It’s no secret my love of sports TV/Films. The reason I love them is that the majority of them focus on team sports, and that brings team dynamics. Teams that are either formed by choice or are assigned. Teams, by their nature, are designed to become a family. That is true of the characters on Slo Pitch. What sets Slo Pitch apart from most of the team sports series I’ve watched is that most of the members of the Brovaries (their team name) are queer. In fact, only one member of the Brovaries is heterosexual. The token heterosexual. In most media, the roles would be reversed. With a production where 70% of the crew identify as female or non-binary, 80% of the key cast identify as LGBTQ+ and 50% of the key cast are BIPOC, I’m not surprised they decided to create something that pushes against conventions. And yes, it’s being released during Pride month, but it can be enjoyed anytime.
This season focus on the pending nuptials of Joanne (played by Kirsten Rasmussen), the team’s coach, and Sasha (played by Chelsea Muirhead), one of the players. They’re opposites from how they want to bachelorette party to how they dress. But their love for each other is always clear, especially as they strive to make sure the other gets their perfect wedding day. But along the way, there’s plenty of slo pitch to play. And don’t call it softball or baseball because those are totally different sports, sorry Anthony, though your production of Romeo and Juliet does sound interesting.
Half the fun in any comedy series set around the world of sports is the names. It can also be true in real life, I love me some minor league baseball where there are teams that go by names like the Biscuits, Trash Pandas, and the RubberDucks. Slo Pitch doesn’t disappoint with a return of the Toronto Blue Gays, the Bad News Barristers, and the Friends of the Capybara Society (Aka Capybara Buddies). Some of them even paired the names with fun uniforms that made question if they were in a beer league for slo pitch or moonlighting for roller derby.
My favourite episode of the new season was the 5th episode. It was almost entirely a bottle episode, with only the intro and one other brief scene taking place outside this secondary change room. There was a lot of great comedy and character work in the episode written by Mandeq Hassan and directed by J Stevens (who co-created the series with Gwenlyn Cumyn and Karen Knox who also created Homeschooled). Particularly in the comedy between Boris (played by Knox) and Lee (played by Lane Webber) as they fought over what to do with the bug found in the locker room, and the reason they all got stuck in the locker room in the first place. Though I did miss the physical presence of Beck (played by Kaitlyn Alexander) and Mel (played by Amanda Cordner) they were never far from the story. A close runner-up for my favourite episode was the Zari-focused episode for bringing out the gem of a rhyme Zari Calamari.
Slo Pitch is available to Canadian audience on OUTtv and AMC+.