Since South Park embraced serial storytelling back in season 18, there’s been quite a bit of intrigue in seeing how the season finale could bring everything (or almost everything) together. Whether it’s Randy Marsh’s turn as Lorde coinciding with Cartman’s YouTube fame, or Cartman’s toxic relationship with Heidi intertwining with Garrison/Trump’s efforts to bomb Canada, the show has proven quite adept at having seemingly unrelated arcs converge in a meaningful way. “Bike Parade” was no different, as Season 22's finale sees last week’s Amazon takeover come quite close to doing our favorite quite little mountain town in, only to be thwarted by the undeniable Tegridy of Randy Marsh’s weed business.
Just when Tegridy Farms is about to close, Randy suddenly has a new influx of business from people who need to get high to relieve the stress that comes from not getting their Amazon packages. Suddenly, he’s doing better than ever, with the only problem being that he doesn’t have the means to get weed out to everyone (not with the Andersons violating the law by giving out unlimited supplies). To solve the problem, Randy and Towelie travel through town selling weed to the people via the e-scooters that terrorized everyone on Halloween earlier in the season. Trey and Matt have developed a great knack for re-integrating abandoned storylines into the overall arc, and this was another strong example. It makes perfect sense, and as the episode builds up, we see the weed reach more and more of the townspeople, setting us up for the final resolution.
While this is going on, however, the town is getting desperate, with Amazon appearing unstoppable. Steven continues scabbing at the plant, and now, he has to train the horrific mall creatures from last week’s episode (seriously, those characters really fucking startle me) to work at the factory. It’s not pretty, but the work is getting done. Soon, however, several other laid-off workers join Steven, because they either can’t resist their own urges for stuff, or they feel the need to give in to their children’s desires. Like last week, it makes the point that the consumer has become so desperate to consume as much as possible that they no longer care about the dignity of the workers. Beyond that though, it shows us a world where workers don’t care enough about their own dignity to fight for their basic rights. Not when their Prime status is at stake.
This brings us back to the story of Josh, the mangled Amazon worker who must be kept alive in a box, or else his entrails will spill out, killing him instantly. As the strike gains momentum, he becomes a prominent Marxist speaker, decrying the decadence of capitalism and quickly developing a following. Bezos recognizes the threat, and immediately wipes him out in what might be the most disturbing South Park scene that doesn’t involve a bowl of Mr. And Mrs. Tenorman Chili. Bezos tells the kids that the box contains parts for the bike parade, and they quickly tear the box to pieces with every bit of Josh exploding out. Usually, South Park’s villains—especially the non-Cartman ones—tend to just be ridiculous, extra-douchey parodies of themselves. Here, Bezos is portrayed as a sociopath of the highest order, who will spare no one in his quest for total domination. Just to bring this point home a little more, when Kenny abandons the boys’ bike-parade plans and becomes a socialist with his father, Bezos calmly says “Alexa, kill Kenny.”
The Amazon-ification of everything has left everyone devoid of Christmas cheer, and Santa briefly returns to save the day, but when he finds out that his good friend Mr. Hankey was exiled over problematic tweets, he becomes enraged, and tells the town to “have fun suckin’ Jeff Bezos’s dick, ya buncha cunts!” It was a bit on the nose, but after spending the whole season wondering if they’d at least mention the Mr. Hankey story again, this was a satisfying callback. Indeed, the boys try to rely on PC outrage to get the bike parade canceled, but thanks to Amazon’s dominance, there’s no little shops for them to get supplies for protest signs. When they try to march into the mayor’s office to plead their case anyway, they find that Bezos has taken her place. Here, things are at their bleakest.
