REVIEW: SOUTH PARK “A Scause for Applause”

Rocked by the recent news of drug use by a beloved icon, the world is left feeling lost and betrayed.  The boys join with the rest of the nation and remove their yellow wristbands.  Everyone is on board, except for Stan, who just can’t seem to cut off his bracelet.

Spoilers Below

The town of South Park decide to stop wearing their What Would Jesus Do? bracelets after learning that traces of PEDs and other substances were found on the Shroud of Turin, leading to the conclusion that the bible was shit and Jesus’ crucifiction was more or less over blown, as he was merely under the influence of drugs. Stan Marsh, decides NOT to take off his bracelet because he simply likes wearing it. At first everyone at school teases him about wearing the bracelet, but soon he also inspires a movement called “STAN-ground” where followers also wear bracelets that say to challenge authority in the face of persecution. The movement soon becomes so popular that Stan becomes a celebrity, and even gets his own Nike commercial.

Unfortunately, Stan is  accused by French(really??) scientists of having cut-off his bracelet and gluing it back together.  Scientific tests confirm this, but Stan continues to deny the claims, feeling that this is all just a “witchhunt”. To fight back, Stan breaks in to the lead French scientist’s home so that he can look  for evidence to discredit him, but as luck would have it he runs into Jesus, who is there for pretty much the same reason. Turns out that Stan and Jesus are trying to keep their messages relevant to the social issues at hand, such as the plight of farmers in Belarus, rather than deal with any press BS so the two decide to raise awareness of that problem by going to the P.F. Pityef Bracelet Factory. It’s here where they learn all about ‘scauses’,all done in the animation style of Dr. Seuss complete with ‘win-dickery’ rhymes. Orange ones are soon made for the Belarus cause, which now becomes the biggest concern among the public.

We soon find out that scauses can’t stop genocide as the Belarusian farmers are slaughtered by their government. As a result, the town of South Park get rid of their orange scauses and get other ones for all different reasons all the while the manufacturer  soon just flies away with all of the town’s money. Jesus and Stan soon realize they were screwed by the factory, Jesus takes HGH and transforms into a Jesus-Hulk, and destroys the P.F. Pityef Bracelet Factory. Afterwards, Jesus tells the public that causes shouldn’t be worn on one’s wrists and that T-shirts are the way to go, and unveils his new T-shirt, which says “Free Pussy Riot”.

I couldn’t help but get a little ‘Imagination Land’ crossing my mind while watching this episode or even Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus as Stan and Jesus H. Christ walk through the Dr. Seuss inspired world of the scause manufacturer. The scenes were brief, but they were so friggin’ well done that they were certainly the eye-candy for this week. That said, the plot kind of fell apart near the end, but this week’s episode was very, very funny. Jesus is and always has been a wonderful character in South Park and this week was no exception, especially near the end when he’s sporting a ‘Pussy Riot’ shirt. Yea, and any episode where we get to basically call Lance Armstrong a scumbag the whole time never hurts either. This one had a lot of powerful messages as well, the only ones that the Matt Stone and Trey Parker can deliver most notably how everyone latches on to something until its not cool anymore whether its for a good cause or not. Yes, they could’ve gone for the easy jokes against Lance Armstrong, but again that’s why the writers are so good…they always keep ya guessing!

(9.0 out of 10)