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South Park, Season 23, Episode 8, “Turd Burglars” Review

I’m going to be keep this review as brief as possible out of sheer disgust for what I’ve witnessed in South Park last night. Not “disgust” as in anything moral, but “make me want to vomit” disgust. I can deal with a lot of the stuff that South Park does, but jokes about actual poop is where I draw the line. Even if I thought the reference to the Spice Melange from Dune as funny.

In this episode, Mrs. Broflovski suffers a nasty bacterial infection, and her gut needs a transplant of some healthy bacteria via fecal transplant. I looked it up, and its a real thing. Sheila’s health improves, and then every woman in town wants in on her shit. They even try to bribe Kyle with a copy of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. I’m not sure if that’s a subtle jab at EA by saying they’re still worth shit. However, even I admit Fallen Order’s good.

Meanwhile, Kyle goes through a germaphobe phase when he discovers all the bacteria and germs in his body. It doesn’t last long, though, and he embraces his own microbiome. As a result, he reaches a state that I assume is similar to someone high on the Spice Melange from the Dune franchise. His eyes turn blue, he has a heightened sense of awareness about micriobiomes, and he keeps saying one thing: the bookshelf.

Tom Brady’s Spice Melange

As the episode progresses, we get the titular “Turd Burglars”- Stan, Kenny, and Cartman. They start stealing shit for people who want to be healthier. This eventually leads to them wanting to get Tom Brady’s shit, which everyone calls “The Spice Melange”.

While the Dune reference seems a bit random at first, in hindsight it makes sense. In the Dune franchise, the Spice Melange is this super drug that sped humanity’s development into the stars. In addition, ingesting it leads to extended lifespans and heightened awareness. The joke that the show’s making is the fact that Spice Melange comes from a single source: the Sandworms of Arrakis. Their shit mixes with water to become the Spice Melange. A similar process ends up saving the town of South Park. However, replace Sandworm with Tom Brady, and Spice Melange with Tom Brady’s shit.

When the women of South Park try to do their own transplants with turkey basters, the resulting bacteria makes them all sick. Thanks to Kyle discovering Tom Brady’s collection of “spice”, though, the day’s saved. Just in time to make people sick for Thanksgiving.

This has to be my least favorite episode of the season. I can deal with a lot of the things South Park does, but this is where I draw the line. The only saving grace I could find were the jokes about Tom Brady and his Spice Melange. Now I need to go forget what I had to watch for Thanksgiving dinner.

I Give “Turd Burglars” a 2/5. I’m never watching this episode again.

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South Park Season 23, Episode 7, “Board Girls” Review

After the “Season Finale” episode from last week, it looked like South Park was through with Tegridy Farms. However, I knew that Matt and Trey like to mess with us sometimes, so I was skeptical. However, it looks like it’s really gone. The bad news is that this episode focuses on PC issues. In other words, that means we got PC Principal, Strong Woman, and the PC Babies.

I didn’t like PC Principal when the show first introduced him, but after Season 19, Matt and Trey toned him down. Even so, I think that South Park can be better off avoiding PC topics. In fact, this was the first episode of the season that I didn’t watch live; I went to sleep instead.

Heather Swanson, Jerk

The PC Principal/Strong Woman plot focuses on Strong Woman losing an annual athletic event to a transgender woman. However, said woman, Heather Swanson, is a jacked-up beefcake and Strong Woman’s ex-boyfriend. She dumped him because he’s a jerk, and he couldn’t stand losing to a woman. In other words, I think Heather does this in a petty act of spite against Strong Woman. In addition, since she’s transgender, PC Principal can’t raise the concerns he has without being called a transphobe.

I don’t really understand the message the show was trying to send with Heather, but I don’t really care.

Board Girls Rule

The more interesting story came with the subplot that gives the episode its name. When some of the girls try to join Cartman’s and Stan’s board game club, Cartman’s furious. Being Cartman, though, he’s mad because the girls are way better at playing games than he is, and his fragile ego can’t stand that. Stan, on the other hand, doesn’t mind playing with them, and seems impressed with how good they are. I know I was.

