Review: South Park “The End of Serialization As We Know It”
Did the show’s 20th season finish strong?
Spoilers Below
The world is an increasingly weird place. The internet and the social media websites determine more and more what types of things we put out into the world. When we have a medium that gives literally anyone a voice, it can be a blessing for intra- and interpersonal communication, but also a bane– a crutch that we rely on too heavily, or a weapon we use to harm other people in ways that were previously unimaginable.
These topics and more were some of the issues that Trey Parker and Matt Stone tackled in this year’s twentieth season of South Park. The final episode of this season, entitled “The End of Serialization As We Know It”,posed a lot of new questions, acted as a reset button (literally and figuratively) and didn’t give us a whole lot of answers– in a classic and yet still somehow satisfying South Park manner.
Cartman thinks the girls want to make semen-milking and joke creating slaves of all males on Mars. Gerald finally confronts the creator of TrollTrace in a final showdown. Kyle and Ike troll in Gerald’s name, to save the world. An epic finale for an epic season of South Park. The title of this season’s final episode suggests maybe next year the new season won’t be serialized? Who knows.
What we do know now is how “Trevor’s Axiom” is behind all of trolling. And the rise of the unruly, hateful and orange President Garrison. And the member berries play a role. And maybe we ARE in an age of “post-humor satirization”. But the truth is that the whole world and the little town of South Park will never be the same.
I, for one, enjoyed the season, but as I’ve mentioned before, I still long for the old days of (mostly) standalone South Park episodes. After a few serialized seasons, maybe we’ll see less (or none) of that in upcoming seasons. Matt and Trey are usually the best ones at figuring out when things aren’t as funny anymore. We’ll see. Either way, we’re guaranteed several more seasons of South Park, and we’ll be here watching them!
SCORE
7/10
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