TV Recap: Workaholics, ‘High Art’

joel wosk is lording…

This week on Workaholics, we were given an opportunity to see the guys venture outside the cubicle by witnessing an eventful weekend in the lives of Anders, Blake, and Adam. In the opening scene, we see the guys pulling into the driveway of their shared home still dressed in their work outfits. They are greeted by their drug dealer, Karl, and a group of teenagers who are erecting some kind of street art installation consisting of an effigy of a Wall Street Banker on their front lawn. Anders and Adam express their sincere displeasure at the recent addition to their property, and demand that it be taken down immediately. In response, the leader of the group of teenagers throws a lit match and the piece goes up in flames. Unfortunately, the installation is rather flimsy and falls apart rapidly, leaving a burning cross on their front lawn. This is unfortunate because their new neighbors from across the street happen to be African American. This opening sequence sets the stage for a particularly offensive, albeit hilarious, episode of Workaholics.

Once inside the house, the guys start getting ready for a big night out. They are attending the opening of a new club owned by a mutual friend of theirs from college nicknamed “Trick.” Trick has recently come into a sizable fortune after selling his tanning business, and has been investing in potentially lucrative ideas. The boys decide to seize this opportunity by trying to come up with ideas to pitch to Trick. Blake has an idea for a pitch: an unburnable American flag. They get dressed and head on down to the club where they meet up with Trick, who promptly tells Blake that he’s not dressed appropriately for the occasion. Blake gets kind of upset and leaves Adam and Anders to their club adventure and meets up with Karl and the teenage art collective in an alleyway.

From here on, things get a little nutty. Blake is roped into committing acts of petty vandalism and shoplifting by the leader of the art collective, while in the meantime, Anders and Adam are lured into the men’s room of the club to do cocaine with Trick. Anders and Adam get very amped and start pitching ideas left and right to Trick, none of them being very good. In a last ditch effort; they pitch Blake’s flag idea, which is a hit. Anders and Adam head home to tell Blake the good news but Blake is offended that they went over his head and stole his idea. They respond by holding Blake down and threaten to cut off his hair unless he tells them how he made the unburnable flag. Blake is saved in the nick of time by Karl and the teenage art collective.

The next morning, Adam and Anders try to recreate their own flag but to no avail. They are too fried from the previous nights activities to focus. They both decide that the best way to remedy this situation is to do a lot more cocaine. What follows next is a cocaine binge montage worthy of Boogie Nights. A lot of drugs are consumed and a lot of flags are burned, but Adam and Anders still can’t recreate Blake’s unburnable flag.

The episode reaches its climax when Adam and Anders return to the club to present their idea to Trick. Their presentation flops without Blake and Trick berates them mercilessly. At the same time, Blake has become increasingly annoyed by the leader of the teenagers and decides to defect. The episode culminates in a grand act of disgusting revenge and in the end; the guys are all friends again.

“High Art” was a very funny episode filled with several quotable lines and introduced yet another buzzword to be incorporated into the modern lexicon: “lording.” It’s essentially means the same thing as “YOLO” but it sounds significantly less stupid when it comes out of a persons mouth. The cocaine use and flag burning were certainly over the top, but done without any political overtones. In fact, the only reason they were burning flags in the first place was a means to an end to create a flag that was fireproof. So, essentially they were doing something terribly unpatriotic in order to create something that was super patriotic. Are you confused? I think I am too.

Check out Workaholics, Wednesdays at 10pm on Comedy Central. All Photos Credit: Comedy Central