It might just be because it’s been so long since I’ve seen Tim and Eric at this shtick, but I was deeply digging their characters here—Tim’s especially, as he pushes this cliché quite far without ever going overboard and making it snap. Wareheim’s beleaguered, petrified performance as Gary is a welcome counterpoint to the conniving Bobby, too, and they’re decent characters to add to the duos large repertoire (although I’d also be fine if we never saw them again).

“Sauce Boy” is peppered with a number of rote, sprawling monologues, each of them being tributes to the overdone mobster genre in a number of ways. They’re consistently a delight here, and the casting of James Madio and Johnny “Roast Beef” Williams in supporting roles helps carry the gag even further. Although a Spagett cameo wouldn’t have gone unappreciated…

There are also some wonderful Lynch allusions—even more so than usual—like a beautiful prolonged zoom in on a spilled cup of coffee that can’t help but remind you of a scene with a certain severed appendage out of Blue Velvet. I’m never not on board with this, and in this case, it acts as some appreciated foreshadowing for the turn Gary’s life is about to take.

It’s a lot of fun seeing Gary get indoctrinated into Bologna’s gang, slowly picking up the ways of the trade and learning to even become the gang’s resident sauce boy. The ridiculous reason keeping Gary at their beck and call only accentuates the absurdity of all of this. It’s the sort of story that any of Gary’s nine kids back home would love to pieces.

This situation culminates in a lavish spaghetti dinner that the gang puts on that even has the attendance of the prestigious Mama Pantone (“Who is very particular with her sauce!”). With Gary’s sauce stakes being higher than ever, Mama Pantone’s opinion has never been more important and Gary’s chance at being an official pisan hangs in the balance. With the devastating, brutal conclusions that Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories so often take, the touching departure in form that “Sauce Boy” goes out on is a welcome change of pace. In spite of the stinky artifice that all of this is wrapped up in, there’s a very simple, muted story inside of it all.