Review: South Park “Turd Burglars”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Sheila Broflovski is in a bad way. So bad, she’s vomiting and defecating all over the place with reckless abandon. At the hospital, a doctor tells Kyle and Ike their mother has a life-threatening condition that can only be cured by a fecal transplant. The boys are mortified and can’t bear the thought of anybody finding out.

Anyway, Sheila gets the procedure and suddenly feels amazing; better than she has in years. The other women about town are jealous of her newfound pep and covet the middle-aged, Jewish woman’s poop. Sheila refuses, admonishing her friends for even considering DIY fecal transplants—and rightfully so. It sounds pretty damn dangerous.

One lady won’t take “no” for an answer and winds up bribing Kyle with a copy of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Kyle refuses—devastated that his friends found out this way—but Cartman, Stan, and Kenny have other intentions. Much to Kyle’s dismay, the trio steals Sheila’s leavings by hollowing out the pipes in the Broflovski basement.

The lady who bribed the boys suddenly has a new look on life which makes Sheila very suspicious. Sheila’s other friends shun this woman, assuming she’s a thief, but they too have other intentions. Unbeknownst to Sheila, those two women somehow steal fecal matter from the thief, creating quite the disgusting chain.

Meanwhile, Kyle becomes obsessed with microbiome, the bacteria partially replaced in the transplant. However, it’s not the fecal matter that bothers him as much as the community of bacteria that lives in his body at all times. The microbiome envelops his thoughts and takes over his dreams. Not long after, he and the microbiome become one and the boy starts to have visions of a mysterious bookcase. This is a reference to the 1984 film, Dune.

Cartman, Stan, and Kenny live through their own Dune reference when Counselor Mackay offers them three copies of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in exchange for a sample of Tom Brady’s poop—or as it’s known among the masses: The Spice Melange.

By the time the boys make it to Brookline, Massachusetts, many others have joined them on their quest for the spice. And because we’re deep into Dune territory by now, everybody is talking in muted telepathy or TP. Tom Brady, the only person who seems unaffected by the spice, demands that everybody leave the house, even the ones pretending to be Make-A-Wish kids. Luckily, Kyle arrives just in time to reveal a secret passage behind one of the great quarterback’s bookcases.

Angered over a slew of spice-seekers messing with his plumbing, Brady started collecting his feces many years ago. Now there are hundreds of thousands of samples—many from back in the day when he was a much better quarterback. With this discovery, they have enough of the spice to save everybody—including the town of South Park, many of whom became deathly ill on account of all the fecal swapping.

 

Our Take

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Following an episode of superb satire, we’re treated to this useless waste of a half hour. While toilet humor is never my favorite, in the past the South Park team has managed to be clever with this lowest common denominator. Not this time.

While they took a few shots at DIY cures and even herbal remedies, they could’ve chosen a more righteous path. An entire episode of gross-out poop and puke jokes—with unsettling visuals—just isn’t going to do it for most audiences. If that’s your thing, have at it. But it shouldn’t become the norm, especially for a seasoned property that is capable of far superior content.

To add insult to injury, Tom Brady also felt like a lazy choice to host their Spice Melange. Over the past twenty years, a lot of impressive athletes have come and gone while Brady has been consistently good. As of late, however, Tommy Boy has lost a step here and there and is relying on his defense more and more with each passing week. Since these desperate people are looking for the ultimate fecal transplant, Brady isn’t the ideal candidate he would’ve been in 2004, 2009, or even 2017.

All these other flaws could be overlooked if this episode had been funny. Unfortunately, there were very few laughs available for anybody with a maturity level above that of a ten-year-old. I enjoy a good Dune reference as much as the next guy, but the Spice mentioned in the book and the 1984 film was, by definition, a powder. So a solid bowel movement doesn’t even translate. Save your groundbreaking sci-fi allusions until the right opportunity comes along—because you can never go back.

On the plus side, at least we didn’t get an impeachment episode.