Just when Steven Stotch is about to sell his soul one last time so that Butters can be fulfilled by stuff, Towelie shows up with his most important weed delivery yet. This sets us up for the townspeople’s final confrontation with Bezos, where they all agree that they’re not going to work for him anymore. Why? Because they’re all stoned out of their mind, and that allows them to unify against him. During “Buddha Box,” I mentioned that while it had some great moments, I would have liked to have seen it comment more on how anxiety actually does affect people. While I didn’t get the Cartman/Tweek showdown I was hoping for, I would argue this ending makes that point without explicitly saying it. What do we see a lot of in the last two episodes? Stress, which is basically Anxiety’s cousin. Stephen yells at Butters because he’s stressed. Cartman yells about shooting up the school because of the stress of Kenny abandoning the bike parade. Stephen sacrifices his dignity because of his anxiety over letting his son down. Amazon’s takeover is caused by the town’s collective fear. They abandon their core principles because the convenience of Amazon is always there to relieve stress. But what can cure stress and anxiety faster than all the Amazon packages in the world? A nice hit off a joint, of course. With the entire town high, they break free of Amazon’s grasp. If “Buddha Box” initially went too far in saying that anxiety wasn’t real, the last two episodes made up for it by subtly showing how it really can hurt people.
Of course, having Tegridy Weed save the day leaves us with one issue: the big corporation is thwarted by…well…the rise of another big corporation. Last week, I mentioned that “Something Walmart This Way Comes” ended by showing that big corporations are unstoppable because when you destroy one, another will inevitably take its place. This episode essentially ends the same way, but with the resolution being that it’s okay because everyone is stoned out of their gourd, and at least that asshole Bezos is out of town. It’s not the most satisfying ending, and Trey and Matt even lampshade that by joking that in real life, Tegridy Farms would likely be selling on Amazon. That being said, I don’t hold this against the episode too much because the last two shows are still a far more direct, detailed critique of American capitalism then I ever would have expected from this show. They clearly make the case that the best way for the people to fight off the worst excesses of modern capitalism is to dial down their desire for stuff, and value the dignity of the worker more (i.e. boycott Amazon) than their material desires. But since that’s unlikely to ever happen, hey, there’s always weed.
Season 22 will go down as yet another successful South Park season, and probably their strongest output since season 18. Trey and Matt were once again able to handle multiple story arcs taking on multiple current events, and having their plots intertwine seamlessly. Throughout the season, the show made the jokes about rooting for its own cancellation, but really, season 22 was proof positive that despite being one of the longest-running shows around, South Park still hasn’t lost its fastball, and continues to be one of the most cheerfully irreverent shows on television.
Season Grade: B+
Stray Observations
- “Are you all high?” “No, why would you think that?” “Because I’m over here.” That was probably the hardest belly-laugh of the season.
- When Butters shows his elaborate bike display to the girls who were fawning over Larry, he literally peacocks, as the bike reveals a peacock design. This was so perfect. I’m kinda surprised South Park never did an episode mocking Pick-Up Artist culture in, like, 2009. There’s no shortage of material to draw from there.
- Greatly enjoyed the new version of “Colorado Farm” that ends the season. Maybe things aren’t perfect, but at least the citizens of South Park aren’t suckin’ on Bezosian dicks!
- How come we didn’t get a “you bastards!” after Alexa killed Kenny? Because it happened off-screen?
- Am I the only one who briefly thought the Cartman really was going to shoot up the school, and that that would be the final conflict?
63 Comments
This wasn’t posted on AV Club?
A shame. I thought you were doing an okay job.
Also, you’re a fan of The Critic so that a plus in my book.
What happened was, I screwed up and posted it to my personal Kinja instead of The AV Club. All fixed!
Incompetence is a Gizawker plus.
Ah… makes sense.
Kinda weird story: I was reading a piece you wrote about that Critic episode where Duke runs for president earlier that I’d just sort of randomly stumbled upon. I finished reading it and was like, “Wow, I like that. I’d like to read more by this writer. I wonder what this dude is up to now?”
Then, when I typed your name into a search engine, it turned out I’d been enjoying your South Park and Tick reviews here all year. Clicking on your kinja profile link from google I was surprised to see a South Park review I hadn’t seen yet on AV Club.
Anyway. That’s my pointless kinda weird story about the journey that brought me to my comment.
I apologize for wasting the time of anyone who read that. 😛
No worries, and thanks! I’m actually petty proud of that Critic piece. And Maurice LaMarche RT’d it! I will brag about that until I die.
Are you ill? Take care of yourself. Don’t die.
“I apologize for wasting the time of anyone who read that. :P”
Silly rabbit, that’s why we read Kinja!
