South Park 23.05 Review – “Tegridy Farms Halloween Special”

Very few shows do Halloween specials like South Park. And Wednesday’s episode proved why Matt & Trey are the best at putting together a spooky episode.

“Tegridy Farms Halloween Special” was a nice blend of “Pinkeye,” “Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery” and “Spookyfish,” throwing it back to a time in South Park where outrageous nonsense took precedence over politics.

Lets get the big question out of the way. Did I enjoy the Halloween Special? Yes. Because I am the target audience. A guy who likes to visit Tegridy Farms once, twice, a few times a week where my past haunts me and I don’t remember a thing the next morning. It’s truly the best feeling in the world.

Randy continues to be the star of the season with his goal in this episode being to create the Halloween Special (weed. It’s always about weed). The special was so damn good that Randy and Towlie ended up hallucinating on the farm as Shelly, who hates weed, tried to tell them how stupid they were. And they were being stupid. This whole episode was stupid and that’s why it worked so well.

Randy’s hallucinations could be a larger story of him feeling guilt for killing Pooh and the Cows. Randy has shown many layers this season and I’m not sure if this was another piece of the onion or just something dumb for the Halloween special. Maybe we’ll find out more next week. Or not.

The “Pinkeye” and “Spookyfish” tie-ins came from the subplot involving Butters. Butters has been rather invisible this season up until last week, but tonight he got to shine on his own. Butters going on an adventure always works. Even something as simple as completing his sticker book collection turned into one of the best subplots of the season. I always find it hilarious when Butters goes to jail for no reason. It’s one of my favorite callbacks throughout the shows history. We also got to see the old man from “Butters Very Own Episode.”

The Butters/Mummy story maybe got a bit uncomfortable with the divorce analogy. I thought it was subtle enough that it didn’t bother me, but I could see if people got upset about it. Look, just remember that the one hiding their true appearance is always right and you will be able to stay out of your own jail.

Cartman and PC Principle made the most of their screen time. PC Principle wants to make sure no cultures were appropriate and Cartman’s single line ripping on Kenny had me cracking up.

The only thing this episode was missing was Spooooooky Vision.