7.5/10. In the brave new world that is South Park’s transition into a serialized show, we suddenly get strange new patterns and things to wonder about with respect to the season as a whole. For instance, “Weiners Out” felt like what you might call a “table-setting episode” in a du jour serialized drama. There are few major developments in and of the episode itself, but it sets up a number of conflicts up that will come to a head down the line.
In less adept dramas, these episodes can be a drag. If the show’s plot is more interesting than its characters, it creates a sense of “when are we going to get to the fireworks factory?” in an audience that feels like the show’s creators are stalling for time. And while there’s a bit of that here too, the struggles of Kyle, and to a lesser extent Gerald, have been established so well over the first half of the season, and in the prior years of the show, that it’s interesting to spend time with them even if this episode is more about getting them both into place for the next big event than showing the aftermath of any major developments.
There’s a certain parallel between the two in “Weiners Out.” The episode follows more of a traditional sitcom structure (a defined A-story supported by a B-story) than it has in more wide-ranging episodes earlier in the season, and the result is a chance for us to see the ways in which both Gerald and Kyle are feeling their worlds rocked and how each of them resorts to somewhat desperate measures to try to make sense of everything.
For Gerald, it’s an attempt to try to get by without anymore trolling. South Park frames Gerald’s internet abusiveness as an addiction, an itch that he needs to scratch or he’ll go crazy. In the wake of his panicked destruction of all of his technology, we see him cursing at random cars, lying to his wife about what he’s doing, and trying to avoid an almost mythological-looking fellow troll who’s trying to warn him about the Danish counterattack and bring him into a community of likeminded online baddies attempting to fight it.
It’s all just too much for Gerald. He tries to tell himself that he was just trolling for fun, that he was only doing it for the lulz and that it wasn’t a big deal. But he’s frantic when we see him separated from his leisure activity of choice, looking anxious in the same part Cartman went to when he was cut off from technology, and making up elaborate lies to placate Sheila. This parade of lies leads him to cover for his trolling by suggesting to Sheila that he likes “piss porn,” and that’s why he’s been too embarrassed to tell her about his online activities.
It also leads to the episode’s funniest scene. In less-skilled hands, a middle-aged couple peeing on each other would merely be shallow shock humor. But from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it’s hilarious, because it becomes an act of ridiculousness, rooted in character and plot, not just something gross for the sake of gross. It’s funny because we know that stems from Gerald’s elaborate lie, that it’s part of his penance for the cover up. There’s something oddly sweet about him not wanting to hurt Sheila’s feelings in the wake of his cover story. And his semi-disgusted resignation at the whole thing goes a long way toward making the scene work. South Park is not above being vulgar for the sheer sake of vulgarity, but its comedy is the most effective when it doesn’t just feature random grossness (a la “Boogers and Cum”) but rather something prurient that is still grounded in the characters involved and the story being told.
That scene also provides a subtle entrée into Kyle story, when he and Ike inadvertently witness their parents’ unexpected kink in action. Kyle’s entire arc in this episode is about him trying to figure out what to do in a world that doesn’t make sense to him anymore. The girls are revolting against the boys. After being dumped by his Canadian girlfriend from last season, Butters turns into an angry Men’s Rights Activist. And Kyle doesn’t know how to handle it.
It’s not hard to see why he’s confused about what’s going on. The jilted Butters leads an anti-girl protest by leading South Park Elementary’s boys in the act of pulling down their pants and raising their fists in the air during the national anthem. (It’s another bit of sophomoric but very funny material from the show, especially the ridiculousness of the boys doing a duck-walk march down the school hallway, and P.C. Principal’s inability to stop it – because that would be “body shaming” and put him in a “P.C.” pretzel – was an inspired little touch.) While Kyle initially tries to solve the issue by encouraging the boys to be more supportive of the girls, to show that they respect and care about their distaff counterparts, Butters’ balkanized faux-oppressed rhetoric takes hold, luring even Stan over to his brood.