I love The Critic
been doing it all season. Posts it much later than the time stamp so it can slide in under other posts.
Without an ounce of shame, I would proudly purchase and ride Butters’ Peacock Bike
seriously, those characters really fucking startle meAre you 8?What do we see a lot of in the last two episodes? Stress, which is basically Anxiety’s cousin.Not really. Stress is something that everyone deals with in a real-world fashion. While anxiety can exist from stress, and SOME people suffer from it, anxiety can also be faked (and is faked quite often) so that you can get a bullshit prescription or be able to fly with your accessory dog. Let’s not confuse the two or basically make them the same thing which is what you keep trying to do.I was about to pat you on the back for a review that left out your political views… and then those last two paragraphs came. Rough night kid.All season long you did nothing but insert your own views into each recap, and then act pissy when the show didn’t do exactly what you wanted it to do. At times you even made up things that didn’t happen or weren’t there. If you continue to recap this show moving forward, I hope you drop the Woke act and just recap the show and the things that actually happen.
“I hope you drop the Woke act and just recap the show and the things that actually happen.”That problem definitely isn’t limited to this reviewer… I wish the site as a whole would drop the “Woke” act. They actually occasionally still do some quality pop culture writing when they bother to give a fuck (the recent Age of Heroes series of articles is a good example). Unfortunately, most of the time they’re content to spit out pointless blog posts about problematic tweets that are only tangentially related to entertainment… then they’ll complain about what a “cesspool” Twitter is, even though they’re hypocritically culling most of their current content from it. Which one are you guys gonna be: the witty, irreverent pop culture site this place used to be, or the perpetually pearl-clutching host body of Gawker? Pick a side!
having read the site (& the comment section) for a good chunk of its pre-kinja days of yore this has always puzzled me…the internet as a whole may be impressively diverse but there are literally any number of places designed to serve the mindless-click-bait-over-content crowd which makes it almost impossible to differentiate your offering within that sphere – particularly as your core audience has zero loyalty & innumerable options…meanwhile you have a site with both a meaningfully differentiated identity and an engaged readership who consider themselves well-served by it…why anyone would think that trying to turn the latter into the former was the way to go is frankly baffling…not least since the same approach seems to have been applied elsewhere in a fashion that can only be seen as doubling down on the principle…no offense to any of the folks above the line (I’d just as soon nobody decide to just jack it all in & leave us AV Club-less or anything) but it’s like somebody mistook the Black Books retail management guide for an actual business model & I still can’t wrap my head around it…
Anxiety “is faked quite often”? Do you even hear yourself? You radical rightists just have no self-awareness.I love how you think the incredibly basic take of “everyone with a therapy pet is faking it” is cleverly subversive. You’re quite well-developed for a 14 year old.I was about to pat you on the back for leaving out your political views… and then this comment came. Rough night kid.I hope you drop the Unwoke act and just comment on the article and the things that he actually writes.
I know this show doesn’t always hit its marks but damned it all if I don’t still love it in a way I havenmt fekt about The Simpsons, oh, 15+ years… I’ve grown up with both shows (born in the 80’s), and while The Simpsons has the nostalgia factor of sometimes bringing the laughs and, “Aw, that show was so good when…”, South Park manages to still turn it out and make me giggle every week. Like I said, they don’t always say things I agree with and don’t always stick the landings, but the fact that the show’s creators are still it’s core writers/producers makes this show something special. Matt and Trey still give a shit and it shows, and I think that’s mostly all that matters, even after all this time and all the flubs. I don’t see SP going on for much longer, but I have all confidence they’ll make it entertaining until the end and cap it off with something brilliant, and touching, which is a HELL of a lot more than I think can be said of other writer/producers.
You know. The fact you are a basic white dude was spooged all over this review. Good job being you.
That’s legitimately racist. Dismissing somebody because of their gender or race isn’t egalitarian and has no place in a progressive or educated society. You sound like a sports team liberal, not someone who arrived at those beliefs via introspection, research and experience, but someone who parrots those beliefs out of a desire to belong.
