"Smokin' with Cigarettes" is the 6th episode of the 3rd season of The Boondocks, and the 36th episode overall. It originally aired on June 6, 2010.
Riley befriends a naughty little boy named Lamilton Taeshawn, who believes it's "fun to do bad things". Riley and Lamilton go on a crime spree through Woodcrest just for fun. However, Lamilton is really much more evil than the Freemans know. How far will Riley play along with Lamilton's sick games?
Tropes:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When Lamilton is about to fall off the school roof, he begs Riley not to let him die, even apologizing for trying to kill Riley.
- Abusive Parents: Apparently Lamilton was horribly abused by his mom and dad. Inverted with his grandma, who is horribly abused by Lamilton himself!
- Arc Words: "I'm a bad kid. I do bad things."
- Ax-Crazy: Lamilton's prone to outbursts of violent rage, and his psychiatrist predicts that he will murder somebody unless he's imprisoned or killed first.
- Big Eater: Lamilton himself, and he's very serious about his food to the point he gets violent if he is refused fried chicken, which is his favorite food.
- Blatant Lies: Lamilton is dead guilty of joyriding his grandmother's car, resisting arrest and causing property damage while almost running over people. His grandmama cranks out the excuse that "all children his age love stealing cars and going on high-speed chases". The reporter gave out that every other child besides him and Riley were at home playing video games!
- The Bully: Lamilton.
- Card-Carrying Villain: See Lamilton's Arc Words above.
- Creepy Child: Lamilton's former school counselor actually suggested that he's The Antichrist.
- Critical Psychoanalysis Failure: Lamilton's sociopathy and utter lack of humanity drove Doomis to madness.
- Delinquent: Lamilton's idea of having a fun time is to commit all kinds of petty crimes, from dropping objects on passing cars, to shooting a chained dog.
- Disney Villain Death: Lamilton falls off from the roof of the J. Edgar Hoover Elementary School building, but this is subverted when his body fat protects him, allowing him to survive with only broken bones and a limping walk.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Lamilton beat up his own grandma just because she wouldn't get him fried chicken.
- Doting Grandparent: Lamilton's grandmother despite the financial toil and physical abuse she gets from Lamilton still tries to keep him out of jail by begging the public to forgive him over and over. She even tries "normalizing" Lamilton by claiming all children want to do what he does, which is not true since most children his age aren't interested in stealing cars for joyrides, physically punching their own parents/guardians or smoking cigarettes. Therefore, she enables her grandson and spoils him rotten.
- Drives Like Crazy: Well, what do you expect? Lamilton's only eight. He can't even see over the wheel because of insufficient height!
- Even Evil Has Standards: Riley is totally fine with doing loads of reckless and outright dangerous pranks with Lamilton (including throwing a burning mattress onto a busy highway). But the moment Lamilton wants to escalate by marauding around the neighborhood with a gun, Riley immediately wants out and finally falls in line with his family; the same Riley who has a habit of acting "gangsta".
- Evil Versus Evil: Riley and Lamilton end up fighting each other in the end.
- Expy:
- Lamilton is a very transparent parody of Latarian Milton, a 7-year-old kid who also took his grandmother's SUV for a joyride
, and had also later beaten up his grandmother for refusing to buy him fried chicken. Many of Lamilton's actions and mannerisms were directly copied from Latarian. - He's also an expy of Henry Evans. Both are false friends of the protagonist, both are sadists who do evil things for fun, and both kill dogs. Also, both end up falling from a high place (a school building for Lamilton, a cliff for Henry), though Lamilton survived due to his fat protecting him from the fall, while Henry is confirmed to be dead.
- Finally, he's one of Bishop. Like Bishop, Lamilton is an extremely unstable juvenile deliquent who at first just likes to cause mischief, but steadily slips into much more harmful urges. He also holds Riley basically hostage as an accomplice like Bishop did Q and Steel, and has a final fight scene on a roof with Riley just like Bishop and Q.
- Dr. Doomis is an expy of Dr. Loomis from Halloween.
- Lamilton is a very transparent parody of Latarian Milton, a 7-year-old kid who also took his grandmother's SUV for a joyride
- False Friend: Lamilton acquaints himself with Riley. Eventually though Riley, a boy who is very often a Horrible Judge of Character when it comes to befriending people, realizes that there's something very wrong with his "friend", and tries to leave when Lamilton goes too far.
- Fat Bastard: Robert even called Lamilton a "fat fucker". Not to mention the violent tantrum he threw over being refused fried chicken.
- Freudian Excuse: Lamilton's grandmother states that he came from a very abusive and dysfunctional family. Despite this, Lamilton himself never brings up the subject, so she might’ve been lying.
- Idiot Ball: Riley could've just told Lamilton that Dr. Loomis called the police on him after he shot the dog, and Lamilton wouldn't have thought he was a snitch.
- Jerkass: Oh yes, and Lamilton can barely hide it. His facade of friendship with Riley is quite shallow.