So Kyle turns to his last resort: Cartman. Surely, the school’s evil mastermind, the one who once tricked the town into a Nazi rally in support of Mel Gibson, who hoodwinked poor Scott Tennerman into eating his parents, who’s been responsible for umpteen diabolical plans in South Park’s history, could short-circuit Butters and cool this whole thing down.
Instead, when Kyle finds his pudgy companion, he sees, to his utter shock and chagrin, a changed man. Here is Eric Cartman, a boy who somehow has a girlfriend, talking about how funny she is, explaining how the two of them are kind of above these sorts of internecine squabbles now, and acting like a legitimate P.C. convert. Kyle can barely believe it.
In the wake of all this, Kyle gives a big speech in the lunchroom, pulls down his pants, and joins Butters’s crusade. And why wouldn’t he? He’s witnessed his mom peeing all over his dad, the most evil boy in town suddenly being a button-down bastion of enlightenment, and nothing about it makes any sense to him. The same goes for Gerald, who after learning that his life might be over if the Danish troll protections go into place, joins up with the group of internet attackers trying to fight it (which includes the jerk from “Make Love Not Warcraft”).
There’s a subtle commentary in these actions, one portended by the season’s introduction of the member berries that briefly reappear here. When people feel the world shift beneath their feet, when great change happens quickly, when they see things that shake their worldview, they often cling to an idealized version of the past. They resort to foolhardy attempts to make things the way they used to be, whether that’s manifested as Garrison’s xenophobia or Butters’s sexism or Gerald’s simple self-preservation.
Kyle’s not bad. Gerald’s (mostly) not bad. But when the world threatens to upset everything they thought they knew, they fall back into easy answers and vain attempts to hold onto to what’s been lost. “Weiners Out” is still something of a piece-moving episode, one that mostly paves the way for bigger events down the line. But the way it looks at what moves the two Broflovski men to where they are at the end of the episode, turns the episode into a commentary on how people respond, sometimes in dangerous or unhealthy ways, when they feel like they’re lost in a world they once had a handle on.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-10-19T17:57:34Z
7.5/10. In the brave new world that is South Park’s transition into a serialized show, we suddenly get strange new patterns and things to wonder about with respect to the season as a whole. For instance, “Weiners Out” felt like what you might call a “table-setting episode” in a du jour serialized drama. There are few major developments in and of the episode itself, but it sets up a number of conflicts up that will come to a head down the line.
In less adept dramas, these episodes can be a drag. If the show’s plot is more interesting than its characters, it creates a sense of “when are we going to get to the fireworks factory?” in an audience that feels like the show’s creators are stalling for time. And while there’s a bit of that here too, the struggles of Kyle, and to a lesser extent Gerald, have been established so well over the first half of the season, and in the prior years of the show, that it’s interesting to spend time with them even if this episode is more about getting them both into place for the next big event than showing the aftermath of any major developments.
There’s a certain parallel between the two in “Weiners Out.” The episode follows more of a traditional sitcom structure (a defined A-story supported by a B-story) than it has in more wide-ranging episodes earlier in the season, and the result is a chance for us to see the ways in which both Gerald and Kyle are feeling their worlds rocked and how each of them resorts to somewhat desperate measures to try to make sense of everything.
For Gerald, it’s an attempt to try to get by without anymore trolling. South Park frames Gerald’s internet abusiveness as an addiction, an itch that he needs to scratch or he’ll go crazy. In the wake of his panicked destruction of all of his technology, we see him cursing at random cars, lying to his wife about what he’s doing, and trying to avoid an almost mythological-looking fellow troll who’s trying to warn him about the Danish counterattack and bring him into a community of likeminded online baddies attempting to fight it.
It’s all just too much for Gerald. He tries to tell himself that he was just trolling for fun, that he was only doing it for the lulz and that it wasn’t a big deal. But he’s frantic when we see him separated from his leisure activity of choice, looking anxious in the same part Cartman went to when he was cut off from technology, and making up elaborate lies to placate Sheila. This parade of lies leads him to cover for his trolling by suggesting to Sheila that he likes “piss porn,” and that’s why he’s been too embarrassed to tell her about his online activities.
