like Jim Jefferies stand up, a lot of the time, it goes a little bit too far.

Now what you would think I would say is that that, like his stand up, the show can hit it out of the park as well as take it too far.

This isn't exactly the case. Its funny, don't get me wrong. But sometimes, the acting out of these funny scenarios, especially if you've heard them be described in his standup, are just not as funny.

Bringing Billy to the brothel was funny enough, but I really didn't laugh as hard as I did when I heard the story. A lot of the times, its not even a story of a bit, its just one joke from one things that I almost feel like Jefferies just wanted to shoe horn in there. A lot of the times, these jokes fall flat and just seem forced.

And that's the main problem I have with the show. Everyone has different levels of being offended, I usually think my levels are pretty low and I don't get offended by much, this show crossed that thresh hold a few times but other people may not get offended by this at all. Its more the forced jokes and odd feeling of the show that I have to criticize. Now, I'm coming from a different perspective in that I have heard these jokes before so maybe they're not as funny. They could be very funny for people who have never heard the stand up before. The problem is, it feels forced. That's it.

The show is about a guy taking care of a disabled person. This can either go one of two ways, it can go down the path of being incredibly offensive and hoping that poking fun at the issue, it makes it better, OR you could make it kind of a heart felt thing, as if there's an actual connection between Jim and Billy. And the show does a little bit of both. Again, sometimes its works, sometimes it really doesn't.

Which really makes me uneasy about this show. Not that I'm offended by it, or that I think its humor is tasteless, which it can be. Its more the style.

FX is starting to have that reputation of creating shows about absolutely horrible people and their day to day lives. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Anger Management, Archer, Louie, Sons of Anarchy (?) I've never actually watched the show. So I was just expecting something like Its Always Sunny, where Jim is just a horrible person all the time, there is no redeeming qualities about most of the characters in Its Always Sunny, they're just assholes, and that's the joke.

And what's weird, is I think I would have preferred that for this show. The last episode of the first season focuses on the prostitute that Billy had sex with at the brothel in the first episode. She comes along saying that she's pregnant with Billy's kid. The entire cast is in chaos. Billy wants to get married, his mother is angry, all of this stuff. Then her water breaks, she goes to the hospital and they all figure out its not his kid.

Now this has some funny moments attached onto the reveal, but mainly the ending of this episode is actually really sad. Billy is very sad about this. His mother is surprisingly very sad about this. Its just kind of a melancholy ending to a really melancholy season. Because Billy is disabled, the show has a heartfelt edge to it. Jim can be an asshole, but he wants the best for the people he cares about, Billy, Steve, the large black nurse who ends up living with them Ramona.

Its just kind of strange.

Jim Jefferies as an actor... well... he's not horrible. Honestly, the guy probably isn't an actor.

I think he's very good, on stage. And honestly its kind of hard to like him as a character, especially when his moments where he's suppose to be the good person turn on very conveniently when the plot needs him to.

The rest of the cast is decent enough. Steve is kind of funny cause he's the character everyone shits on. Billy is decent enough and has that look about him that will allow for a heartfelt moment here and there. The rest of the cast is a pluthera of characters that come in and out. The majority of them are very good like John Ratzenberger as Billy and Steve's father who lives outside because their mother (played by Mindy Sterling) is a horder, who is also very good.

Overall, there are some good parts about the show. It did make me laugh a couple times and it was entertaining enough to get through the entire season. If the second season comes on Netflix, I'll probably watch it. But I'm not surprised that the show was cancelled on FX. I like Jim Jefferies but I don't think a show about him was gonna last very long.

But what do you think? Do you watch Jim Jefferies? Do you think he's funny? Comment and Discuss below!

I'll leave you with this. This isn't my favorite bit by Jefferies but it is a funny bit. Enjoy!