South Park: Informative Murder Porn, Review

It doesn’t make sense that shows with extraordinary fanfare like Breaking Bad can’t muster up the audience to dent the ratings of shows like CSI: Miami, or The Mentalist. Why is Cold Case consistently in the upper echelon of the ratings table? Does America really like solving murder mysteries this much?

Thankfully South Park is here to answer these questions. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are masters of putting what people are thinking into a crude half-hour theater. The topics may change and new players cycle in and out but at its core, South Park needs its key thespians to light up its ever-evolving stage.

In a departure from last week’s premiere, Matt and Trey took “Informative Murder Porn” to a familiar place by pitting the kids versus the parents and letting South Park’s key figures shake off the early season rust. Randy, for so long now, has been an essential character in the show and there is no one better to take the latest trend and run with it. The mystery behind the TV ratings is simple: parents get off to sexy, erotic murder mysteries. Whether it’s “Hot Load Case Files” or “Southern Fried Homicide” older Americans are ruining television by mixing viewing with pleasure. The 4^th graders have to put a stop to it, and do so by using a parental block that incorporates Minecraft.

While the Minecraft gag didn’t pay off as well as the riffing on the cable company, South Park’s second episode of the season was well thought out, well constructed and consistent with the successful formula they’ve used in the past. Matt and Trey not only hit on a premise just strong enough to carry the episode, but also mix in enough short and sweet crude humor — the inept police putting a blanket over the kid’s head after his mom is carted out of the house, Randy and Sharon’s foreplay and the cable company rubbing their perky nipples — to show they can still surprise us.

South Park has some momentum. We’ll see if Matt and Trey have something even bigger planned in the coming weeks.  

Extras:

Randy is dead right, who wouldn’t want Jaden Smith as a son? 

My parents never used the “V-Chip” or other child block methods to shun cable programming, but I can’t imagine the frustration of kids who suffered through it.

“This is like news! Parents like informative stuff.” – Randy Marsh

So, so true: “At your local cable company the customer is always our bitch!”

It will be next to impossible to ever look at a cable guy in the eyes again without imagining them sitting alone in their cold truck, while they tenderly rub down their nipples.

Prediction for Next Week:

I inaccurately predicted a Miley Cyrus episode for this week. I can be lazy and say it’s Miley time yet again, or I can take a leap of faith and predict that Kayne West makes his return as a “Gay Fish.” I’ll go with Kim’s hubby, who is fresh off a ridiculous Twitter rant/fight with Jimmy Kimmel of all people. Someone has to rip Yeezus correctly, I’m tired of doing it.