Liam Hoofe reviews the fourth episode of South Park season 21…
Next week Ubisoft will release their second South Park game – South Park: The Fractured But Whole – and the show made no secret of hiding this, with their latest episode ‘Franchise Prequel’ being a direct prequel to the upcoming video game. A tie-in episode so blatantly obvious could have gone wrong in the hands of any other TV show, but South Park has been on fire over the last few episodes and ‘Franchise Prequel’ just extends their winning streak.
Parker and Stone resurrected The Coon and Friends for the central plot in this week’s episode, and as always, the gang didn’t disappoint. The central storyline was focused on The Coon and Friends attempting to get themselves a Netflix series (apparently, they will air anything these days) and being thwarted by the returning Professor Chaos and of all people, Mark Zuckerberg.
Returning to The Coon and Friends for the third time could have been seen as overkill, but Parker and Stone have managed to get plenty out of Cartman and his ridiculous adventures over the years and ‘Franchise Prequel’ shows that there is still plenty of laughs to be had from them yet. The episode’s second scene, which saw Cartman plot out the group’s three phases was a hilarious send up of the Marvel/DC universe and an examination of the actual board itself reveals some excellent little gags.
They also managed to get plenty of laughs out of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. His robot-like delivery never stopped being funny and him refusing to deal with any of the company’s problems was a clever little send up of all the issues he has been facing lately. It was also a smart little dig at the way we use Facebook and openly allow it to destroy our lives, only to then expect someone else to clean it up for us. There is definitely a theme of technology developing throughout the series as well – with this being the third episode now to have had some form of technology at the centre of its plot.
Can I just take a minute to say how great it is to see South Park sending up celebrities in such a memorable fashion again? The Donald Trump stuff was always amusing last season, but it felt like it was difficult to do something truly original with him but the Zuckerberg stuff here really felt like a return to the glory days of the show. Zuckerberg wasn’t the only celebrity to take a knock here, though, with the show, ever on point when it comes to current affairs, even managing to slip a perfectly timed little dig in about Harvey Weinstein as well.
‘Franchise Prequel’ also started with a great little parody of The Flash, giving us a hilarious origin story for fan favourite Jimmy Valmer, one that sent the tone perfectly for the rest of the episode. There was also a hilarious gag about DC and how it won’t make it to the second phase thrown in during the scene that pretty much established the plot for The Fractured but Whole.
But, it wouldn’t be a Coon and Friends episode without an appearance from Professor Chaos, and Butters was at his dastardly best this episode, setting up a base in an abandoned store to bring down The Coon and Friends using Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg (who only costs $17, apparently). His comeuppance, where his Dad dragged him off to Russia and then grounded both Butters and Vladimir Putin was one of the episode’s finest scenes as well.
South Park season 21 is well and truly back on track now, and ‘Franchise Prequel’ may well have been the best episode of the season yet. Topical jokes, a great pop culture satire, hilarious celebrity parodies and the return of some of the show’s most beloved characters, this was everything you could ask for from a South Park episode.
What did you think of ‘Franchise Prequel?’ Let us know in the comments below, and let Liam know on Twitter @liamhoofe
