According to Wikipedia, which is my source for all facts as a professional journalist, South Park fans are actually dying to know the real identity of Mysterion—the superhero who outshined Cartman’s Coon in “The Coon,” an episode from 2009. I’ll start this writeup by saying that I barely remember “The Coon”—only that it was a Dark Knight parody, and it was pretty good, but not in that upper echelon of completely memorable South Park eps. I will also admit upfront that I’ve only seen one other episode this season, last week’s “Insheeption,” and I pretty much agreed with Todd V’s assessment: solid B. And now, on to picking apart “The Coon 2: Hindsight.”
Okay, at the risk of oversimplification, here goes: meh. “Coon 2” had some promise from the start, with Coon And Friends now a fully fledged crime-fighting team with questionable powers: Toolshed, Mysterion, Tupperware, Mosquito, The Human Kite, Iron Maiden, and the unstoppable Mint Berry Crunch. But man, this episode felt pretty one-note to me, and that note wasn’t terribly funny after it was beaten to death.
I’m talking about the episode’s title character, Captain Hindsight. His superpower—telling people what they should’ve done after it’s already too late—might’ve been funnier if he’d been offered as a parody of someone or something, but what was he lampooning? Am I missing something? Is he supposed to be Obama, or news in general? Or is this just a joke that would’ve been funny in one scene stretched over four or five?
Maybe it was all just an excuse to blast a villainous target, BP. And that’s fine, and I appreciated the ridiculousness of the company’s plans to “solve” their oil spill. And I laughed at the semi-subtle “double penetration” joke and the drawing of the earth taking it in three holes. (The apology commercials might’ve been the funniest thing in the episode, too.) But it was never laugh-out-loud funny for me, with the possible exception of when the Louisiana fisherman said, “Look at all that earl on my shramp!”
Or maybe it was all really just an excuse to pay tribute to the canal beatdown from A Clockwork Orange. Like Alex before him, Cartman knew that violence was a good way to keep the droogs in line. Even that scene, though, played more as clever than funny. Still, it was a slightly brighter spot in a less-than-stellar episode. Maybe the Coon will be back in a year to make things right—I just hope he finds a better villain next time.
Stray Observations:
— I did think dressing Butters/Professor Chaos as Courtney Love was pretty funny, but that might be because I think jokes about Courtney Love are funny in general.
— I also enjoyed Butters’ poop bucket.
— “All Coon friends report to base. I’m so seriously.”
— “We no longer fuck the earth, we DP it."
— “Our environment should stabilize if it’s getting drilled here, here, and here.”
— Nice callback to “Free Willzyx.”
— Oh, I guess I should point out that we still don't know who Mysterion is, though we know many people that he isn't. But we also don't actually care, right?