Review
| - While some of my favorite South Park episodes are the ones that don’t aim for any social commentary and just revel in being crude and weird, the strongest episodes often are the ones that satirize subjects ripe for being ripped into. The main problem with this, however, is that the strength of the episode rests on the meatiness of the target. In last week’s episode, the invasion-of-privacy concept with the T.S.A. was a good one, easy to appreciate as most of us have either been groped in the name of airport safety or seen photos of T.S.A. agents patting down kids in strollers, the ridiculousness of it all eclipsing the meaning behind the security. So there was trepidation going into this episode, knowing it was going to be taking on home shopping channels, because those are such benign targets that it’s hard to think of the show getting any mileage out of the topic. To the show’s credit, it does ultimately muster some righteous anger, but the commentary winds up falling short of previous efforts, the satire not nearly as sharp and relying too heavily on crude humor to carry the weight.
- As someone who has literally received a bolo tie as a gift from a family member, I instantly clicked with tonight's "Cash For Gold" episode. I can tell you from experience that there are few miseries greater than pretending to like a southwestern, turquoise-encrusted pendant. So when Stan was forced to wear that bolo out in public, I was right there with him. It's really just awful. What's more painful is that those things really do sell for upwards of a thousand dollars... a thousand. So as far as synopses go, this one was pure gold . However, it did take a few scenes to really get cooking. The initial "Cash 4 Gold" sequence was kind of whatever, and I didn't really get the Taco Bell gag. Was that just a marketing ploy to plug their new Doritos Locos Tacos?
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