“We are all just one Pabst Blue Ribbon away from being White Trash In Trouble.” – Narrator
I’ve noticed that this season of South Park has featured quite a few episodes that I would categorize as “high concept.” “Broadway Bro Down,” “1%,” and “A History Channel Thanksgiving” immediately come to mind. By contrast, Season 15’s finale, “The Poor Kid”, is a return to South Park’s decidedly “low brow” past. The episode boils down to little more than an elaborate “Yo Mamma” joke.
To be honest, I actually think I’m more comfortable with the show when it’s riffing on white trash and Penn State than when it does satirical social commentary. I don’t necessarily require “subtext” in my half-hour animated comedies. Jokes about rednecks and child molestation are enough for me.
“The Poor Kid” opens with Kenny’s parents being taken into police custody after a Pabst Blue Ribbon-fueled domestic dispute. To add insult to injury, the arrest is documented by a camera crew for a Cops rip-off show called White Trash In Trouble.
Mr. Adams, a Penn State joke spewing Child Protective Services employee, sends Kenny and his siblings off to a foster home. Kenny’s new foster parents, the Weatherheads, are practicing agnostics who only drink Dr. Pepper. (“Is it root beer, or is it cola?”) South Park always does a great job skewering religions, and the jokes at the expense of agnosticism are no exception.
With Kenny gone from South Park Elementary, Cartman comes to the sad realization that he is the poorest kid in school. He figures that he would be better off in a foster home and assumes that he can simply request to placed with a rich family — preferably in Hawaii. He sets his mom up on White Trash In Trouble, but instead of being relocated to the beach, he lands in the same foster family as Kenny.
After an extended song and dance number featuring 47 “Yo Mamma” jokes, and an appearance by Kenny’s superhero alter-ego Mysterion, “The Poor Kid” ends the way so many South Park episodes have concluded before: with Kenny’s death. It’s weird, before some kind of giant, mutant bird swoops in and eats Kenny, I hadn’t even noticed that he had survived every recent episode. Do you think that going forward, we are going to return to the obligatory “You killed Kenny, you bastard,” endings? Or is this simply a one-off occurrence, a wink at the “old school South Park” nature of the episode?
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.