“I mean, are we supposed to keep going? Just go on, making total asses of ourselves?”I just love how they were able to bring that whole #CancelSouthPark gimmick full circle. But after this great season, who would want it to end now? This was the first finale since “The Hobbit” I genuinely enjoyed all the way through, and it’ll be fun to see how far Randy’s Tegridy business and the PC Babies’ bizarre music career will go from here. A little more President Garrison would be nice too, although Matt and Trey’s resistance to using him this year was damn impressive, I’ll give ‘em that.And hey, Santa got to call the town “c-nts” uncensored! That’s enough for an A in my book.
I was hoping we’d get to see Mr. Hankey again (the one with him was one of my favorites of the season), but the scene with Santa was my biggest laugh of the episode. And with Hankey still exiled to Springfield, maybe we’ll even end up getting a South Park/Simpsons crossover next season.Solid episode overall. They’ve clearly struggled a bit with the season finales ever since adding more serialization to the show, so it was nice to see them stick the landing this year.
I’m still laughing at that Santa line.
My favorite line of the episode was that the PC Babies have a Christmas hit titled ‘Jingle All the Wahhh!’
I liked that they still bleeped fuckers but not have fun sucking Jeff Bezos’ dick you buncha cunts
I you watch on Hulu it’s completely uncensored, fucks and all.
Cathartic to see President Garrison in handcuffs, if even for a throwaway shot.
Yay! Ned’s not dead!Also, the shot of Garrison grinning in handcuffs – for what I believe was his only appearance of the season – is probably the closest we’ll get to seeing Trump arrested. Matt and Trey were definitely going for the most happy endings possible in that final number.
I mean, those zombie mall workers are a bit scary looking, but I honestly laughed every time they popped on screen! I just found them hilarious. Full disclosure, I worked in a mall for a few years in my youth, hehe…
I loved when the one mutant guy put the coffee maker in the box, paused, and said “this isn’t very fulfilling”.
I don’t know why, but Kenny flipping off his old man while digging through his bike parade boxes was hilarious to me. It was the throw away gag I loved.
Butters peacocking killed me. That was so funny. And Santa’s reaction to the “inappropriate tweeting” was priceless. It was also nice to see Big Gay Al and Heidi at the bike parade, if only for a moment. This was a good season. I’m still waiting for people to stop underestimating Trey Parker, who may have started off as a punk trying to make some fart jokes, but has been one of the most skilled plot designers in television for a number of years now.
Dude, spoiler alert in the headline.
Right?
This was a fantastic finale filled with great laughs that really tied the season together. You’re definitely correct about the “Because I’m over here!” moment with Bezos and the townspeople being the biggest gut laugh, but I also absolutely died at the radio DJ introducing the PC babies new song. “It’s about how the idea of Mrs. Claus perpetuates female stereotypes,” had me in stitches! Also, there was some great general commentary about outrage culture woven in among the jokes. When Santa showed up and lambasted the townspeople for getting rid of Mr. Hankey over a some tweets it became clear that Mr. Hankey was being used as a stand-in for Roseanne and others, with the show lambasting the way people can get so worked up over simple bad jokes of 140 characters or less that they turn people into pariahs, get them fired from their jobs, and even ruin their lives and careers. Roseanne is just one example but there have been others including ppl who aren’t even famous comedians. (Remember the British woman who tweeted a joke about race before boarding a flight home from Africa whose life was ruined by the time the plane landed?) The scene with the boys on the bridge talking about cancellation was an interesting one too, simultaneously calling out those who are easily offended and outraged for not actually caring about the things that get them so upset all the time while commenting on South Park itself for being so often intentionally offensive yet never generating the type of outrage that got something like Roseanne’s show cancelled and also revealing some of Matt & Trey’s own thoughts on whether they can really just keep going and making this show. Granted we can’t actually know what’s going through the creators’ minds but I certainly read that dialogue as a bit of self-commentary. I get a feeling that they know they’re still making a good show, they’re really not sure how much longer they can go. They might not state it directly, but I think they basically just don’t want South Park to end up like The Simpsons – a hollow shell of its former self that should have been put to rest years ago. The shot of Garrison (I was wondering whether he’d show up this season!) at the parade in handcuffs, though brief, was also a nice touch, and I was actually just a little surprised they made such a direct and flagrant assertion that Trump belongs in prison.
