Review: South Park ‘The Hobbit’

Spoilers Below

11:45PM. Brooklyn. South Park finale (I DVR’ed it). Achille$ himself is here, but needs to catch a train in twenty minutes. Several beers down, so let’s start the episode.

The comments from Achille$ started in the first five seconds: “What season is this?” he said. “I didn’t even know they changed the intro.” Pshhh, what a noob.

The episode began with South Park Elementary student Lisa Berger expressing her interest in – and then asking out – Butters. Alright, so it’s a school-centric episode? Possibly no commentary on society or the world as a whole? Fat chance. And “fat” isn’t a dig at Lisa Berger by the way, although she is a bit rotund.

Speaking of commentary, “The music on this show is so great,” Achille$ said. High praise from someone in the music biz.

The first big laughs came when the school kids began to make jokes about Lisa, after she asked Butters out and he declined. Jokes like, “She looks like she got hit in the face with a hot shovel,” and the like.

Butters’ issue with Lisa’s weight showed the first real flash of a deeper issue in this episode, because after he said she was too fat, he added an important tidbit about his ideal beauty. “Kim Kardashian is skinny, and she just had a baby,” he said. Wendy responded that these women aren’t actually perfect, and are in fact Photoshopped, so Butters shouldn’t hold females to this unrealistic standard. Unfortunately the opposite happened, as Lisa and the girls of South Park Elementary began crafting altered photos of themselves.

Oh shit, Achille$ has to run. Apparently I should have given him more warning before he had to catch the train. Or maybe we shouldn’t have paused the episode to debate the attractiveness of Kim Kardashian. Regardless, he’s gone now. He should be able to make that train. Well, hopefully he made that train. As of writing this, I still have no idea if he made it, or got home. There’s a solid chance he was at least inappropriately fondled by some random subway vagrant.

Anyway, the episode ended up also revolving around the very fine line between being a feminist and being a hater. As Wendy stood for women’s rights more and more, she was also excluded for some of her more liberal claims, and repeatedly called “jelly” (jealous) for criticizing famous women.

This episode also featured Kanye West, who introduced himself as “a recovering gay fish” (a nod to Season 13’s “Fishsticks” episode) who wanted to speak about women’s self image. Specifically, he wanted to let everyone know that his future wife, Kim, is NOT a Hobbit. Kanye played a pretty large role in the rest of the episode, as the show spoofed his real-life music video with Kim, as well as her so-called career, since Kanye admitted she can’t sing, dance, or be a decent person – like Beyonce, for instance.

Wendy later pointed out, in front of the whole school, that “the problem with having fake pictures of yourself is that you start to believe your own bullshit.” A valid point, but after Kanye came to read her a fairy tale (based on the life of KK) Wendy eventually got on board the Photoshop bandwagon, making an altered picture of herself.

This episode actually ended on a somber note, perhaps suggesting that poor self image is a rampant problem in today’s society, and deserved at least one serious moment without laughs.

Overall, however, this installment was generally funny, with enough humor to balance out the obvious message. I enjoyed seeing the show spoof Kanye again, and he provided a lot of the chuckles, but I feel like since South Park already featured him in another episode, this was a bit repetitive. Also: Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny didn’t have huge roles this time around. Still, a solid effort, and a fitting way to close out Season 17.

NOTE: As of the morning of this post, Achille$ is still M.I.A. It’s officially time to issue an Amber Alert. If you have any information relating to the whereabouts of this rapper/writer, please contact gonzogreen@bubbleblabber.com.