Let’s talk about last week’s South Park a little more, shall we? We sat around (as many of you did) speculating on exactly what happened, and whether Trey and Matt might be pulling some elaborate joke that would have some payoff this week, during the season finale. It wasn’t to be. It would still be nice if they’d post the text of that final bleeped-out speech from episode 201 or say something more than they have, which isn’t much at all.
All the controversy drew attention from what was actually a pretty funny episode. I’m guessing that won’t be the case for this week’s—which was also quite funny—because even though South Park could be accused of being completely insensitive to the handicapped, it’s nothing they haven’t done before. And actually, if you think about it, it seemed like Trey and Matt went out of their way to depict the “cripple camp” without going for easy, over-the-top jokes. Sure, a bunch of the kids were modeled after old cartoons, but there was a little bit of depth to it—particularly in Nathan, who was actually smarter than he let on.
But I actually got a lot more laughs out of the straight-up Intervention episode. It’s one of those shows that’s really easy to parody, because all you need to do is repeat exactly what’s said—maybe exaggerate a little—and you’ve got some high comedy. It doesn’t hurt that Towelie is the character in need of intervention: I’m a sucker for that blue guy, and it was fun to watch him spiral into crack and especially heroin. I thought I might get a little tired of the text explanations and annoying guitar, but they actually got funnier as the episode went on.
The intervention itself was pretty priceless, too: I rarely get tired of Cartman’s theories about the Jews, and Butters would make any junkie reconsider—he’s so sincere. Then of course there’s the real reason that Towelie decided to get clean, his son Washcloth. (Shouldn’t it be Washclothie?)
Back to camp: I actually found the Mimsy joke a little one-note, but I enjoyed watching Nathan’s murderous plots foiled. Even better: Jimmy surfing on some real waves. That and Nathan being raped by a shark.
Overall, though, a solid episode. It’s nice to see South Park not get too caught up in the Mohammed thing too much, and it’s also nice to see that they proved the world wrong (and cowardly) by not getting killed immediately afterward. We’re all watching a show about a anthropomorphic towel whose friends want him to stop using drugs and sucking dick for money. If we can laugh at that, we should be able to laugh at anything.
Stray observations:
— Nice nod to Meatballs with “Are You Ready For The Summer?”
— “Does anybody want their dick sucked by a towel?”
— Towelie’s eyes in the car when he was sucking computer duster were pretty amazing.
— “A dried out jizz rag covered with the spooge of a thousand old men.”
— Who’s curious about what’s on Kirstie Alley’s towel?
— Holy crap, Restorestephenbaldwin.org is a real thing, and it’s way more offensive than South Park could ever hope to be. Give this formerly rich asshole your money, because he’s a man of God? Sick, sick, sick.
— Somebody posted their own version of the final speech from last week’s episode in the comments, which I thought was pretty funny. It’d be cool if other people gave it a shot. I bet when the text actually comes out (or we get to see an uncensored episode), somebody will get pretty close.