Review: South Park “Unfulfilled”

Only in name.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The Buttersworths are having trouble in meeting ends meet. So Mr. Buttersworth takes a job at the local Amazon fulfillment warehouse. And let me tell ya, this guy does it all, he drives forklifts, sorts packages, even eats a sandwich for lunch. All this so Butters can be competitive in the upcoming bike parade…first prize $50. While at first they aren’t interested in participating in the aforementioned bike parade, Cartman, Kyle, Kenny, and Stan decide to team up and get into the action, but there’s an issue.

After a worker at the warehouse gets injured, Amazon deflects the blame which causes the workers to go on strike and all of the packages no longer being delivered around town. Jeff Bezos shows up and gives the mayor the business, and we learn that the entire State of Colorado is feeling the blunt of the workers’ strike as are the kids who are pissed that they don’t have any shit to decorate their bikes with for the parade, so desperate times calls for desperate measures. 

To help, the kids decide to go to the South Park Mall to buy their bike shit but this place is crawling with zombies, but they have no choice, it’s the only place that gives them a chance of  to buy without having to get it from Amazon where Mr. Scotch is the only one employed. Fortunately for Bezos, the kids get a bunch of mall workers to fulfill the Amazon orders…but they have to get through the picket line first!

Our Take

This season has seen a lot of change. We’ve retired classic characters like Mr. Hankey, ManBearPig (for the foreseeable future), Towelie, and Randy has been maligned to really more of a backup role instead of any sort of a focal point this season. To help fill the role of “stupid adults”, PC Principal, Strong Woman, and now Mr. Buttersworth are left having to pick up on Randy’s slack, and for the most part it’s working. Add in the PC kids and now Jeff Bezos, South Park has continued to replace older paradoxical caricatures with new ones and the results are excellent. Jeff Bezos looking like something out of the “Guardians of the Universe” is a stroke of genius and might be just as memorable as Al Gore’s introduction to the franchise all those years ago.

Amazon is a hot topic right now in politics, in the news, and timed well with the holiday season. So the idea of the episode is looking like it’s going to hit on a number of different levels. And Cartman also hits something right on the head, “It’s been so long since we’ve done anything together” referring to the last time all the kids were together looking to hit a common goal, and I agree. Some of the franchise’s most legendary episodes e.g. “Make Love, Not Warcraft”, “ImaginationLand”, etc and it really has been a while since those guys teamed up and this looks to be a good one to tackle. The zombies working at the mall hit all the right notes, the idiot kiosk workers and the Cinnabon guy handing out free samples. I’m wondering if this would be a good time for the return of Mr. Garrison due to he being the figurative “Trump” in the South Park universe due to the fact that in real-life Trump has been taking shots at Bezos every chance he gets!

In terms of gripes, only a few if any. I would’ve liked to have seen a sweepstakes like build up to this episode similar to the way Amazon was in the news these last few months for their second headquarters, perhaps a trilogy type deal which would’ve rendered some of the montages shown in tonight’s episode, although well-produced, more or less useless and instead really work in how big a deal Amazon is in South Park. Even with that, we could be looking at a classic finale heading into next week, so keep your guys peeled for this one.