'South Park' mid-season finale: Is this the beginning of the end?

[Retro4Life]

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/06/09/so...season-finale/

by Aly Semigran
Categories: South Park

Comments 143
Add comment

south_park

Image Credit: Comedy Central

Did Trey Parker and Matt Stone just put making South Park on their Murtaugh List? If last night’s mid-season finale of the animated series was any indication of things to come, then it could very well be that Parker and Stone are getting too old for this, well, you know.

The episode titled, perhaps rather fittingly, “You’re Getting Old,” was all about the fallout from Stan’s 10th birthday party. When he begins to bug his friends off with his intolerable, and apparently incurable cynicism, everything — from music to his doctor’s advice — literally turns to s—.

And while they had fun poking at Stan’s cynicism about pop culture (How is playing L.A Noire supposed to be fun? Doesn’t Zookeeper look like a microwaved turd?), it turned, as it so often does on South Park, into something else entirely.

In the aftermath of Stan’s parents fight about ‘tween wave (Sharon thinks it sounds like crap, officially making her an old person, while Randy, desperate to hold on to his youth, lies and says he likes it), they realize it’s not the music that’s tearing them apart. It’s each other. After their many years together, they tell each other they’re now unhappy and that every week it’s the “same s— over and over” and that it’s only getting more ridiculous as time passes. (See clip below.)

Not to be cynical here, but did this sounds like a not-so-thinly-veiled way of Stone and Parker telling us they had a similar discussion about their very show? Or was it simply their way of giving a nudge to the fans, many of whom have expressed their dismay with the uneven season? Either way, the episode ended on a feeling of uncertainty of what’s to come of the Emmy-winning series.

It’s not that Parker and Stone won’t — and already kind of have, thanks to the brilliant, Tony-nominated Book Of Mormon — move on to better things, but is it too soon to say goodbye? Sure the show has it some snags, but as many EW fans would agree (South Park was named by you as the greatest animated show of all-time), it’s still better than most of the crap out there.

Do you think Trey Parker and Matt Stone were indicating the second half of the 15th season will be their last, PopWatchers? Or were they simply poking fun at the fans who have become cynical? Let us know in the comments section.