Craig Reviews South Park: Butterballs

*SPOILER WARNING*

‘Butterballs’ immediately felt like it had the makings of a great South Park episode. A brief, and one-sided, conversation with Cartman on the subject of girls in music videos provides a giggle, and then we find out that the episode will be taking a look at bullying. Straight away it felt absolutely right for South Park to be tackling this. It’s topical, given the current hype surrounding the movie ‘Bully’, but it’s also an ever-present, pervading issue, one that South Park’s often witty approach could do wonders with. Unfortunately the episode fails on almost every count. It becomes clear halfway through the episode, if not earlier, that ‘Butterballs’ isn’t really sure what it wants it’s message to be, which seems like dangerous ground to be on when dealing with bullying. To make up for the lack of anything real to say on the subject the episode resorts to that time-honoured South Park tradition of repeating the same joke over and over, and while there are a couple of undeniably funny references, this ends up being a really weak episode of South Park.

 The episode opens with Butters arriving at the lunch table with no food and a black eye. When the boys try to encourage Butters to resolve the matter, only for Butters to shoot down every option, Stan decides that it’s time to take a stand. I thought Butters declaring that he didn't want anyone calling him a ‘Cliché Conflict Resolution Kevin’ was a silly but clever way of getting across just how the victim’s mind can work in these situations, but unfortunately this is about as intelligent as the episode gets. The boy’s then tell Butters to talk to his grandma, who is visiting for the week, about the situation. I will admit that the revelation that Butters’ grandma is in fact the person bullying Butters was extremely funny initially, and my expectations for this episode suddenly shot up, but it’s one of two jokes in this week’s episode that really get run into the ground, and by the end of the episode I just wasn't laughing anymore. Meanwhile, at the school, an assembly is organised to help tackle the bullying, which was reported by Stan. The anti-bullying advisor bullying Mr. Mackey into allowing the assembly was pretty obvious, and only really served to convolute and confuse what could have been a great episode. From this point on the episode just decides that everyone bullies everyone and that’s funny, as various characters find themselves locked in bathrooms with someone who has it in for them. This joke is barely funny the first time, so when it happens four more times it’s hard not to wonder how the episode ended up this way.

"My heart says yes, but my vajayjay says no."

The assembly goes ahead, and results in Stan making an anti-bullying video involving the whole school. This video ends up becoming a great parody of high school lip dub videos, and provides the episode’s first song, ‘Make Bullying Kill Itself’. The song’s heart is in the right place, I’m sure, but it seems a little confused at times, and doesn’t quite make it clear what it is about bullying that it’s trying to mock. It is still a very funny sequence, complete with Cartman showing up as a generic music video girl to sing about his vajayjay, but it’s ultimately as unfocused as the rest of the episode when it comes to the subject matter at hand. The song ends with Butters showing up naked in a glass box, which I didn’t fully grasp, before Kyle cements his role as the voice of reason for the episode, telling Stan that this will only make things worse for Butters. From this point on the episode really just wanders around aimlessly, looking for anything funny while it tries to figure out how it’s going to end, as the video is snapped up by a Hollywood movie company and Butters turns to Professor Chaos to help stand up to his grandma. The reveal of grandma’s very own super-villain costume was perfect, and provides the episode’s biggest laugh, but the scene itself has very little to do with rest of the episode, and it feels like the show is just grabbing at straws to find something funny.

Then, for some reason, Stan and Butters end up on chat show, where Butters finally snaps and attacks the host, thus ruining the chances of their movie being made, and making Stan very unpopular. Butters, having given in to his violent side, then realises that his grandma will die soon, and everything will be ok. So, it would seem that the episode’s message is that everyone bullies everyone and you just have to put up with it. That seems like a pretty weak attempt at dealing with the issue to me, and makes for a pretty disappointing episode. Fortunately, we don’t get too long to think about it, as the show’s second song provides a witty and clever finale to what is otherwise a sub-par episode. When Kyle repeatedly mentioned that Stan would end up jacking it in San Diego throughout the episode the reference flew as far over my head as it did Stan’s, but then it suddenly all made sense, and linking the whole video aspect of the episode to Jason Russell and the ‘Kony 2012’ viral documentary, especially through hilarious song, is an inspired move, so much so that it almost makes the episode worthwhile. Unfortunately though, the bullying side of this week’s episode was just terrible. Completely unfocused, and with apparently nothing real to say on the subject, the episode meanders from unfunny joke to unfunny joke, until it can figure out how it’s going to wrap it all up. There are certainly a few laughs buried throughout, but I can count them on one hand, and by South Park’s once high standards that’s a pretty poor showing.