South Park: Pandemic 2: The Startling
By fred | October 30, 2008
(S12E11) Well, despite the lack of the usual “to be continued” last week, as we all expected it to be (I’d imagine) this episode was the follow up on the adventures of Craig and his Peruvian Flute Band. Now last week the episode was great, but I wasn’t exactly sure whether it was supposed to mean something more than what it first looked like. Was there some political metaphor hidden somewhere behind the guinea pigs ? I couldn’t tell you, but we had some very interesting analysis of the whole thing in the comments.
This week, I feel the same in that I’m not sure if there was really something more to it, but I’m pretty fine with the idea that there was none, and this was just a moment of crazy fun. After all the parody of disaster-movie continued, Cloverfield first in line, and that movie didn’t had any (hidden) messages or anything, it was just a monster showing up and people reacting to it.
So why should South Park try to go any further than that and mix it with political analysis, metaphors and whatnot : let’s just enjoy the ride! That is, of course, unless you’re Craig.
This episode was simply a lot of fun, of course we had Craig the joy-breaker, who kept blaming the kids for everything, insisting that it was their attitude to always want to know more and be curious about things that had them in such situations which, clearly, aren’t the usual events of any kid’s life, or anyone for that matter. And how freaking hilarious was it that Craig didn’t care why he was part of an ancient prophecy, simply decided that he was done and walked away ??
Somehow the kids just walking, walking and then walking some more became extremely funny. “Stan: Hey look, there’s something here! Craig: No.” It was just a bunch of walking around, “nice and boring, just the way [Craig] likes it“, and this one time it was actually funny. Just like how Craig somehow managed to kill the bad guy and save the world, by trying to walk away, not willing to be a part of anything, and yet ending up with lasers shooting out of his eyes!
Speaking of the bag guy, I have no idea what this whole thing meant, really, but as I said I’m fine with that. Back on the Cloverfield part of the episode, just how awesome was it that the guinea bees were just… guinea pigs with costumes ?? That killed me, that was genius! “OMG! It’s a guinea bear! – No, it’s a guinea mouse, stupid!” I’m not sure the guinea pirate makes any sense, but then again I’m not sure any of this makes any sense, and that might just have been the point.
I think this was some Randy at his best once again this week. How awesome was it to see him leave his family behind and get out of the bus, just to get a good shot of the guinea pigs attacking them ?? I loved how he always went back to introduce everyone, “Wave to the camera, Shelly!” And of course, while all that footage through the eye of his camera was absolutely amazing, even better was to see him doing it, putting his camera right into the face of whoever was talking ! That bit had me rolling on the floor as well.
In the end it didn’t really made sense (or did it? Anyone has a good metaphor/analysis/theory for that one?), there were no time issues, no real motivations, it was just your typical disaster movie, again like Cloverfield, where all that matters is the big monster(s) destroying everything and people screaming around it! I know Randy’s version of it was his “you’re gonna be really glad we have all this footage of the family someday“, but I just wishes at least once he went ahead and said it, like they always do in those kind of movies, “the world will want to know what happened”.
I thought this “sequel” was even better than the “original”, I couldn’t stop laughing! What about you ? Did you love this episode as well ? Do you want a third installment of it, now that the guinea pirate escaped ? Does any of this made sense to you ?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: South Park
