South Park: "Jewpacabra" Review

Note: Full spoilers for this episode to follow.

Jumping right into it, I'll just start by saying that I normally really love South Park's religious episodes -- seriously, they're my favorites -- but this week's "Jewpacabra" felt a little too arbitrary for my taste. Granted, there were some excellent observations on Passover. The backwards reasoning of the Ten Plagues and the contradictions between the Hebrew and Christian God -- these were both signature traits of Matt and Trey's interpretation of dogma. But I guess I just expected it all to lead somewhere more resolute. Even when comparing the episode to Season 11's "Fantastic Easter Special," it just didn't stack up.

Truthfully, some of the best moments from the episode came from the first act. I was actually really digging on the first ten minutes or so. The Troll Hunter parody with Cartman and Butters had me rolling. Them yelling "Jesus is a lie!" and "There is no Christ!" was probably my favorite part of the episode. And matching GoPro HD camera mounts were a nice touch. I also liked the Finding Bigfoot jab with the group of urban legend hunters afterwards. Their lame analysis of Cartman's footage was pretty funny. (You just know that "'squatch" is a thing on that show.)

The real strength of this episode came from Cartman's little asides in the opening scenes. His initial dialogue with Sheila at the beginning was a great way to kick things off, and pretty much all the scenes with Super Foods were at least somewhat entertaining. I particularly enjoyed Cartman's trip to Atlantis via chopper. It was an obvious grab for more time, but nevertheless still funny.

- Comedy Central

Overall, it's just a bit disappointing that this episode never reached its full potential. "South Park does Passover" sounds like a dynamite synopsis on paper, but the whole thing just lacked focus, which ultimately led to nothing in particular. There was just a little too much going on in each scene with no dedicated theme to speak of. Even the Jewpacabra element kind of fell by the wayside in favor of some trippy flashback to ancient Egypt -- an entertaining bit, for sure. But why was it there? (I will admit, the slaughtering of the lamb had some hilarious imagery.)

And then the final scene with Cartman becoming a Jew just left me utterly confused. Um... what? I could understand if this was a two-parter -- and for all we know, it is -- but leaving the episode hanging on something so downright extraneous seemed to betray the very essence of the character. And I understand that South Park has a track record of pulling the occasional stunt ending here or there. Hell, Kenny McCormick is a character designed for that kind of storytelling. But even still, it just felt off.

All of that said, however, I still enjoyed the episode. It was definitely a mishmash, but many of the bits were still entertaining. I do think that if Matt and Trey had committed to just one or two of their parodies, though, they would have had a much more coherent and perhaps more memorable episode on their hands. But, hey, when you're cranking out an episode a week, they can't all be perfect.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

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