South Park

I think the episode is a little better than the Pandemic special because there is less plot but more character storylines. The Qanon story mocks the movement but explores the reasons why there is an appeal: the things they are opposing DO sound horrible, they believe they are the underground resistance plus there is the general "part of a community" appeal like with Butters. Him running around aimlessly with the flag during the fight was pretty funny.

The resolution is easily the most meta joke the show has ever done. Just as it became clear what was happening I wasn't quite sure how to feel about it, but Garrisons solution at the end I thought was brilliant because it almost sounds like a Spoof Aesop (complete with a man mutated into a giant penis behind him) and a literal Deus ex Machina. But given those small bits of humor and the Anti-Hollywood Elite gags the tag makes it more clear the end message. Marketing yourself as "the resistance" only gives rise to extremism, which results in diminishing returns as your members realize you are crazy. The Lil' Qties quickly dropped out when they learned "the chosen one" was Garrison. Garrison himself hated that worship because it gave him the complete wrong kind of attention, they were doing things he never asked or wanted them to do. But saying you need to appeal to those in power is not saying you need to knuckle under the current regime but that trying to work with them is more likely to get results than rejecting all cooperation. Garrison managed an appeal to those Baseketball guys for a miracle. Relatedly, knowing how they write their stories by extreme train-of-thought, seeing how Garrison and White have the guns yanked away by The Powers That Be probably reflects their own development process on how the story was going to go.

I think the end point of the episode was reintegrating Garrison back into the show as his original character and not merely the Trump stand-in he became. They might make some reference to him being ex-president and his Service bodyguard hanging around, but they will not have him keep up with any Trump antics.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

Q is the funniest cult since Scientology.

I think the Service bodyguard is done for since he got turned into Mr. Hat. Which is fine by me. He wasn't that funny since he was trying to capitalize off the "Garrison's sexy boyfriend" trend without being as outrageous as the likes of Mr. Slave.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Why did they bring back Mr. Hat anyway?

The only person who kept Garrison chained down. When he was gone it all went crazier from there. Which is already saying something considering it’s Garrison.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Mar 13th 2021 at 12:04:16 PM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

I mean it kinda defeat their anti-nostalgia message from S20 when they are pandering to the fans’ nostalgia by doing that.

Scientologists haven't raided the Capitol yet, though. At least, not yet.

As for them not stopping the show, I think it's pride, mostly. They don't want to just quit. They want to be cancelled, preferably for something huge. They're not the kind that is satisfied with going quietly, I think.

I mean, they tried to kickstart a cancellation movement themselves with #Cancel South Park. Of course it didn't work, both because there wasn't any driving scandal behind it to begin with, and because no one really cares any more when South Park is being offensive.

Edited by Redmess on Mar 13th 2021 at 12:23:42 PM

Optimism is a duty.

Yeah they had their chance of getting cancelled back then with Trapped in the Closet and 200/201. At this point they LITERALLY can’t cancelled for their content alone. Not even with this so call “kancel kulture kraze” going about where just about any fictional work is “cancel”.

The only way SP can be cancelled for real is if Trey or Matt have done something shitty, and so far they seem nice of a guys to not have some kind of controversy to their name aside from creating South Park.

They're too reasonable and apparently nice (seriously, every interview where someone discusses meeting them describes the guys as being out there, but rather personable) to do personally reprehensible things. That's why they have a show to act them out on.

They say let your work speak for you. And that's what they're doing.

Scientologists literally tried to find dirt on them to get them canceled and they found nothing. Not joking.

Their ad campaign in Season 20 was full of nostalgia. Maybe you can call it bait in that case, but their entire marketing strategy relies on people remembering the catchphrases and funny moments from decades ago.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 13th 2021 at 3:10:31 PM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

The unique thing about them is that they were never interested in rising to the top but just wanted enough clout to do their own things. As a result they are very indifferent to the rest of Hollywood, look no further than their attire when they went to the Oscars for "Blame Canada." You hear nothing about them attending Hollywood parties or assaulting actors because they only work with about 30 people inside their own little circle.

