Review: Legends of Chamberlain Heights “Cane and Disabled”

Yeah, things are feeling pretty biblical right around now.

Spoilers Below

Milk and Jamal sit watching reality TV while Grover watches the radio like a hawk in order to call in for free tickets to the last NBA game of the season. By a miracle, he finally gets the call in and wins the tickets, only to find out they got awful seats. To remedy this, Milk spots some empty seats right next to the ring…meant for the disabled, so he pretends to be mentally disabled in order to get the seats, and so the guys live it up that night by doing the same. As someone with a physical disability (amputated foot below the knee due to Osteosarcoma) and on the autism spectrum, the thought that comes to mind is this: This has been done better, namely on, you guessed it, South Park. Specifically, the episode “Up the Down Steroid”, where Cartman also pretends to be mentally handicapped in order to compete in the Special Olympics for a $1000 prize. For fan’s of the show, it’s pretty common knowledge that whatever position Cartman takes is the wrong one, with even Kyle (who typically hates Cartman) genuinely concerned that this is taking things a bit far. Likewise here, Grover does find faking disabilities to be morally questionable…for about a few seconds before immediately falling into it for the perks.

The comeuppance comes swiftly as the three are mysteriously threatened through text by someone who condemns them for their actions, which turns out to be a guy by the name of Special Ted. This leads to a standoff between him and Milk, who initially wants to fight Ted, but then finds out about how tough he really is by reputation, and so finds every way imaginable to get out of it. In the end, all three of them are beat up by Ted and his sister, and not much is learned about the matter. However, that’s not the main course this time, at least in my view.

Similarly to “Steroid”, the main highlight of this episode for Legends is the one away from the principal cast. Whereas South Park brought in a story about pushing one’s priorities to win over their priorities to improve and grow through Jimmy’s use of steroids, this episode focuses on Montrail, Grover’s older brother, and his own substance abuse issues. Upon learning about the arrival of a brand new strain that will remind him of his first high, we finally learn more about his backstory that had been hinted at before. He was an upstanding student and athlete with a scholarship and a bright future ahead before a girlfriend introduced him to weed and he dropped everything for the next toke. The way it’s handled is pretty sudden, but it does a sufficient job of showing how he gained such a rep and how he ended up where he is. When finally trying the new strain, he is left paralyzed and found by Malik, who takes this as an opportunity for Montrail to finally live up to the potential Malik sees in him. Also in the end, this doesn’t seem to resolve with much development, what with this show’s tendency to revert to status quo, but it did display a potential for heart and character growth amongst the supporting players that I was starting to think this show wasn’t capable of.

I do have to remind myself that first seasons are often very rocky and the true vision of a work isn’t always fully formed in within that first set. Legends has not exactly hit the ground running in terms of writing so far, but its times like this that show me a glimmer of depth that could hold it up to some of the other less senior shows in Comedy Central’s line up. Putting it next to South Park was still a huge mistake, but the budding is still there, and hopefully will supply us with a few more moments like these to savor before the finale.

SCORE
6/10