South Park: TSST!

(S10E07) When you reach her room, Butters will keep a look out while Kenny opens the bedroom door, Kyle puts a pillow over my mom's head, and Stan shoots her in the face. --Cartman, plotting his mother's demise.

It's been an interesting season, and this wasn't a bad episode to go out on. Cartman's mom, both the sluttiest and most malleable woman on the planet, has almost given up on Cartman, who, as we know from his past exploits, has a tendency to engage in acts of complete, unmitigated evil. No matter how hard she tries, Cartman continues to manipulate her, so she does what any hip mother would do in this day and age, she relies on a reality TV show to try and set her son straight.

Unfortunately, hiring the nannies from Nanny 911 doesn't work, as Cartman's knack for manipulating authority figures sends one away screaming, and another to the insane asylum. Unfortunately, they never send Nanny Skesis, a nice little allusion to The Dark Crystal.

It didn't take long for Cartman to develop into the Homer Simpson of South Park. The characters don't share any traits, other than both being hefty, but they both became the comedic center of their respective show's universe, a seemingly endless font of comedic possibility. A lot of episodes seem to center on Cartman because he is both a symbol of what Matt and Trey would probably call "touchy feely" parenting, and an evil mastermind at the same time. Turning Cartman into a "dog" for this episode (the "Dog Whisperer" coming to help train Cartman be more submissive and obedient) wasn't a huge stretch. Cartman's needs are very basic: he wants to be noticed, and he wants to be fed often. When those things are taken away from him, he seems, ostensibly, to have become "good," but inside his "good" and "evil" sides are in conflict. The point is, you never really change an animal, you just trick it into behaving.

There's a great moment, which I believe is lifted from the Wes Craven's Shocker (someone can verify that, since I haven't seen Shocker since I was probably thirteen) when Cartman's internal struggle begins to manifest itself, and he quickly changes back and forth from a little boy into an actual monster. Of course, we think every thing is okay by the end, but Cartman's mom's desire to have a man in her life, even if it is just her son, final gets the better of her and their relationship reverts back to its old ways. The final shot, I believe, was an homage to the last shot in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter when a young Corey Feldman's expression shows that no, he isn't going to be okay after all. Of course, for those of us who are fans of the show, we wouldn't have Cartman any other way. I thought this was a great way to end the season, a nice blend of both social satire and a character-driven storyline. Matt and Trey are some of the best, and most fearless, satirist working on television today, but they also know how to create characters with depth. When South Park mixes these two elements well, it proves just why it's been on as long as it has, and why it's still worth tuning into ten years down the road.