Satire is a tricky thing--swing too wide and you don’t land the punch, hit too close to the mark, and you’re just wallowing in the excesses you’re critiquing. Awesome Show rarely does anything by half measures, and nowhere does that hold more true than in Season Three, Episode Six, “Jim and Derrick.” Awesome Show is a master class in taking a single joke and repeating it until the back-breaking absurdity of the gag becomes equal parts annoying and hilarious.

Not every episode of Awesome Show can be as vibrantly chaotic, as gloriously off-beat as “C.O.R.B.S.” This kind of madness only comes along once a season if we’re lucky. “C.O.R.B.S” strikes a balance between the relative sweetness of Season Two and the casual brutality of Season Three.

Who can resist Spagett? With his skullet/ponytail combo, marinara stained mouth, and total obliviousness... what’s not to love? Continuing with Season Three’s general downer vibe, “Spagett” expands on the themes of the untrustworthiness of friendship and failure.

So you think Season Cinco is unique in its single-minded obsession with violence, retribution, and despair? You’re obviously forgetting Season Three Episode Three’s “Rascals.” Season Three began with Eric mourning the recently murdered Tim.

Season Three, Episode Two is one of my personal favorites---combining cringe-inducing weirdness, amped up bathos, and just enough strategically employed Richard Dunn, “Chan,” is a triumph for Awesome Show. Awesome Show’s penchant for dark humor started early in Season One. While Season Cinco is rightly lauded for having more disturbing and violent content, Season Three doesn’t skimp on the terror or the tragedy.

Season Three is upon us, CineDump, and with it comes more of the uncannily uncouth, the vitriolically violent, and the disturbingly dreamlike. Awesome Show continues its satirical takedown of capitalism, using Season Three, Episode One “Resurrection,” to exuberantly mock commercials and infomercials. The main saga of Tim’s return from death is devoid of all mystery or spiritual significance--instead, it is reduced to the amount of “hundos” Tim and Eric can earn through their production of Tiny Tigers.

We’ve reached the end of Season Two, and like the end of Season One, there will be laughter and a whole lot of tears. In Season Two, Episode Ten, “Embarrassed,” Awesome Show reaches the apotheosis of its themes of competition and wicked fathers. From the nonsensical, joyous “Tumblers Better than Pumpers” song, to the rivalry that forms this episode’s main saga, competition forms the narrative core of this episode