4. The Sidehackers (episode 202)
However traumatic The Sidehackers episode was for me, it was even worse for the Best Brains crew. Up until this episode, they would decide on a movie based on a short, preliminary viewing. It wasn't until they had decided on The Sidehackers and production of the episode was underway that they realized there was an incredibly unsettling rape and murder scene midway through. It would be problematic to show on cable television and, more importantly, made repeated joke-writing viewings unpalatable. While that would be enough to put me off the episode forever, I disliked it before I ever heard that particular story. Even with the murder and rape edited out, some of the sleaze and skeaze still remains, like a thin layer of gauze over the film lens. For an added
je ne sais quoi, the rest of the revenge movie is padded out with tedious footage of "sidehacking," a kind of tandem motorcycle racing. There's a brilliant ESPN-style scoreboard visual gag at one point, but the rest of the jokes in the episode are pretty forgettable (maybe because the rape scene left a bad taste in their mouths?). Pair bland jokes with a movie that's equal parts tedious and odious, and the result is not something fun to watch. But despite all this, The Sidehackers is something of a favorite with some fans and comes up a lot as a good introductory episode. To that I say: why do you hate people?