The end result is that Cartman goes all the way to Congress to get the girls out of his club. However, this backfires when they form their own club, Board Girls. Board Girls proves to be a thousand times better than Cartman’s group, and it looks like the kind of club I’d join in a heartbeat.

This Flew Over My Head

Both the Board Girls and Heather Swanson plots converge when the latter shows up at the school to rub it in Strong Woman’s face. Again. The girls of South Park Elementary are clearly unimpressed, and challenge her to beat them in any board game. After seeing Heather’s obnoxious behavior all episode, seeing her get thrashed by kids felt cathartic.

While my inner geek was impressed by the knowledge of board games shown in this episode, I think the message of “Board Girls” flew over my head. It simply wasn’t my cup of tea.

I Give “Board Girls” a 2/5. I Made the Right Choice Sleeping Through It.

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South Park, Season 23, Episode 5, “Tegridy Farms Halloween Special” Review

If there’s one holiday besides Christmas that South Park’s big on, it’s Halloween. They’ve had plenty of Halloween specials over the years, and some of them have been my favorite episodes of the show. So even though I don’t like Tegridy Farms, I chose to watch their Halloween Special. After I got done watching it, I could think of one thing:

If there’s one holiday besides Christmas that South Park’s big on, it’s Halloween. They’ve had plenty of Halloween specials over the years, and some of them have been my favorite episodes of the show. So even though I don’t like Tegridy Farms, I chose to watch their Halloween Special. After I got done watching it, I could think of one thing:

What the hell were they smoking when they made this?

I Hate Tegridy Farms

I’m not joking. The Tegridy Farms Halloween Special made little sense to me, and could barely be called funny. The episode starts with Randy excitedly preparing the farm for the titular special; it’s a red herring, though. The “Halloween special” is what Randy and Towelie are calling their strain of marijuana.

I know I was disappointed, but that’s nothing compared to what Shelly feels. Like the rest of her family, Shelly’s fed up with Randy and Tegridy Farms, and makes her feelings known. Randy, being Randy, is so full of himself that he can’t comprehend why, though. His attempts to bring her around only make her angrier, and leads to her brewing a “witch’s potion” to kill Randy’s Halloween Special.

Unfortunately for Shelly, and the viewers (not sorry), her mixture only makes the plants mutate. The result is some bizarre plant abomination that gets people incredibly high.

I Don’t Want My Mummy

While all this is happening, there’s a b-plot with Butters getting cursed by a mummy. Rather than try and kill him, though, the mummy wants to be his friend. An obssessive, yandere type friend that overreacts when Butters seems to slight it. The crazy part is that everyone takes the mummy’s side.

I don’t understand `what Matt Stone and Trey Parker were trying to tell with this story, but it didn’t make sense; at all. It had little to no connection to the main plot, and seemed like a distraction.

Return of the Tegridy Farms Halloween Special

Thanks to the mutated plants, Randy’s Tegridy Farms Halloween Special becomes better than ever. In fact, it leads to what may be the only funny from the episode.

In a scene out of a horror film, it looks like the weed mutate’s people into plant zombies. Making matters worse, it appears that Winnie the Pooh and all the cows Randy and Towelie killed come back for revenge. Except they’re not really back; the Halloween Special’s making everyone hallucinate. 

What Did I Watch?

So in the end, Shelly saves her dad and Towelie with another brew, and the Mummy leaves Butters with everyone thinking he’s the bad guy. Randy wakes up three days later with his family hating him even more. As for me, I’m waiting for the day when Tegridy Farms burns to the ground.

The Tegridy Farms Halloween Special was, by far, the weakest episode of this season of South Park. The plot made little sense, it was barely funny, and I could barely pay attention to it. The only redeeming thing is that the show kept up with its jabs at China by bringing back Winnie the Pooh. You go, South Park. As we reach the halfway point of the season, though, my main motivation is to see if Tegridy Farms burns. 

