Review: South Park “CREDIGREE WEED ST. PATRICK’S DAY SPECIAL”

Overview

Randy and Steve face off head-to-head in selling St. Patrick’s Day special strains of weed and with Randy on the losing end accuses his new neighbor of cultural appropriation. As Randy gets hauled off to jail, Steve gets a huge request for an order of weed that could be a financial windfall but the fledgling operation may not have the infrastructure in place to get the order completed.

Butters gets arrested after pinching a girl at school for not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. Turns out, Butters may have jumped the gun on the guilty party and spends sometime in lockup with the local drunks and soon, Randy Marsh. Randy turns into some sort of leprechaun like hero with powers and helps break everyone out of jail. Randy goes back to his farm to learn that Steve stole his entire crop of weed and is reselling as his own brand. The bigger story is that Butters, now an accused sexual predator, is on the run until St. Patrick shows up to save him. Unfortunately, the holy man is somewhat sleezy and soon creeps everyone out, but still helps Butters get community service.

Our Take

What a way to finish off the new season of South Park. In typical show fashion, the franchise likes to leave us hanging on a point being made by writers Matt Stone and Trey Parker. In this case, we got a few. For starters, we got the long-awaited battle between Steve and Randy over their respective weed empires which gave us focus on the lack of black representation in the cannabis industry as well as Randy’s point on just anybody, even non-Irish people, possibly taking part in a tradition that is a bit more exclusive than just anybody wearing green. We also learn that maybe St. Patrick was a bit of a prick.

The Simpsons this week raised the two-dimensional questions about cancel culture, but South Park always perceives things from the fourth-dimension, which is why this show has stayed as relevant as it has for 25 seasons. Is EVERYTHING sexual assault now? I remember in school guys and girls hugging in the hallways, flash-forward years later and John Lassiter is getting jettisoned from Pixar largely because of hugs. Marilyn Manson hasn’t been convicted of anything, but because of allegations, loses his label, all of his TV jobs, and more. Sending Randy, Butters, and the town’s normal drunks to jail during St. Patrick’s Day, all the while cops take part in a one-time taboo recreational activity, goes unnoticed. Or how about Steve stealing Randy’s stash in the first place with no repercussions?

A mess of questions are raised on South Park, and that’s what these guys do best. Also, comedically, this was by far the funniest episode of the season. We’ll go into more detail in the season review whether or not I prefer the arc-like structure of past seasons of South Park or the show reverting back to a more episodic nature this season, but I think I’m liking the mix of both with both the specials and the show doing different things at different times and keeping things spontaneous.