22x10 Bike Parade

[7.2/10] I don’t know why South Park has such trouble with season finales. I really don’t. It’s been an issue for years now, and as much as I’ve enjoyed the little bits of continuity and callbacks the series has gone in for in recent seasons, it can never seem to find a way to tie them all together in a satisfying fashion.

This episode in particular bit off way more than it could chew. Some of the individual bits were good -- from Butters’ ridiculous bicycle to Randy’s Tegridy-delivery to the self aware bit of the boys trying to get canceled. But the show’s attempts to wrap it all in the guise of this two-episode Amazon riff just made every bit tacked on. We didn’t need another mention of Cartman’s anxiety, or the PC Babies’ music career, or even Santa coming down to do one last takedown of Cancel Culture. Again, it’s not that these were unfunny gags necessarily, but there was just no room for the overall story or point to breathe here.

With that, the point of all the Amazon stuff feels muddled. Is South Park saying Amazon is inevitable because people want convenience more than they care about others? Is it saying that when given the opportunity to mellow out, people can be united? Is it saying that Amazon is unstoppable for local businesses to compete with? Is it saying the whole thing is just a silly farce and an excuse for dark humor like little kids opening the box that is “Josh”? It feels like the show is trying to say all of these things at once, at the same time it’s trying to call back to everything it did this season, and giving us a fruit salad of ideas and jokes in the process.

There’s still laughs here, and beats, and good incisive points. But they’re a grab bag rather than a unified whole, and as South Park has moved into a different style over the last several years, I wish it would depart from its famed “six days to air” method for the finale alone in order to make something that feels more unified and complete than this amusing enough but ultimately kind of unsatisfying ending to season 22.