I Give “Tegridy Farms Halloween Special” a 1.5/5. Waste of my Wedensday Night. 

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South Park, Season 23 Episode 1 Review- Mexican Joker

Fall is finally here, and that means it’s time for our favorite shows to come out with new seasons. Of course, this means it’s time for new episodes of South Park. I’ve been waiting all year to write about Comedy Central’s topical hit, and after the promo from this earlier this week, I had high hopes. After seeing the season premiere of “Mexican Joker”, though, I felt like the show only met us 65% of the way.

After a hilarious opening focusing on Tegridy Farms, the weed farm Randy started last season, we then get into the main plots of the episode. The first one is how Randy feels his business is threatened when people start growing their own weed, leading him to try and get it banned. He tries justifying it by saying it’s taking away his livelihood and threatening his kids health and future, but I see through him. He only cares about the money, like how he’s the only one in his family invested in the farm.

I get the appeal behind Randy: he’s an idiotic man child that lets the show do things they can’t do with the kids. But it can get old relying on one guy all the time. Personally, I hoped that the Tegridy Farms would have flopped last season, so we could put some focus back on the four main boys.

The Boys are Back

Regarding the boys themselves, their story was the funnier of the two. When Cartman learns about ICE arresting potential illegal immigrants, he does what you’d expect: sic them on Kyle’s family and laugh his butt off. It’s such a classic Cartman thing for him to do, and even though we know it’s reprehensible, we can’t help but laugh at it.

So Kyle gets sent to a Detention Camp by himself, and the show could have easily run with the joke that ICE thinks he’s an illegal immigrant, they do something better.

Over the summer, people have debated over whether ICE’s detainment camps are “concentration camps”. So when the guards realize Kyle’s Jewish and American, they have an “Oh Crap” moment, and realize this will make them look like racists. So they offer to let Kyle go, but in true Kyle fashion, he demands all the kids be set free.

Kyle’s long been the voice of reason on the show, but after the whole PC Principal thing, that side of him started to be downplayed. Seeing him stand up for what he thinks is right is a return to his roots that I appreciated seeing.

What’s Happening Now?

Then things took a turn for the weirder. Kyle’s comparison of the kids mistreatment to a supervillains origin story is clever, but saying it would create a “Mexican Joker” fell flat for me. Erik Killmonger came to my mind first; I never even considered Joker. Since it’s South Park, though, the guards get the wrong idea and just try to get the kids to not hate them.

Then Randy goes full on Heath Ledger Joker and blows up everyone’s weed gardens. To be honest, I wasn’t paying attention to his story, caring more about Kyle. Unfortunately, the episode ends on a cliffhanger. Everyone’s now afraid of Mexican Joker and the kids still locked up in detention camps. Which means South Park’s still using serialized stories.

So what was South Park trying to say here, again? Were they ripping on ICE by comparing the camps they run to concentration camps? Were they cashing in on the upcoming Joker film? And why do they still care about Tegridy Farms? There are a lot of ways this story could go this season, but this was a shaky start. Hopefully, next week will resolve the detention camp story in an entertaining fashion. That, and I want to see how far Randy will fall before Tegridy Farms goes under.

I Give “Mexican Joker” a 3/5. Lots of Potential, Poor Delivery

Stray Observations

• I thought it was genuinely hilarious when Cartman realized Kyle+Detention Camp= Sensitive Subject. How did he forget Kyle’s Jewish
• Cartman’s completely nonchalant about being sent to the camp by Stan is so him.
• I want Tegridy Farms to burn down so Stan can move back to South Park
• ICE named the princess in their puppet show Star. Is that a coincidence? Because I hope so.

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www.youtube.com/watch

I’ve been waiting all year to do this. South Park is back for their 23rd season, and I have every intention of covering it. Starting this week, I’ll be reviewing every new episode of South Park, you guys.

In this episode, I think Cartman just invented the idea of ICEing people. It’s like Swatting, but calling the ICE on them.