Of all the finales in these last 5 serialized seasons, this was by far the most successful. It’s great to see the show still hitting the level of quality we’ve seen the past two weeks (and earlier in with “Tegridy Farms”) 22 seasons in, but I have to say I wouldn’t be upset really if we only get a few more seasons before Matt & Trey hang it up.
Garrison was missed this season, but it almost made me wonder if he was intentionally left out of the season until the last scene. Everyone else is doing satire of Trump, and not really succeeding (how can you satire what is so preposterous?) it almost makes me think it was a conscious decision to do something different.
Nice to see that Big Gay Al and Mr. Slave are still a couple.
I didn’t even catch that but yeah that’s a nice touch!!
i think your take is pretty much spot on. only thing i disagree with is mr stotch’s little speech to butters. i think the whole point of that speech is he was passing the buck to butters. saying how butters needs his stuff, needs little presents to himself. butters is sitting there saying ‘dad i don’t care about the bike parade and all this shit if you have to sell your soul to get it, i care about you.’ and he ignores butters saying ‘no no you need your stuff’ the consumer-worker doth protest too much.
“Because I’m over here” and “Alexa, kill Kenny” were the best two lines.
alright it got down better than I expected.
Here, Bezos is portrayed as a sociopath of the highest order, who will spare no one in his quest for total domination.
It’s funny because it’s true.
At least this season had 1 redeeming episode…Man Bear Pig…the rest were,,,yikes!!!!
This season was definitely the best in a long time. They did such a great job blending throwbacks like Santa, Mr. Hanley, and Towelie with current events. And it was probably the only time in the era of serialization that the finale tied things together neatly and didn’t feel like somewhat of a cop out. Now we have to wait a whole year for more, though…
Mr. Hanley? Are you high?
“Are you all high?”“No…no, why you ask?”“I’m right over here!”That scene had me laughing my ass off. You can’t beat weed humor.
The Amazon-ification of everything has left everyone devoid of Christmas cheer, and Santa briefly returns to save the day, but when he finds out that his good friend Mr. Hankey was exiled over problematic tweets, he becomes enraged, and tells the town to “have fun suckin’ Jeff Bezos’s dick, ya buncha cunts!”This is the type of bullshit that made me not even bother watching the show anymore since its really only there for the reactionary rightwing man-children who shout out “don’t be so gay” when you actually try to treat people with the basics of respect and dignity. But speaking of the topic of this episode, I’d reconmend watching the Adam Ruins Everything episode about tech, much better by comparison.
I’d “reconmend” that you get a life!
Aww, did his comment trigger you?
#1 Adam Ruins Everything consistently produces content that makes my history professor furious. Read a book instead of getting your education from bored writers intentionally trying to be contrarian. #2 I’m sorry that you have such a problem understanding the validity of satire in our modern culture.
He doesn’t understand “the validity of satire”? Are you high? What does that have to do with anything he said at all?
south park quoted marx therefore is more useful.
I enjoyed this season of South Park greatly (one of the best in a while IMO) but I sort of agree with you on this one particular joke. I don’t really get what they’re trying to say.I think they made a very good “anti-PC” joke with the bike parade cancellation “and then nobody wins” plan and of course everything around PC-principal and his babies. However here I’m not sure I follow the logic of the joke.
So I haven’t re-watched the Mr Hankey episode since it aired earlier this season but I seem to recall that he did actually repeatedly write insulting tweets even though people told him to stop on several occasions. Eventually they got fed up and told him to fuck off. I wasn’t really sure what the authors meant with this episode, but with this Santa joke in the finale it seems like they’re saying that it was a bad decision somehow? I mean, I’m not shocked or anything but what’s the angle here exactly? People shouldn’t face the consequences of writing horrible things online? Or that the sentence was too severe? I don’t get it.
I think it would’ve made more sense if Mr Hankey had been cast away not after writing insulting tweets several nights in a row *after* being warned, but rather because somebody unearthed old twits he had written years ago. He would’ve tried to apologize, said it was just an old joke etc… Then it would’ve made sense for Santa to get pissed because they refused to forgive the poop. We have plenty of examples of this type of situation in the media lately so it would also have been topical.
