South Park, "PC Principal Final Justice"

I was afraid this was going to happen. I was invested in the continuing storyline this season to a degree I was not last year, and genuinely interested to see how it would close out. But once again, it kind of missed the landing, though for different reasons than last year.

Last season had a pretty loose thread connecting all its episodes, trying something new but playing it relatively safe. The mistake of the two-part finale was to sloppily try to tie them all together. This year had a much more (but not completely) cohesive storyline, with every new episode extending the narrative instead of simply referencing the previous week. And all the different subjects and subplots fit together rather well.

The problem with this finale is that none of the plot was really left at this point. The entire conspiracy involving sentient ads and PC Principal turned out to have been completely fleshed out in the previous weeks. There were no new compelling twists or surprises, save for one final turn involving the town’s Whole Foods which made no sense (honestly, if there’s one weak point in the season’s narrative, it’s that I never got what the show was trying to say with the whole Whole Foods thing). It all just sort of ends.

It also made the mistake of bringing in a new topic so late in the game: guns, as if to be timely in light of current events. The tense armed conversations between the characters was admittedly a very funny recurring gag, one that could have made its own whole episode. But added in at this 11^th hour, it didn’t really fit, or add much to the overall narrative. It seems like a waste of a good idea.

There were some other funny parts, mostly from Jimmy’s nemesis Nathan and his prostitute underling (don’t ask). However, the humor is rather immaterial in the end because, frankly, I was more in it for the narrative payoff than to laugh. Such is an unexpected turns of events: last year and the first part of this year, I found myself rather lamenting that the show was trying to be more ambitious and ceasing to be the simple R-rated cartoon it used to be. Yet here, at the end of the season, the opposite is the case.

I guess you can call that praise for the show’s new season-long style. Really, the main flaw of this season seems to be that they simply muffed the ending, not that the continuing narrative and interconnectedness didn’t work. And how many season or even series finales can you think of that didn’t leave you satisfied even though the season itself was good? I still kind of wish to one day see the simpler dirty toon with which I fell in love again, but the show may have successfully transitioned into the next phase of its existence.

Don’t be too hopeful just yet, though. Despite winning the praise of the anti-P.C. crowd this season, this one ends with PC Principal turning out to be less in the wrong than it seemed. It also strikes a rather melancholy note, similar to the season's first episode, hinting that the town of South Park will reluctantly embrace political correctness out of necessity…

But, I don’t think the show will really do that (as I said before, even at its most offensive, this show is tolerated and even beloved). What I do hope is that we’ve seen the last of PC Principal. I’m sick of him.