‘Portlandia’ Opens Final Season With Punk Rock Revelry

Alci Rengifo

“Portlandia” is preparing to close the curtain on a memorable eight year run but its last season kicks off with real verve. The sketches in the season premiere, titled “Riot Spray,” are both hilarious and culturally stinging. The absurd moments are goofy fun, but the core sketch of the episode is an almost satirical commentary on aging rebels dealing with a generation that just isn’t as rowdy. The show’s core as always been its digs at Portland culture and for years some commentators protested that some of the jokes were so of their place that non-Portland residents wouldn’t get the punchlines. But great humor, even localized, always transcends its geographical cradle. “Portlandia” begins its final season wickedly smiling at its residents, while giving us all great laughs.

The prime sketch of the season premiere features Fred Armisen as Spike, the leader of a middle-aged Punk band named Riot Spray. Discouraged by political developments, convinced Portland lives under a capitalist shroud of deception, Spike gets the band together, including Henry Rollins on vocals and Nirvana’s Kris Novoselic, to stage an impromptu outdoor show (“the government’s gonna be like ‘what’s this noise?!’”) to rouse the masses. This sketch develops into a hilarious parody of rebels tempered by time. During rehearsals Rollins admits a liking for Bruno Mars, and when Spike mocks locals who watch the Super Bowl the band members admit the recent half-time shows have been pretty good. As the band drives to its supposed gig, Rollins utters to himself, “When I was young I didn’t like anything, now I like a lot of stuff.”

The episode’s other sketches are light and comic jabs at middle class daydreaming and one is an almost surreal take on outback life. What makes “Portlandia” special as comedy is that it is truly funny without using too many cheap gimmicks, it instead goes for genuine absurdity, not dumbness. The opening sketch features Armisen and Carrie Brownstein as a couple named Brenden and Michelle with a stroller coming across a van for sale. They daydream about living as hippies on the road, the sketch then swerves into the darker, stark realities of living out of a fan including the lack of space (“Want to make love in the front seat?”), adequate food and the hassles of raising a kid from the back of a vehicle. This links to Riot Spray in the way the episode seems to be poking fun at middle class perceptions of rebellion. The old punker thinks his music will shake society, while the couple with the stroller idealize living out of a van and forsaking the pressures of urban life (“I want to chase light”).

The most bizarre moment of the episode is a sketch where Armisen and Brownstein play a couple staying in a cabin besieged by wild horses while waiting for absent relatives to arrive. Their host is a rough cowboy who shows no pity for the horses, cheerfully cooking them whenever he gets the chance.This is the moment when the show decides to take a break from the more socially aware sketches and dabble in surreal humor as Armisen dons a blonde wig, switching genders while cursing the wild horses making life in the cabin noisy and uncomfortable.

But the parts that work best are indeed the moments when the episode deforms Americana itself. Spike can’t take it anymore and runs to Canada, even after being warned that “people say they want to move to Canada but they don’t.” I dare not spoil a scene involving the Canadian border police, but it’s a fine-tuned example of great acting with lively writing.

“Portlandia” remains refreshing because it refuses to be chained down by formula. Designed as sketch it is free to imagine and go wild. Season 8 kicks off in that spirit, celebrating its characters as they dream, rage and chase the wild horses in their lives.

“Portlandia” Season 8 premieres Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. ET and airs Thursdays on IFC.