Max Nocerino 
“Well, South Park Episode 5 delivered the laughs but the season finale dialed it a bit back in terms of interest level and creativity,” says Max Nocerino in his review
Nobody likes a sloppy eater. It makes eating a delicious meal almost null and void. At least to the person watching you eat. And the season finale of South Park has disappointingly been not to be desired because it delivers its satire and jokes a bit cold and without much laughter behind it.
SPRING BREAK
This episode shows the duo’s stories of the “Spring Break” experience. Mr. Garrison (whose first name is Herb) planned a vacation with his live-in boyfriend Rick to Myrtle Beach. Rick is reluctant as he feels that Herb will just devolve into his old habit. The audience doesn’t know what this habit is and as South Park fans, we used are expecting some ridiculous, bizarre, and hilarious “substitute” that pokes fun at human nature. And the ugly side of pop culture. Meanwhile, Stan wants to have his friend Tolkien over to play Warhammer 40,000k. Perhaps the only space opera with more content than Star Wars.
Randy, (Stan’s idiot father) is disappointed that Stan isn’t partying for Spring Break. And he erroneously assumes he is trying to repress his masculinity due to woke liberalism. Randy doesn’t want Stan not to be a boy and play with Warhammer “dolls”, and he decides to remedy this by throwing his own party at the farm. While his wife and daughter are away. The vice that Herb hoped to kick is a substitute for raving which has cheekily been changed to rallying. Rallying for the former President in his inevitable run in 2024 (who is also Mr. Garrison as well). Garrison blows off Rick multiple times to rally with his supporters and wakes up “hung-over” and unable to participate in their planned activities.
A LACK OF HUMOR?
So, I feel Trey Parker’s formula was right as rain (as usual) with this episode. But it just missed that crucial ingredient that makes South Park so funny. The whole metaphor of Woke-culture suppressing masculinity just didn’t fit well with the partying nonsense. Yes, it’s satire but it wasn’t very funny. Likewise, Garrison’s petulant desire to rave and worry about his significant other was cute but ultimately lackluster.
Garrison represented the party girl who pushes their partner away because they are always drinking, drugging, or cheating on them with a rally supporter in a restaurant bathroom. Randy’s antics have gotten old. And while I did crack a smile when Stan and Tolkien completely ignored the mass chaos in the house and only focused on their Warhammer models, it just wasn’t enough to carry the story along.
VERDICT
Usually, in this modern era, I track my laughs when watching South Park. Just to see how funny my subconscious automatically determines it to be. And sadly, I only laughed twice. Once at the crude nickname Garrison had for Joe and Jill Biden. And second, when after all that chaos at the Marsh residence, Sharon is not surprised whatsoever and tells Stan flatly not to play with his miniatures on the kitchen table.
I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but aside from DickandBaus Hotdogs, this season was kind of a dud. I don’t know if Trey is running out of ideas. Or if this awful cultural black hole we have found ourselves in is leeching the writing talent out of everyone. I think South Park should continue for the rest of eternity (so we aren’t stuck with stuff like Digman on Comedy Central). BUT Trey needs to reboot his creative juices and return to the old days. DickandBaus showed that the spark is not gone. It just needs a little kindling. I give this episode a C-
UK fans can catch up with a host of South Park specials on Paramount+.
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Max Nocerino is a regular Staff Writer for The Future of the Force. He is a passionate Star Wars fan and loves the literature of the galaxy far, far away. Follow him on Twitter where he shares his love of the Force frequently!
One thing that annoys me about this episode in particular (a trend with a lot of recent shows and movies) is that it has to have some kind of moral at the end. Sometimes I just want a good laugh. Old episodes like Asspen or the one with the plane-arium had no moral to the story.
Also, it seemed like this episode had fairly woke framing. That surprises me that they would take that approach, because the woke hate humour, and try to shut down anyone that they don’t deem as ideologically pure
I agree it was pretty lack luster, I liked the episode with the AI writing stuff I thought that was a great Idea and the whole Japanese toilet was awesome but the last couple of episodes
If that bloody amazing Star Wars Andor didn’t come along when it did I would have turned my back on Star Wars after that horrible BO one, that was so bad it gave me nightmares, that wrecked anything to do with OhBeDone and even took a giant dump in Darth Vader’s helmet and slapped it down on him. I would have simply disregarded everything to do with Star Wars, lucky I remembered Rogue One, was really good and that was where Andor was from, but I didn’t expect it to totally redeem Star Wars for me, It’s well thought out dialog was far beyond anything Lukeass has ever done and it looks fantastic, shooting the series on location instead of shooting it all with a green screen really paid off, anyway I noticed you haven’t got anything from that series here.
I mean don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy Mandalorian but the show is right on the edge, it can turn to crap any second, It’s a show with the hero that is a stunt man or extra in a suit, somehow it remains entertaining, any second it could deteriorate into Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with shitty fight scenes, like DJ Bobo Fat turned into a little bit with them horrible children trying to play tough kids that grew up in the mean streets, LOL they sucked bad, ewoks chucking stones at storm troopers would have been tougher.
I wish they could just get rid of that stupid, the helmet never comes off, idea, they never take off the helmet? The idea is silly in real life you would end up with saws forming, like bed saws when your bedridden, it’s a bad idea as far as actors good too, it’s like the Star Trek, reboot,,,Landover Trek or something, garbage, anyway, they changed the Klingons from an actor with a set of big teeth and a latex forehead to a full face covering that turned Klingons into humanoid retards without any emotion shown on there face, or any movement except maybe the small eyes of the extra with all that crap on, without any reason to even bother having actors play them there was no way to identify with those shitful reboot Klingons, couldn’t even hear them with the thick latex masks on, well that’s what is wrong with Mandalorian, every actor is in a plastic outfit that all look far too unique to be a uniform, they look like they care more about fashion than stopping a blaster from wasting them, by the way wtf is with the blasters being so pathetic, I hate how they do that in space shows, the idea is you would want to use a blaster because it’s better, not because it’s cheaper, a ww2 machine gun would have been far better than the sad hand blasters of these Mando’s, I’m sick to death with the cord attack from them too, if they are not trying to kill the enemy than why would they waste time rapping them up in cable like that, damn there’s a lack of consideration in Si-Fi.