Here we are, back with that show that we can’t ever agree about. Once again, Sean O’Neal and I will be alternating coverage of South Park, which entered the second half of its twelfth season tonight. Sean and I seem to have exactly the opposite reaction to every episode–if I like it, he thinks it’s meh; if he likes it, I think it’s just okay. (To gauge whose side you’re on: I liked the Internet celebrities episode, he didn’t.) I don’t think either of us is ready to give up on the show, which is why we’re back for more. Also, it gives Sean a chance to stop watching Heroes, which he’ll happily take. So onto tonight’s show…
But first, this commercial break: I usually zoom through commercials with the ol’ Tivo, but damn, I watched every second of the Far Cry 2 spot, and it was long. That game looks badass.
Okay, call me cruel, but I thought Indiana Jones’ face in tonight’s first rape scene–one of three–was pretty damn hilarious. I like it when SP attacks stupid pop-cultural shit, and while Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is surely light years away from most people’s consciousness at this point, it was still fair to try and throw a little justice toward Spielberg and Lucas. The movie was a grand piece of shit, despite the prevailing opinion that it was “kinda okay” and “sorta decent.”
When the kids–minus Cartman and Butters, who are on their own mission–try to exact a little revenge, they end up pulling the rest of the world out of its stupor and inspiring the world to rise up against the raping of their childhood memories. And man, two more graphic rapes of Indy, one an homage to The Accused and another to Deliverance–you don’t get that anywhere else on TV. When the cops finally bust in on the duo sodomizing a stormtrooper… Well, the episode should’ve just ended right there. Maybe with a wacky noise.
But there was a whole other half of this episode, and a much less funny one. Cartman, convinced that the Chinese are going to take over the world, launches the American Liberation Front (made up of him and Butters) and attacks the central front of Chinese power: P.F. Chang’s. I’ll be happy to admit that their costumes were pretty damn funny, especially Butters’, and the running gag of Butters only shooting people in the dick was good, but overall the B-story was just that. But hey, half a solid episode is better than a totally shitty one!
Grade: B
Stray observations:
— At first I thought this was going to be a self-reflexive episode about South Park itself, when Kyle walked off saying he couldn’t do this anymore…
— Butters singing in the tub? Okay, that was good. “Not now, Eric, I’m indecent!” Butters being the only person in the world who thought Crystal Skull was good: even funnier.
— Jimmy: “Do you remember that scene with Indiana in the refrigerator? It didn’t make any sense.”
— “And they found the dead, raped bodies of Yoda and Short Round in their closet.”