"Angry Boys" connects a seemingly unlikely set of individuals, all played by Lilley, including Daniel and Nathan Sims twin brothers, one of whom is partially deaf and all of their so-called "Legends." These Legends, whom the twins look up to, include the twins' grandmother, who is also the warden of a juvenile justice center; S.mouse, an extremely offensive and largely untalented rapper; Blake Oakfield, an endearing but idiotic surfer; Tim Okazaki, a gay skateboarding prodigy; and Jen, Tim's overbearing Japanese mother. While Lilley expertly portrays all of his characters and presents believable storylines, having to fit six characters' lives into 12 episodes ends up seeming compressed for such a short project.
The twins' grandmother, Gran, is easily the most well-written and developed character, albeit not the funniest, most quotable or even most likable one. She is different from the other characters on the show as Lilley portrays her so effortlessly, and for this reason Gran exists in a different realm than the show's more dominating personalities. Gran is offensive in almost all regards she has a game she calls "Gran's Gotchas" in which she and the boys in the detention center pretend that an unsuspecting inmate will be released from the center when in fact they are not. Despite her reputation as a hard-ass, however, her genuine affection for the adolescents is at once hilarious as well as endearing. Gran, who is eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer's, is forced to leave the center by the end of the series.
Lilley's caricatures are always cursing and encountering inappropriate situations that clearly indicate that Lilley took a few pointers from Ricky Gervais' David Brent, the boss of the British television show "The Office." In Lilley's previous efforts like "Summer Heights High," profane humor at the expense of Asians, gay people and the disabled or sick was spread evenly throughout the series. In "Angry Boys," however, it becomes too repetitive and seems to water down the characters after a point. This is most evident with the Sims twins, who are arguably the most profane in the series. While the categorically "offensive" humor is still funny, it is made less so because of the frequency of its use.
"Offensive" is really the only word that can adequately describe S.mouse, who is an obvious parody of overdeveloped and talentless mainstream American rappers. For the majority of the show, S.mouse is under house arrest for defecating on a police car, for which his record label forces him to apologize. The songs that Lilley crafts for his S.mouse persona, with names such as "Slap My Elbow," "Animal Zoo," "Poo On You" and "Grandmother F*ck" are all terrible songs and virtually unlistenable, but they hit the nail on the head in terms of parodying terrible rap songs that feature pointless dances or lyrics.
The final episode of the series comes too soon and also feels compressed as Lilley squeezes all of the characters into the one episode. This is especially evident in the unexplained arrival of three of the twins' Legends S.mouse, Blake and Tim to Nathan's farewell party before he leaves for a boarding school for deaf children. While these characters had been on their guest list, the Legends had not actually been invited because Gran forgot to invite them earlier in the season as a result of her Alzheimer's. The series could have ended without the extreme collision of characters, but seeing all of them in one place makes one almost wish the show could continue.
While of course an extension of "Angry Boys" into more episodes would be against Lilley's typical style and also a possible overkill of these characters, I think that more episodes could have added variety and substance to the one-dimensional characters. The brilliance of "Summer Heights High" was that Lilley only had to worry about Jonah, Ja'mie and Mr. G, and so each character felt fully developed and complex.