South Park Season 25, Ep 3 Review
With South Park now able to return to a weekly format due to COVID-19 winding down (for now!), the show’s taken the chance to return to its roots. The 25th season started off with a simple, yet not-so-subtle, jab at the “wear a mask” debate in America, but then last week looked like things were going to shift gears. After all, Randy got a new rival in growing Pot in the form of the Black family; that has to be something that should be looked at more. However, Matt and Trey either couldn’t think of a follow-up or just wanted to tease us, because this week’s episode has nothing to do with Tegridy Farms. Or any of the other boys at all. Instead, it’s all about Cartman and “shitty people.” But mostly Cartman.
Cartman’s Latest Scheme Would Make Frieza Proud
Fun fact: did you know that Frieza, the main antagonist of the Dragon Ball franchise, was based on a real estate speculator? Because Akira Toriyama considered them to be “the worst kind of people.” In the latest episode of South Park, Cartman doesn’t just live up to this kind of terrible expectation; he goes even lower, and for the most petty of reasons.
Due to more people leaving cities behind for the countryside and suburbs, housing prices have gone up in South Park. As a result, Cartman’s mom has to get a job as a real estate agent just so she can afford to keep her and Cartman’s house. Cartman takes it very, very poorly.
Being the awful person he is, Cartman reacts to this by starting his own real estate agency to drive the one his mom works for out of business…by taking the creepy, overly-inviting photos real estate agents do to new levels. Just look at this!
Save for a few rare occasions, Eric Cartman is, and likely always will be, a very sociopathic and evil child. However, he’s usually smarter than this. He should know that forcing his Mom to quit her job to focus on him will lead to them losing their home, making things worse for them overall. It’s the kind of thing that he should see coming from a mile away, but he feels so slighted by not being the center of his Mom’s world that he acts like this. It’s rare to see Cartman be so cunning and yet so stupid at the same time.
Pilates, Pilates, Cortado
The real draw of the episode, though, isn’t the satirizing of real estate agents and their unnatural posing for the cameras. It’s how they portray the new people coming to town. Or, as Mr. Lu Kim puts it, the “city people”.
The city people act less like people and more like a flock of birds. They constantly make clucking sounds and spout out phrases like “pilates,” “water bottle,” and “LaCroix.” As the TVtropes page for this episode puts it, it’s like the SNL sketch dubbed “Man Park.” Basically, these people suck, and while the town sees their arrival as a good thing at first, Lu Kim eloquently explains why it’s bad in the long run. Too many people coming in will drive up the living costs too high, and then people will bail for somewhere else to start over. It’s a vicious cycle, and Cartman is only making it worse.
In a moment that is pure South Park, the town council decides to solve their problem by offing the real estate agents…only for them to take themselves out of the game competing with Cartman, and Liane ends up quitting.
You Suck Cartman
So, as everyone knew would happen, Ms. Cartman quitting her job meant they couldn’t afford to live in their old home. Thus, all they can afford is a hot dog stand that’s an actual stand. So, yeah, good going Cartman. You and your Mom are technically homeless, and you have only yourself to blame. Yet another example of why you’re a horrible person.
Time will tell whether or not Cartman and his family will remain in a hot dog, but I think it would be a worthy punishment considering all that Cartman’s ever done. Either way, this episode was plenty hilarious, even if it didn’t address what’s happening with Stan and his family.