It also leads to the episode’s funniest scene. In less-skilled hands, a middle-aged couple peeing on each other would merely be shallow shock humor. But from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it’s hilarious, because it becomes an act of ridiculousness, rooted in character and plot, not just something gross for the sake of gross. It’s funny because we know that stems from Gerald’s elaborate lie, that it’s part of his penance for the cover up. There’s something oddly sweet about him not wanting to hurt Sheila’s feelings in the wake of his cover story. And his semi-disgusted resignation at the whole thing goes a long way toward making the scene work. South Park is not above being vulgar for the sheer sake of vulgarity, but its comedy is the most effective when it doesn’t just feature random grossness (a la “Boogers and Cum”) but rather something prurient that is still grounded in the characters involved and the story being told.
That scene also provides a subtle entrée into Kyle story, when he and Ike inadvertently witness their parents’ unexpected kink in action. Kyle’s entire arc in this episode is about him trying to figure out what to do in a world that doesn’t make sense to him anymore. The girls are revolting against the boys. After being dumped by his Canadian girlfriend from last season, Butters turns into an angry Men’s Rights Activist. And Kyle doesn’t know how to handle it.
It’s not hard to see why he’s confused about what’s going on. The jilted Butters leads an anti-girl protest by leading South Park Elementary’s boys in the act of pulling down their pants and raising their fists in the air during the national anthem. (It’s another bit of sophomoric but very funny material from the show, especially the ridiculousness of the boys doing a duck-walk march down the school hallway, and P.C. Principal’s inability to stop it – because that would be “body shaming” and put him in a “P.C.” pretzel – was an inspired little touch.) While Kyle initially tries to solve the issue by encouraging the boys to be more supportive of the girls, to show that they respect and care about their distaff counterparts, Butters’ balkanized faux-oppressed rhetoric takes hold, luring even Stan over to his brood.
So Kyle turns to his last resort: Cartman. Surely, the school’s evil mastermind, the one who once tricked the town into a Nazi rally in support of Mel Gibson, who hoodwinked poor Scott Tennerman into eating his parents, who’s been responsible for umpteen diabolical plans in South Park’s history, could short-circuit Butters and cool this whole thing down.
Instead, when Kyle finds his pudgy companion, he sees, to his utter shock and chagrin, a changed man. Here is Eric Cartman, a boy who somehow has a girlfriend, talking about how funny she is, explaining how the two of them are kind of above these sorts of internecine squabbles now, and acting like a legitimate P.C. convert. Kyle can barely believe it.
In the wake of all this, Kyle gives a big speech in the lunchroom, pulls down his pants, and joins Butters’s crusade. And why wouldn’t he? He’s witnessed his mom peeing all over his dad, the most evil boy in town suddenly being a button-down bastion of enlightenment, and nothing about it makes any sense to him. The same goes for Gerald, who after learning that his life might be over if the Danish troll protections go into place, joins up with the group of internet attackers trying to fight it (which includes the jerk from “Make Love Not Warcraft”).
There’s a subtle commentary in these actions, one portended by the season’s introduction of the member berries that briefly reappear here. When people feel the world shift beneath their feet, when great change happens quickly, when they see things that shake their worldview, they often cling to an idealized version of the past. They resort to foolhardy attempts to make things the way they used to be, whether that’s manifested as Garrison’s xenophobia or Butters’s sexism or Gerald’s simple self-preservation.
Kyle’s not bad. Gerald’s (mostly) not bad. But when the world threatens to upset everything they thought they knew, they fall back into easy answers and vain attempts to hold onto to what’s been lost. “Weiners Out” is still something of a piece-moving episode, one that mostly paves the way for bigger events down the line. But the way it looks at what moves the two Broflovski men to where they are at the end of the episode, turns the episode into a commentary on how people respond, sometimes in dangerous or unhealthy ways, when they feel like they’re lost in a world they once had a handle on.