Review: South Park ‘Happy Holograms’

 

Spoilers Below:

Last week’s South Park was part one of a two-part episode, so there’s no need for much pageantry in this introduction. This is the finale to season 18, which, overall, has been outstanding. And if you’ve been paying attention to any sort of entertainment news in the last few days, you might know a thing or two about the episode already. So let’s get right into it.

“Happy Holograms” began with Kyle narrating a rhyming poem or story about his dismay over the death of the living room, concluding: “The more connected we get, the more alone we become.” Then Bill Cosby stopped by his house promoting a big holiday TV special to help Kyle’s cause, which turned out to be “The Washington Redskins Go Fuck Yourself Holiday Special” with commentary by Cartmaan Brah, which only angered Kyle further.

Meanwhile, Randy went to the police to report that evil men have made a hologram of him/Lorde and plan to kill him, but the fuzz were preoccupied by the fact that the Michael Jackson hologram is black but they can’t kill him. The Tupac hologram then entered the station and began shooting. He fled, and the cops pursued him.

At the same time, the head evil dude revealed that he was attempting to assimilate the younger generation into the older with the holiday special that fused dead entertainers’ holograms with the newer folks – and then suddenly all hell broke loose. The Michael Jackson hologram killed the evil guy, Bill Cosby drugged and assaulted Taylor Swift, the #ihatecartmanbrah hashtag began skyrocketing, eventually #webelieveinyou (thanks to Kyle) overtook it, and PewDiePie overtook Cartman’s commentary and shut him down.

After Kyle and Stan discussed what they learned from the experience, PewDiePie returned to thank South Park for being on his show, and signed off.

In Case You Missed It:

1) Upon hearing that officers apprehended a black man, Sergeant Yates’ first question was: “Did you choke him? Did you shoot him?”

2) The full “The Washington Redskins Go Fuck Yourself Holiday Special” line-up: Al Pacino, Iggy Azalea, J.J. Watt, Miley Cyrus, U2, Angelina Jolie, Bill Cosby & Taylor Swift, a hologram of Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain’s hologram, the hologram of Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, Lorde, Michelle Obama, and Michael Jackson’s hologram as Peter Pan, and Cartmaan Brah.

3) Cartman’s door has a sign reading, “Keep out Mom! Yor [sic] stupid!”

4) Stan called his dad/Lorde “the PewDiePie of music.”

5) The holiday special was sponsored by Nabisco and former first lady Dolly Madison.

6) A couple of the tweets on the bottom of the screen during the Kurt Cobain song were: “I miss you Kurt so much….#courtneydidit #ihatecartmanbrah” from @D_Grohl777 and “Smashing Pumpkins were better. #ihatecartmanbrah” from @CeeLovesHole.

7) Some of the Twitter handles that referenced past episode were @stepOneUnderPants (“Gnomes”), @ShakeWeightFan & @fraichefan (“Crème Fraiche”), @cheezedOut (“Major Boobage”), @cisginger1 (“The Cissy”), @glutenkillz (“Gluten Free Ebola”), and @cockmagic4life (“Cock Magic”). There was also one that said @howamIfunny_JP, which I can only assume is a reference to Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.

8) At one point during the writing of this review, #webelieveinyou was the number 4 top trending topic on Twitter.

9) Number of times Michael Jackson said “ignorant” in this episode: 7. It seemed like a lot more, didn’t it?

10) I’m pretty sure I laughed every single time Cartman said, “Cartmaan Brah!”

11) Ohhh…the episode title is like “Happy Holidays.” I get it now. (…I’m an idiot.)

Wow, was this ever a doozy. For starters, it was a quality episode. It took a season that had a little bit of everything – relevancy, opinions, offensive jokes, and a ton of laughs – and made a finale that mirrored the nine installments prior to it. And like last week’s show, there were even some references to other episodes from this season. And it all worked. The topical subject matter was ample and vast, covering everything from this year, to this decade, to this century (and further even). The opinions made sense without being too extreme or preachy – like the cop jokes, which commented on amount of racism in today’s world, without taking any stances on the specific incidents in the news. The “offensive” jokes weren’t totally over the line, and really just made fun of people who actually deserve it. And the laughs, well, they were found from start to finish. In fact, there were so many jokes, that for most of the episode there were actually two different sources of humor constantly running at the same time (meaning both the audio dialogue, as well as the rolling tweets at the bottom of the screen.)

On top of all that, the episode (and season) ended with a valuable lesson: Although everyone, especially older folks, don’t understand all of the entertainment in today’s world, it’s here to stay whether they like it or not. And if anyone is searching for a positive, it’s that people can become famous all on their own, without any sort of marking or promotion from someone whose job it is to jamming things down consumers’ throats. And that’s actually something I’ve thought about before. Musicians, or comedians, or even athletes don’t have to just hope an agent or talent scout will happen to attend their show or game, but can simply become popular online, go viral, and then everyone will see them – including the folks in the biz.

So in the end this was a fantastic showing, made even better due to the fact that it was a both a conclusion to a previous episode, and a season finale. This might not be one of the best standalone episodes of all time, but it was easily one of the best finales – because it actually tried to be just that, without trying too hard. Business as usual for Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

 

For full analysis of this season, be sure to check out my season review next week.