South Park bounces back from last week’s mundane episode with “Gluten Free Ebola.”
The episode begins with the boys cheerfully greeting their classmates as they walk through the halls of their elementary school. It is unusual for anyone to be this nice in South Park, especially Eric Cartman.
The other kids quickly catch on: the boys are only being nice to make up for when they previously insulted everyone and left school to make a start-up company.
The reference to last week’s episode was a shock, considering South Park never has continuity unless it’s a trilogy or two-parter, and hearing that comment made me excited in the geekiest possible way.
The plot continues with the boys planning to throw a party for their diabetic “friend” Scott Malkinson to win their classmates back. If the boys can show their peers that they can selflessly help a loved one and throw an awesome party, surely they will be back in the loop.
Only their plans are thwarted in a typical South Park fashion when the town, and eventually the world, realize that eating gluten causes horrifying side effects and bans all gluten-free food, which is pretty much any food worth consuming.
“Gluten Free Ebola” was a little dry at times, but had a funny story line and plenty of great moments that kept me laughing. I particularly liked that fan favorites Randy Marsh and Eric Cartman were involved, but not the stars of the episode. This was a good change of pace as it allowed the other characters to shine.
There was also a brief mention of Butters’ bad behavior that caused him to be kicked out of school, but Butters was not in this episode and his story line was never followed up on. I can only hope this will be addressed next week in what will (again, hopefully) become a South Park continuity trend.
Grade: B+
Best quotation: “Shut up! Beer is bad for you!?” –Randy Marsh
Best character: Stan. I have always loved Stan’s “I am so done with this BS” attitude and this episode highlighted that wonderfully.
Funniest moment: Cartman’s dream. Enough said.