South Park: Bane, Amazon, and Jud Crandall

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

The big joke? Everyone orders from Amazon so often that they forget what they ordered by the time it arrives. While I'd love to say that's crazy (especially since so many people have two-day shipping!), I'm just as guilty! Regardless, during a week when there was so much great fodder to work with (I really wanted Big Bird to make an appearance!), I thought that this was a useless episode for South Park. Sure, without the trendy popular culture references it works as more of a "timeless" piece, but that only works if it's worth watching over and over, which this is not. I'm not sure what's going on with Matt & Trey lately, but I'm hoping that they turn around the rest of this season! I know I can't expect another "About Last Night..." (the awesome heist episode with McCain and Obama which premiered less than 24 hours after Obama's election as President), but this is the height of politics for a while... can't we get some good jokes out of it??

South Park "Insecurity" (S16E10): Kyle's parents role-play with Gerald dressed as a UPS man... but when Ike walks in, he goes to his room crying, thinking that the real UPS man is sleeping with his mother. [this is why you lock the door, people!] He draws a picture for Kyle, who tells his friends.

photo courtesy: Comedy Central

Cartman suggests that it was rape and gets a security system for his house, which he spends the rest of the episode "testing" in one way or another, including allowing a stranger to come into his home. [I laughed pretty hard when Cartman couldn't remember the password exactly, knowing that it's some insult toward Kyle!]

What's worse, however, is that Randy overhears the boys talking and spreads the rumor to the bar, where the guys all wonder if the UPS guy is also sleeping with their wives. [pasteurized = past your eyes was weak.] Some old guy at the bar (apparently Jud Crandall from Pet Sematary)  tells them that they must kill the "new-age milk man." [I thought we'd get a joke about the postman always ringing twice, but I guess not.] Randy puts on a Bane mask and hijacks the UPS guy, bringing him to a storage unit place where a bunch of other guys wear the same mask and beat him brutally. [oh, right. a The Dark Knight Rises reference.]

The town recommends that the citizens of South Park get "INsecurity," which is installed in a person to alert the company when they are in danger or are feeling insecure. Many people get it, but it seems that it is a very sensitive system that is always going off. [hahahaha!]

Kyle decides to talk to his parents, invites in the UPS man, and once things start to come together, Gerald explains role-playing. The episode ends with Cartman donning a Bane mask and hijacking the security system guy.