F**k.
It's Finale Night on South Park, and time to end a season long story line. Or so you think. Yep, in the ultimate swerve, the story continues, PC Principal is a good guy, Randy is right, Kyle is wrong, and Matt and Trey spend too much playing Mortal Kombat. Is that you, Vince Russo?
Where to begin? On a season of fairly strong episodes, this one stuck out to me as one of the worst. Although it delivered some great moments, they were few and far between, washed out by a combination of incredibly wonky pacing and bad storytelling. Let's run through the end to each individual story.
PC Principal ends up becoming the main focus this episode, nothing I would've ever seen coming. Even more surprisingly, he was fantastic for the role. He fights a brutal battle with ads at the beginning, gets pissed off for a while, then murders Leslie. Everything felt natural, a guy who had been manipulated by a higher power, found out that his beliefs were being challenged, became unhinged and destroyed everyone that stood in his way. They managed to turn what looked to be the top villain into a convincing hero, and made the audience care about his story arc. Well played. I feel at this point in time, I should mention the gun subplot, the only other good aspect about this finale. I was wondering for a while how Matt and Trey would handle the ultimate showdown, what device could be used to frame the chaos. Guns fit the mold beautifully, providing bonding moments, having some fun at the "Gun Show", and providing an excellent backdrop for some of the funniest skits in the season. Guns played directly into the our next story, featuring Randy, Principal(?) Victoria, Mr. Garrison, and Jenner. Randy offers the group shelter in his garage, where they continue their research into the disappearance of PC Principal. Stan finds them out, and this leads to a great moment for the whole family, as guns bring them all a little closer together. (Did anyone else notice Stan's grandfather was the only person who didn't appear to have a gun?) Everyone convenes on the gun show, where they discover the true source of all the chaos: ads. Randy banishes Whole Foods, which is apparently also an ad, away from South Park, to signal the start of the war between South Park and the ads.
You may notice I haven't mentioned any other stories. That's because they didn't matter....at all. Kyle promised a speech that the writers didn't bother to even hint at delivering on, Leslie did nothing but get her face smashed in, Jimmy was disappointingly pushed to the side, and Clasi was funny without being entirely necessary. All of this was just a steaming pile of garbage that served nothing to the story and wasn't interesting in the slightest.
Apart from being inherently bad, this episode tore to shreds everything the season has been building up to. How could any of the previous episodes been leading to a war on ads? Not only that, but this didn't even finish the war. It looks like we're going to have to put up with another season of this. I don't know about you, but I'm bored of this story already, and we've only just begun. I'm also upset that Morgan Freeman wasn't involved.
6/10
For failing to live up to a season long storyline, this finale failed in almost every aspect. Despite PC Principal and Man's Favorite Weapon, this episode was unsalvageable. I will give Matt and Trey some credit, as this finale was better than last year's by a mile, but that's not saying much, as last year's finale was the worst South Park episode ever. The episode is rewatchable, simply for being the finale, but unless you love PC Principal, I wouldn't advise it.
So, the season has come to an end. The beginning and end were both awful, but everything in between was pretty good. Overall, the season is almost completely pointless, however, since the ending was used purely to set up next season(Cough, cough, Wrestlemania 27). Although I liked most of the season, I gave the overall grade based on every episode, not just the one's I loved.
Season Grade: 7/10
It really is a shame. With a good finale, this season could have easily scored an 8 or higher, but that just wasn't the case. When you waste so many character arcs and make so many questionable decisions, it really drags down the quality of the episodes. I said it all the way throughout the season- the individual episodes don't matter as much as the overall season. The finale just lacked that epic feel that it needed to have.
With these reviews finished, at least for now, I can now go ahead with a few other projects. After a successful return, the Flyers GM mode will retake it's permanent spot. I haven't forgotten about the WWE 2k16 Universe Mode, but I'm not interested in the game right now. Rest assured, I'm pretty sure it will make it onto my blog at some point. I have some other series ideas, mainly Franchise Hockey Manager 2, but those will not appear in 2015. This will likely be one of my final posts of this year, so I thank you for a great 2015. Let's keep this momentum going until the end of the year, and 2016 will be even better than this, I can promise you that.
I hope you've enjoyed my coverage of South Park this season, it's been a pleasure. I wish we could've ended on a happier note, but that's life. If you've discovered my blog during these reviews, stick around. There is plenty more new content on it's way. Thanks for reading.
