South Park: Le Petit Tourette
By fred | October 4, 2007
(S11E08) Well well… and I’ve said before, I was really looking forward to this new episode of South Park and the return of Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman ; especially after the bad episodes of both Family Guy and The Simpsons this week, I wanted to laugh, I was expecting some hilarity, nothing less.
So you can imagine my deception as I sat & watched this new episode.
Now let me start with the goods. No, this wasn’t a bad one, it was still funny at times and I laughed a couple of times. But let’s face it, it was an “okay” episode, at best. And while this wasn’t a season premieres per-se, it was still a bit like it, I mean the previous episode aired months and months ago.
And as such, going with the easy Tourette’s syndrome jokes, where people shout out insults and other curse words, and of course a Cartman finding out and who had to fake & abuse it, well I just expected more from a premiere, even an half-season premiere. And yes, Parker & Stone were creative in their profanities, and Cartman’s love of Jews had its moments, for instance when he’s face to face with the Broflovskis.
But still, it gets old pretty fast. Add to that the very classic, not to say cliché, backfire development that you could see coming miles away : him ending up loosing control of his words, and saying things he whishes to remain unsaid. Like he had tourtette’s syndrome, in a way. In the end, this doesn’t sound very good.
Even the recurring joke of having Clyde repeat all the time “if I could say [profanities] to [person] I’d be so happy” wasn’t funny. And I didn’t find the ending funny either, with Kyle thinking he’d ruined Cartman moment only to have the fat ass thank him ! (By the way, this had to be the episode where they tried to “re-humanized” Cartman a bit, right? First you could almost feel for him, until the pretentious prick goes on and directly blames God of course, and then him grateful an thankful towards Kyle - who, shall I remind you, is a Jew !!)
The whole Dateline subplot was better, it was funny and even delivered what I believe to be the funniest scene of the episode : each and every pedophile entering the room only to see Chris Hansen and shoot their brains out. Very funny, including the “not again” reaction of Hansen, and the best of the bunch, before blowing his head up : “there aren’t really brownies!”
But overall I was pretty disappointed, and I was expecting the show to be as hilarious as it’s been in the past, and this was nothing more than “okay”. Not bad, but not that good either. Remember the season premiere, the “Nigger” episode, now that one was hilarious from start to end and even afterwards, that one was the perfect illustration of why you love the show so much… hopefully next week they’ll be back at their full potential.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: South Park
No one in the “E!” industry is more ideologically independent, genuine, intelligent, irreverent, and openly brazen than are Matt and Trey. In this hyper-politicized culture, these guys should run for President independently, one as a democrat one as a republican, and then tell both party adherents to go screw themselves upon election. These guys aren’t throw-away mischief makers. They actually care deeply about the idea of the American moment – our distinct exceptionalism, our rare, mostly positive historical achievement as a nation state. Yeah, they ironically mock the very idea of saying offensive things and being called brave for it (an obvious self-indictment and a jab at the hipster Emmy nominating crowd). But no one in entertainment in the western hemisphere takes greater risk with greater reward for the fans of the show than Trey and Matt. They are truly, distinctly American. And that makes them the best in the world at what they do.
Oh I never (meant to) implied they were not. They definitely are free minds acting on their own and making SP (one of) the best, mosty hilarious sitcoms there is. And I love them and the show for that.
They do make fun of very idea of saying offensive things and being called brave for it, as Cartman praise about, but still, they had better moments, and this episode wasn’t one of their best/funniest.
As they say: “America… Fuck Yeah!” ;)
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