‘The Boondocks’ is missing its unique edge

Like libertarians, Chicago Cubs loyalists and believers in the impending 2012 apocalypse, fans of “The Boondocks” are masochists. Self-righteous ones at that. It’s not sufficient to enjoy the show on its own creative merits. Rather, it must be subscribed to with a fervor. Long gaps between seasons are to be tolerated with a smile.

The show, they’ll tell you, is one of the most reliable critiques of contemporary culture and politics on television.

And yet, it is not. Or at least, not as much as it should or could be. Now in its third season, “The Boondocks” (Adult Swim at 11:30 p.m. Sundays) is more than ever an opportunity missed.

In its debut season, which aired in 2005-06, creator Aaron McGruder successfully undertook the huge task of translating his daily cartoon strip into an animated series by turning it into a satire of black family life — featuring Robert Freeman and his grandsons Huey and Riley, who move from the city to the suburbs — with occasional forays into broader cultural commentary.

Topicality, though, is threatening to suffocate “The Boondocks.” The third season premiere was a mock German documentary about the election of Barack Obama, with an interviewer who asks the relevant question, “As a black African American Negro, are you merely excited, or are you extremely excited that everything is going to change forever?”

This is, of course, ancient stuff by now — both the conceit and the jokes. The episode felt like a deliberate placeholder, a bridge-gapper to help the show evolve from Dubya-era skepticism to Obama-era optimism, or Obama-era skepticism, or Obama-era something else. A little redundancy could be forgiven.

Yet in last week’s episode, still nothing has changed. The show focuses on the demise of Thugnificent, the character who serves as McGruder’s outlet to send up the excesses of gangster rap. It’s always been a bit of a hollow parody, given that the particular of modes of rap McGruder seems most frustrated by have been burning themselves out for years already.

He does manage some insightful stabs. The scene in which Thugnificent and a friend, left destitute by the shift in hip-hop toward younger performers, try to learn how to cook crack from other people’s rap songs, is clever. (The same was true last week, when Thugnificent traded in his baggy white T-shirt and jeans for a green blazer and pink pants, a sharp commentary on hip-hop’s political carpetbagging.)

But much of the first half of this episode relives the Ice-T versus. Soulja Boy battle of 2008, eons ago in pop music. Frankly, the original beef was funnier. (Also, just a few weeks ago, Ice-T went after singer-songwriter Aimee Mann on Twitter, an event that renders this reference point less extreme.)

This plot line merely represents how “The Boondocks” is running in place. The world has changed significantly in the two-plus years since it last aired, but the show has not. Maybe that’s partly due to logistics: because of the labor-intensive manner in which the series is made, it’s unable to respond to current events with the speed of, say, “South Park.” Given that, broad themes are easier to address.

As a comic strip, “The Boondocks” never felt like a history piece. Here, with its disproportionate reliance on cultural in-jokes, it does. Its borrowings from contemporary culture might pass for current in the minds of viewers paying as little attention to the movements of pop as McGruder seems to be, but are just outdated enough — and not innovative enough — to feel ludicrous to those who care. What remains feels like rehash: These two episodes are more like strung-together reference points, a chain of winks and nods, than any coherent attempt to grow these characters.

Finally: Where’s Huey? In the premiere, he was downcast, a lone wolf dissatisfied with the overjoyed response to Obama’s election. His skepticism was welcome, even if it only cast a shadow at the edges of the episode.

Last week, though, he was completely absent. Given that Huey’s cynicism and (sometimes latent) radicalism has always felt like a stand-in for McGruder’s own heartbreak with the world, it’s hard not to draw parallels between Huey’s diminished presence and McGruder’s own possible diminished interest in the show. Next week, Huey will be back, but will McGruder be able to catch up?

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