-Henry
It's Finale Night on South Park, and time to end a season long story line. Or so you think. Yep, in the ultimate swerve, the story continues, PC Principal is a good guy, Randy is right, Kyle is wrong, and Matt and Trey spend too much playing Mortal Kombat. Is that you, Vince Russo?
Where to begin? On a season of fairly strong episodes, this one stuck out to me as one of the worst. Although it delivered some great moments, they were few and far between, washed out by a combination of incredibly wonky pacing and bad storytelling. Let's run through the end to each individual story.
PC Principal ends up becoming the main focus this episode, nothing I would've ever seen coming. Even more surprisingly, he was fantastic for the role. He fights a brutal battle with ads at the beginning, gets pissed off for a while, then murders Leslie. Everything felt natural, a guy who had been manipulated by a higher power, found out that his beliefs were being challenged, became unhinged and destroyed everyone that stood in his way. They managed to turn what looked to be the top villain into a convincing hero, and made the audience care about his story arc. Well played. I feel at this point in time, I should mention the gun subplot, the only other good aspect about this finale. I was wondering for a while how Matt and Trey would handle the ultimate showdown, what device could be used to frame the chaos. Guns fit the mold beautifully, providing bonding moments, having some fun at the "Gun Show", and providing an excellent backdrop for some of the funniest skits in the season. Guns played directly into the our next story, featuring Randy, Principal(?) Victoria, Mr. Garrison, and Jenner. Randy offers the group shelter in his garage, where they continue their research into the disappearance of PC Principal. Stan finds them out, and this leads to a great moment for the whole family, as guns bring them all a little closer together. (Did anyone else notice Stan's grandfather was the only person who didn't appear to have a gun?) Everyone convenes on the gun show, where they discover the true source of all the chaos: ads. Randy banishes Whole Foods, which is apparently also an ad, away from South Park, to signal the start of the war between South Park and the ads.
You may notice I haven't mentioned any other stories. That's because they didn't matter....at all. Kyle promised a speech that the writers didn't bother to even hint at delivering on, Leslie did nothing but get her face smashed in, Jimmy was disappointingly pushed to the side, and Clasi was funny without being entirely necessary. All of this was just a steaming pile of garbage that served nothing to the story and wasn't interesting in the slightest.
Apart from being inherently bad, this episode tore to shreds everything the season has been building up to. How could any of the previous episodes been leading to a war on ads? Not only that, but this didn't even finish the war. It looks like we're going to have to put up with another season of this. I don't know about you, but I'm bored of this story already, and we've only just begun. I'm also upset that Morgan Freeman wasn't involved.
6/10
For failing to live up to a season long storyline, this finale failed in almost every aspect. Despite PC Principal and Man's Favorite Weapon, this episode was unsalvageable. I will give Matt and Trey some credit, as this finale was better than last year's by a mile, but that's not saying much, as last year's finale was the worst South Park episode ever. The episode is rewatchable, simply for being the finale, but unless you love PC Principal, I wouldn't advise it.
So, the season has come to an end. The beginning and end were both awful, but everything in between was pretty good. Overall, the season is almost completely pointless, however, since the ending was used purely to set up next season(Cough, cough, Wrestlemania 27). Although I liked most of the season, I gave the overall grade based on every episode, not just the one's I loved.
Season Grade: 7/10
It really is a shame. With a good finale, this season could have easily scored an 8 or higher, but that just wasn't the case. When you waste so many character arcs and make so many questionable decisions, it really drags down the quality of the episodes. I said it all the way throughout the season- the individual episodes don't matter as much as the overall season. The finale just lacked that epic feel that it needed to have.
With these reviews finished, at least for now, I can now go ahead with a few other projects. After a successful return, the Flyers GM mode will retake it's permanent spot. I haven't forgotten about the WWE 2k16 Universe Mode, but I'm not interested in the game right now. Rest assured, I'm pretty sure it will make it onto my blog at some point. I have some other series ideas, mainly Franchise Hockey Manager 2, but those will not appear in 2015. This will likely be one of my final posts of this year, so I thank you for a great 2015. Let's keep this momentum going until the end of the year, and 2016 will be even better than this, I can promise you that.
I hope you've enjoyed my coverage of South Park this season, it's been a pleasure. I wish we could've ended on a happier note, but that's life. If you've discovered my blog during these reviews, stick around. There is plenty more new content on it's way. Thanks for reading.
-Henry
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