- Karma Houdini: Downplayed; Riley never faces legal repercussions for his many crimes throughout the episode because Status Quo Is God, but he does earn Granddad beating him with his trademark belt.
- Kick the Dog: In a literal case of Shoot the Dog, Lamilton guns down Betty von Heusen's guard dog (a German shephard), claiming he was acting in "self-defense", even though the dog was still chained when he tried trespassing into von Heusen's yard.
- Kids Driving Cars: Lamilton takes his grandmother's SUV for a joyride, resulting in destruction of property and the car itself taking a severe hit and losing a wheel. This is parallel to the resultant state of the car Latarian Milton drove when the car's front axle snapped off after hitting a curb.
- Kill Him Already!: Doomis' preferred solution for dealing with Lamilton, if he cannot be imprisoned or institutionalized.
- Knight of Cerebus: Some of Lamilton's scenes were not Played for Laughs. His threatening behavior towards Riley was extremely scary.
- Lack of Empathy: Lamilton makes it clear that he doesn't care about other people.
- Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Riley throws Lamilton’s gun off the roof, leading to the final fight on the rooftop.
- Mid-Battle Tea Break: During Lamilton and Riley's fight on the roof, Uncle Ruckus pops up (turns out he's a school security guard or janitor) to see what all the "ruckus" is about, but seeing it's black-on-black violence, Ruckus walks away ("Proceed."). This gives Riley enough time to break free of the chokehold.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Lamilton enjoys watching ultra-violent horror movies a little too much.
- Obviously Evil: Lamilton is creepy as all hell; he he has a dull and lifeless face, constantly talks about how much he likes doing bad things, and is unable to hide his malevolent nature. His grandmother always thinks that he's just misunderstood, and it took Riley too long to figure out why he shouldn't socialize with him.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: "LAM-IL-TON! TAE-SHAWN!"
- Ordered Apology: On his grandma's orders, Lamilton gives a very insincere apology for letting Riley ride with him in his car.
- Pass the Popcorn: Huey nonchalantly eats popcorn as he listens to Granddad whip Riley.
- Sadist: While he doesn't even smile about it, one can tell that Lamilton enjoys inflicting torment.
- Save the Villain: Despite Lamilton trying to kill him moments before, Riley's immediate instinct is to try and save him when his life is in danger, though Dr. Doomis stops him from doing so.
- Shout-Out: The plot is a pseudo-summary of Juice, and Lamilton Taeshawn is partially based on Bishop. Riley and Lamilton are introduced as friends who just enjoy causing mischief, even if the latter is a bit off. Lamilton is shown to have a fondness for slasher flicks, much like Bishop's excitement over watching White Heat. He then shows Riley a gun and wants to cause trouble with it, forcing Riley into tagging along, much like how Bishop bought a gun to rob a store with, peer-pressuring Q into it. When Ms. Von Housen's dog barks at the duo, Lamilton shoots it dead, then claims it got loose and tried to bite him. Riley calls bullshit and points out that it was perfectly chained to the tree. In Juice, Bishop murders Old Man Quiles who was turned around, had his hands up, and was begging for his life, claiming he made a move, though Q and Raheem rightfully call that out. Lamilton later catches Riley at school, giving him a Jump Scare behind his locker door, accusing him of snitching. Riley claims he didn't, and calls him crazy. Lamilton points out that everyone calls him "crazy", and that he doesn't care; about the accusations, about his grandmother, or himself, only Riley. This is exactly what happens in Juice, with Bishop acknowledging that he is "crazy" and simply not caring. The final scene in which Riley and Lamilton fight on the top of the school that culminates in a (supposed) Disney Death is similar to Q and Bishop's brawl which did result in Bishop falling to his death. The final shot of the episode with a kid asking Riley for a cigarette with him giving the kid a Thousand-Yard Stare is taken from Juice's iconic ending scene where someone tells Q that with Bishop's death, he "has the juice now", to which Q stares disapprovingly.
- Smoking Is Cool: Lamilton certainly thinks so.
- The Sociopath: Lamilton's therapist outright considers him to be pure evil. And this assessment is hardly an exaggeration.
- The Stoic: Done to very creepy effect, with Lamilton barely making any facial expressions, or speaking differently from his constant monotone. It seems he only knows a few emotions: sadistic joy, violent anger, and fear (you too would scream if you fell from a building and got injured).
- Stout Strength: At least enough to deliver an intense beating to Lamilton's grandmother. Though he's not as strong as Butch Magnus, as Riley could hold his own against Lamilton.
- Stalker without a Crush: Dr. Doomis closely follows and monitors Lamilton, to the point that Lamilton's grandmother filed a restraining order against him.
- Stupid Evil: Lamilton even claims to not care much about himself. His reckless crimes threaten not only other people but himself as well; he smokes even though it poisons his lungs, almost got himself killed when trying to joyride in his grandma's car, and he even wanted to burglarize the home of a heavily armed old woman.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Lamilton is the most stand-out example of the series so far.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Juice and Halloween (1978).
- Would Hurt a Child: However, the only child Doomis wants to hurt is Lamilton Taeshawn.
