South Park, "Grounded Vindaloop"

There are two things I’ve always wanted to happen on South Park. One is for the ever-evil Eric Cartman to really get what’s coming to him. This has happened once or twice, but because of his constant evil deeds and the fact that he gets away with most of them, it will never cease to be satisfying to see it happen again. The other is for Butters, the show’s pure, oblivious child who’s frequently victimized by outside forces as well as his overbearing parents, to finally snap and let everyone and everything that’s ever tormented him have it.

We got a taste of the latter last night, and it was oh so sweet. Sure, Butters was swiftly put back in his sad place. But as a longtime viewer who’s seen the character befallen by many tragic events (and laughed until I couldn’t breathe at them), seeing it even happen at all was a little cathartic. Hell, just seeing Butters sock his awful father in the groin would have been enough for me. Everything else he did on top of that was just a bonus. And the fact that the audience only hears it made it even funnier, for some reason (I guess the old horror film adage about what you don’t see being more effective also applies to comedy in some cases).

It was a great Butters moment, and also a strong initializer for an overly (and I’d guess intentionally) complex plot about virtual reality. At the onset, it seems like Cartman’s just leading Butters astray once again (Butters not realizing his rampage is actually taking place in the real world). But a turn of events reveals that it’s actually Cartman who’s stuck in virtual reality. Or maybe it’s Kyle. Or Kenny. Or none of them. The twists and revelations keep piling on and don’t make lot of sense. But I think that’s the point. In fact, the plot isn’t just unreasonably difficult to follow, but the instances where the characters somewhat break the fourth wall by staring at the audience and cursing them seem downright hostile to the thought of us trying to figure it out.

Nothing that came after was quite as funny as Butters letting loose, but the episode was still fun. The deliberate confusion was a great satirical takedown of convoluted brain-twister sci-fi movies, and a few elements that at first seemed repetitive and not very funny—the twists on top of twists, Steve from Customer Service—eventually grew on me, as they actually tied into the plot very well. And as for that ending, I really did not expect that.