Advertisement

All stories relating to HBO Canada

The Hype

Prime Time

Comments

The Yard recap, episode 6: wherein we vomit, along with the entire cast

THE YARD Episode 6, Finale

The season finale of The Yard is yet another episode about the economy of the yard. Yawn. We get it, and we’re over it. Anyway, the current craze is the stink bomb, which apparently consists of putting feces (dog or human, it’s never specified) in an envelope and waiting for someone to step on it. Mary is rightly grossed out by all of this, so she bullies Nick into regulating the stink bomb market. Wayne’s suggestion of poison and Roman’s (whose?) suggestion of “organics” imported from Oregon don’t fly, leaving Frankie to win the contract (which he, of course, proceeds to screw up).

Vomit, toxic waste and our thoughts on Nick’s butt-ugly hat, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hype

Prime Time

Comments

The Yard recap, episode 4: the peanut butter racket and the ol’ poop switcheroo

THE YARD Episode 4

Pretty much anything can be smuggled into the yard—Super Soakers, N-rated video games, dogs—but it’ll cost you, as we learn this week. The hottest contraband? Peanut butter, which to a 10-year-old kid has the same narcotic effect as a crack pipe. “Have you ever held a girl’s hand while eating a PB&J?” asks the ever-creepy Johnny. “It’s the best.” Honestly, no kid on TV has made our skin crawl this much since Glen on Mad Men.

As J.J. explains, even the most vigilant wardens teachers can’t stop the peanut butter racket. “There will always be demand,” he says, and Frankie and his crew seize on that demand, spending hours every day assembling sandwiches, then smuggling them over the fence with the help of a bushy-browed junior high student—this was the last remaining option after unmanned drones (remote control cars) and underground tunnelling failed. As the warring crews fight it out for control of the PB&J market, Johnny once again finds his idiocy exploited for nefarious purposes, and the show somehow manages to outdo itself in the gross-out department, beating sharts and pee-filled water balloons. All of the intel on the yard’s black market, larva consumption and the world’s nastiest sandwich after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hype

Prime Time

Comments

The Yard recap, episode 3: wherein a kid eats asparagus for four days in an effort to pee on school chums

THE YARD Episode 3

This episode of The Yard is all about turf (such as it is on a dinky playground), as Frankie and his henchmen go to epic lengths to cling to their only piece of territory: the soccer pitch. Really? When you could be fighting over the monkey bars or the swings or the Jujimon tables? That’s pathetic. But just like in all classic gang stories—okay, the only one we’re really familiar with is West Side Story—the turf itself is much less important than the power it represents.

This week, a friendly group of North African kids tries to use the pitch for—wait for it—soccer, but when the bullies ban them from the field, these sports enthusiasts retaliate with a vengeance. After Johnny’s shart attack, we didn’t think The Yard could get any grosser, but somehow, with the help of some pungent golden showers, it manages to outdo itself this week.

With a dull plot, a shortage of one-liners, and terrible, terrible African accents, this is the weakest episode so far. Our favourite supporting kids, like J.J., Adam and Cory, barely get a flash of screen time, so we hope the schoolyard shenanigans pick up next week.

As usual, we take a look at the adolescent angst and antics after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hype

Prime Time

Comments

The Yard recap, episode 2: from shart to finish

THE YARD Episode 2

Anyone who’s ever met a tweenage girl has seen the true face of evil, and this week on The Yard, Nick and his gang get a sense of how powerful the schoolyard girls really are. Any threat from Frankie’s crew is nothing compared to the subtle jabs of these ponytail-flipping femme fatales, led by Frankie’s pigtailed, brace-face sister Mary, her flirty sidekick Patti and hangers-on Piya and Sadie.

This week, their target is Johnny, and we don’t blame them. We thought this kid was a dolt after we saw that he had safety-pinned a homemade tinfoil lightning bolt to his T-shirt. This week we learn that in addition to being dumb as a brick, he’s also kind of gross.

We take a look at this week’s schoolyard schemes, strategies and sharts after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hype

Prime Time

Comments

The Yard recap, episode 1: bedwetter blackmail, a trading-card economy and a skid named Porkchop

THE YARDEpisode 1

With gritty cinematography, foul language and turf warfare, you’d be forgiven for thinking that HBO Canada’s new series takes place in a maximum-security institution. But instead of weights and orange jumpsuits, this yard is marked by swing sets and juice boxes. Most importantly, Nick, the gang leader, is 12, and his voice sounds more like Miley Cyrus than Bruce Willis.

Played by Quintin Colantoni, spawn of Flashpoint’s Enrico, Nick is a shaggy-haired mini Mafioso who kind of looks like a troll doll and speaks with the same brusque Brooklyn accent as his real-life father. His posse includes Johnny, a sidekick who carries a magic wand and likes holding girls’ hands, and Suzi, the brawn of the operation, a gangly tough chick who wears cat-themed T-shirts and wets the bed (“My mom gives me a buck for every time I don’t piss in the bed. Last month I made, like, 12 bucks”), a fact she’s blackmailed with in episode 1. Nick’s two brothers round out the gang: J.J. is a painfully earnest math whiz who became a vegetarian after reading E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, and Adam is a first-grader who just wants to play. “That’s all most kids want to do,” says Nick wistfully. “Just play and eat snacks.” Isn’t that what we all want?

This hilarious new mockumentary tracks the dirty dealings of the yard, as Nick and his crew struggle to keep its complex system afloat, ruling with a firm utilitarian hand. “Sometimes you gotta give one kid a wedgie to save 20 kids from getting wedgies,” he postulates. Words of wisdom, kid. Jeremy Bentham would be proud.

After the jump, we break down the playground politics as Nick and his gang struggle to maintain order in an uncertain world.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hype

Prime Time

5 Comments

The Yard is a reminder that turf wars extend beyond Oswald State Correctional Facility

Equal parts Oz, Disney’s Recess and The Wire, HBO Canada’s The Yard is a 30-minutes-per-episode comedy centered on the politics of the playground (with swearing). We’ll walk you through the bedwetting, trading-card economy and mean-girl groin-kicking antics in our recaps, beginning today, but in the meantime here’s the trailer that got us hooked.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement