South
Park "Going Native" Review
Every once in awhile
South Park breaks it current trend and goes for a non parody approach that is
built on jokes and a story line involving its characters, and they did so in
this episode.
The episode started off
very strong with Butters insulting the other boys and channeling his
inner Hawaiian for rage. I do wish we could have seen the fight that
started it all though but oh well every line he delivered was spot on.
The episode then
transitioned to what I thought were funny bits involving his family, especially
on the correct pronunciation of Hawaii. Also the whole refusal to allow him on
the plane was hillarious,not because he was a child but because they thought he
was intoxicated.
The Hawaii scenes did not
play out as well as I had hoped however, it all centered on one joke really and
that was these people being natives. It might have clicked for others out there
but it did not really register with me aside from the first time. SP does this
a fair amount and sometimes it works really well, for instance in Sarcastaball
or the shake weight, and sometimes they fall short like here. The parts where
they fought with the Coast Guard were funny, and I cannot believe Butters
killed all those people!
I did enjoy Kenny's
subplot though, it was nice to see him get a notable inclusion in the episode
and his letters back home were funny, in my opinion anyways. I thought he died
and was surprised to see him wake up in the Elvis place, it was nice he saved
them all though.
The ending was good as it
showed Butters' main angst came from being jealous of Ben Affleck, a nice way
to end the show.
I did like that South
Park got away from the parodies and went back to what got them here, an episode with no real
parodies and an episode built around Butters who has become arguably their 3rd
most popular character for carrying episodes behind Cartman and Randy.
Overall I thought this
was a solid episode and would watch it again, however it did not stand out so
much and will not go down as one of the season's stronger episodes. With
comedies it is often hard to rate them, however I will attempt to use a 10
point scale for them as well when taken into account how easy it is to recall
the episode later on. Will I remember this episode greatly if someone mentions
Butters in Hawaii I probably will not recall it that fondly, as I would say
Sarcastaball.
Overall, I give this episode a 7.5, it delivered enough to
be a passable episode but did not break through to that great territory.
Do you do The Hunt For Red October or Crimmison Tide? What Next?
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