"The Boondocks Season 4" So, So, Bad

 

    I regret starting this season so much. It's not even funny. Take this in. I wrote my review for season three on July 20th, and now I'm writing my review for season four of The Boondocks on August 15th, nearly a month later. That's how bad this season is. 10 episodes, twenty minutes a piece, and I still couldn't stomach more than like an episode a week. It got so bad that after I finished Dread Delusion I just decided to stomach the last six or so episodes and finally get it over with. I kid you not when I say this season of The Boondocks basically killed any desire for me to finish off any sort of TV in any capacity. I have like five other shows just sitting in limbo because I couldn't bring myself to finish this show. Let's talk about it.

    By far the biggest reason this season was worse was because showrunner and creator Aaron McGruder was no longer at the helm and you could really feel it. What do you take when a show predicated on being witty, cutting edge and just generally very smart stops being all three of those things? You just get what ends up being kind of a mess. The big gimmick this season is that Robert Freeman loses all of his money, so most of this season is coming up with bizarre hare-brained schemes for them to slowly climb out of debt. The only issue is? The showrunners clearly don't want to commit to this bit either. 

    The first like four episodes are spent on this stupid plot, in which they start renting out their entire house, yet by the halfway point they just kind of give up. By episode five or so the status quo is restored. Yes they're in debt, but Robert can somehow buy an iPhone now but it's because they're being kind or some dumb shit. They stop trying to pull that Robert works a job schtick which clearly isn't working. Then they manage to literally escape "Freedomland" and manage to escape their debtor without consequence. This season they decided to try their hand at an overarching plot and it's sloppy at best, and just sad at worst.

    The result? They mostly sidelined Huey this season. It's kind of hard to have a character attempt to be a voice of reason when there's very little reasonable thinking put into these episodes, so he just ends up sighing or shutting up watching everything unfold. I thought he was supposed to be a main character. They also once again attempt to do the gimmick where they imitate other forms of media, except this time it's ham-fisted and frankly falls flat. They really had to do an entire episode based off of Breaking Bad? Don't even get me started on that awful Star Wars scene in the Stinkmeaner episode either. All of it is just worse.

    Then to top it all off, the show's lost all of it's charm. Uncle Ruckus is no longer someone you can really laugh at, he just becomes downright mean and really no fun to be around. Like why is he some business owner now? It was a weird shift that simply does not work. Or what about every other side character? It's like the only one that they could afford was Tom. They even switch out Ed Wuncler for his son who is just evil, not fun or cartoonishly evil like his father. Just kind of boring evil. I mean Freedomland seriously? In past seasons the white people weren't complete racists, but in this one they literally just decide to own slaves. Like what?

Final Score: 30/100

    Get me out of here man. It's legitimately embarrassing that this season was allowed to air. They even got rid of most of the fun fight scenes. It is an embarrassment. Sometimes people will say the show ended off poorly, or the writers didn't know how to end it, but this is bafflingly bad. Like I wouldn't even say big fans of the show should watch this season. I would say stop at season three of this show. You'd feel significantly more fulfilled compared to watching whatever the hell this season was supposed to be. I watched it with one eye elsewhere and I still feel like I deserved a refund of my time with this show.

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