As it stands it just feels weird and out of place.
Yeah, as the AvClub was praising the last episode for ebing to anti-capitalist, I was just like “You’re kidding, right? Just wait for the second part.” And South park didn’t disappoint. Of course, somehow the right’s favorite ManBearPig “political correctness” ruins the day and they’re all saved in the end by capitalism.Huger was bending over so far backwards to fit this into his assumptions from the last episode, it’s ridiculous:I don’t hold this against the episode too much because the last two shows are still a far more direct, detailed critique of American capitalism then I ever would have expected from this show. They clearly make the case that the best way for the people to fight off the worst excesses of modern capitalism is to dial down their desire for stuff, and value the dignity of the worker more (i.e. boycott Amazon) than their material desires.
First of all, the last episode wasn’t a critique of capitalism. You assumed it was because of where you thought this episode would go and it didn’t. And how did anyone dial down their desire for stuff? They still held the bike parade and Butters still rode his fancy Amazon-bought bike. And the foil of Amazon was everyone buying weed (a material good) from a corporation they admit would use Amazon anyway, if it could. Not sure where you get valuing the dignity of the worker more, either.But what can cure stress and anxiety faster than all the Amazon packages in the world? A nice hit off a joint, of course. With the entire town high, they break free of Amazon’s grasp. If “Buddha Box” initially went too far in saying that anxiety wasn’t real, the last two episodes made up for it by subtly showing how it really can hurt people.
No, that says “anxiety isn’t real, just smoke a joint and chill out”. Even if this ridiculous stretch of a subliminal sub plot were intended, it would never be picked up on by the viewers who need to hear it.
thought season started a bit slow..especially episodes like 2-4, but they were on fire towards the end. Hilarious stuff. Great stuff. Good ending…. and i NEVER like part 2 of a two-parter and this was solid. Keep it up guys
Stray Observation: It feels like the finale gave the show’s entire seasonal arc an entirely different spin in hindsight, than was often tortuously worked into it over the last three months, by these avclub reviews. It was not in the end, a particularly friendly progressive message, nor even remotely contrite.
Was this show attempting to be a middle finger to the winners of the amazon headquarters? — basically saying that Colorado (Denver) didn’t get the headquarters but at least they have their ‘tegrity.
Wait, how do you connect the bike with the peacock and PUA? I don’t get it.
“Peacocking” is a huge PUA thing. Basically, the idea is you wear bright-colored clothing to draw attention to yourself, and girls will want to talk to you. Family Guy did a terrible episode that mentioned it, and American Dad did a very good episode that mentioned it.
Or those big garish hats or scarves or outlandish jewelry or whatever would draw attention to a regular guy looking ridiculous.
“What’s offensive about a bike parade”“Kyle, you small minded piece of shit, we should cancel you just for saying that”This has to be the best episode in several seasons and that line just had me rolling.Say what you will about South Park but it is the only long running cartoon show that has characters with some ‘Tegrity (or at least ones that smoke it)
“(not with the Andersons violating the law by giving out unlimited supplies)“ That wasn’t what i saw at all. It seemed pretty obvious people were going to both farms to get more weed than either could legally sell, not that the Andersons were selling more weed than they were supposed to.
“This was so perfect. I’m kinda surprised South Park never did an episode mocking Pick-Up Artist culture in, like, 2009. There’s no shortage of material to draw from there.”And if they were going to do it, they’d HAVE to do it with Butters.
I loved that final shot of Garrison Trump in handcuffs. Hopefully that will be true in real life by the next season of South Park.
Southpark is best when you find yourself saying” oh my god, did they just do that to authoratay? they really have no fear.” I sincerely thought they’d pussy out on Bezos who gets a regular sloppy kiss from media with their “everybody’s a little bit right” game. But the box was genius. It reminds me of the first years of Southpark and why people watch it in the first place.
Did you notice the butthole painted in the back of Bezos’ head? lol
Very well worded, sir! I agree this is the best season since S18 and its critique of our form of life is very precise. Feels really good now.