I still don't think they are actually pushing to get South Park canceled, if Comedy Central decides to not renew them they would be fine with it but the show doesn't take up that much of their time. They know full well that the only thing that could get them canceled would be actual legal trouble and not any offensive thing they said.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

I don't think anybody said that the episode endorses Qanon, just that some Qanon believers took it at face value, because that's just what they do (and yes, I think some of them are stupid and/or brainwashed enough to believe that liberals have actual Satanic reality-warping powers). I don't get why so many sites wrote that the episode "viciously" mocked Qanon when they mostly just repeated what they believe in. This approach may have worked with Scientology in the past, but they wanted to be seen as respectable (and social networks weren't really a thing back then), while Qanon has nothing outside regurgitating their idiotic beliefs, so just talking about these on a world-famous TV show counts as a victory for some of them.

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I hope that the deus ex machina ending with the return of classic Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat may count as a return of the series to its roots of surreal wacky offensive comedy. Otherwise what would be the point of all those nonsensical cameos of aliens, monsters and cartoon characters?

"Effective Altruism" is just another bunch of horsesh*t.

I think vicious is more meant in the sense of unrelenting, rather than undeserving.

And a return to their roots would be the best thing that could happen to this show, I think. It gets so wrapped up in social commentary it forgets to have fun way too often.

Optimism is a duty.

Because every single cheap-ass website has to write a catchy clickbait title about something South Park "annihilated" or "viciously tore apart" with its satire. Like when they made a single gag about The Simpsons being outdated and kind of racist at the very end of the episode and every media site was like "South Park BRUTALLY mocks The Simpsons!!!"

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Watched the special. Why do I get the impression the next South Park game is going to be a post-apocalyptic post-COVID setting with all the kids split up?

@Qanon: It's really more often that South Park satirizes stupid things from reality the way they did it here. Just portray it bluntly as it is without obscuring it, occasionally with an exaggerated character at the head, sometimes not.

The depiction of Qanon here is very much a "this is what these people are really like, and you should know about it" thing.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 14th 2021 at 3:20:28 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

You're not the first person to suggest a post-apocalyptic third game. I'm really warming up to that idea. This does feel like the kind of episode to lead into a bigger product like a new game.

Also, yeah the QAnon thing could have benefitted from a "THIS IS WHAT QANON ACTUALLY BELIEVES" gag to really hammer it in.

I know...it was already funny (in a sad way) to me, but reusing the disclaimer would have been extra funny.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 14th 2021 at 7:49:02 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

The whole thing was a "this is what Qanon really is" gag.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 14th 2021 at 5:19:20 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

The reason the satire in South Park generally holds up is that they know where to exaggerate and when to portray it as dry as possible. They do seem to avoid the "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer to keep it from overused. At multiple points it feels like they transcribe a news article or wikipedia page so there is a language divergence from the rest of the show. Not many shows can get away with that approach, but there is such a strong point of view that it doesn't come across as mandated talking points.

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils!

There was that time they literally copy/pasted their jokes (thinking they were actual movie quotes) from a College Humor sketch.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 14th 2021 at 9:37:04 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Yeah that was their lowest point. And College Humor’s version turned out to be funnier and better delivered.

In terms of quality, I'd say their lowest point was Season 20. The Writing by the Seat of Your Pants nature for season-long story arcs got really bad there.

Season 20 was at least an experiment. It felt like they wanted to try something new and interesting. It just got worse as it went along as the world changed too fast.

My biggest gripe with Season 20 is the cynical ending that didn't really give a conclusive stance on the nature of trolling. That, and the annoying amounts of episodic troping that it left on the SP trope pages that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 14th 2021 at 10:59:13 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

What was the experiment exactly? They did season-long story arcs in the 2 preceding seasons, so it wasn't that. Was it letting the season's story being determined by the 2016 election? Letting a real life election influence your story isn't a good experiment, especially if it doesn't go the way you predict.

I must say though, it was pretty impressive that the 2016 election forced them to scrap everything and make "Oh, Jeez" in just one day.

Seasons 18 and 19 had episodes that could be watched on their own with only passing references to previous episodes, like "Tweek x Craig." Season 20 has none of that, as it's all tied to a few central plots, without delving into many other new subjects. It's...not a good fit for the show, but they were probably curious to try it out. Serialization was getting more popular for cartoons, after all.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.