There’s rarely any carry over on South Park, but South Season 18 Episode 2 made a brief reference to the terrific premiere when the school called out the boys n their “F-ck you!" campaign.
Butters also apparently set the gym on fire and was therefore absent from the half hour, teasing a possible storyline for next Wednesday.
As for THIS Wednesday?
We’ve all come across someone like Mr. Mackey, haven’t we? Someone who annoying talks about the "amazingness" of a gluten-free diet and who, unprompted, talks up gluten-free recipes?
So the storyline hit home, but it was surprisingly past its prime relevancy date for South Park, a series that prides itself on delivering up-to-the-nanosecond jokes and references.
Heck, Jimmy Kimmel did a hilarious bit about gluten-free obsessives back in May. (SPOILER ALERT: many don’t have a clue what gluten even is.)
That said, this is South Park. There were obviously some funny moments, highlighted perhaps by Randy and Sharon – along with the rest of the town – frantically running home to get all the gluten products out of their house. ("Don’t forget the freezer!" "OH, GOD!")
There was also some overt Papa John’s product placement and a quarantine zone (as a parody of the Ebola panic, we assume? The episode was titled "Gluten-Free Ebola" after all.)
We also got a kick out of Randy desperately crying out for Stan, who only wanted to know the name of Randy’s coworker so they could get Lorde to perform at their party.
Oh, and Cartman hallucinated Aunt Jemima.
This wasn’t the most on-point episode of South Park ever. The references were a bit dated and the Ebola arc wasn’t well drawn out (there are words we never thought we’d write).
But this show is still funnier than nearly every other sitcom out there. What did everyone else think? You can always watch South Park online if you need to catch up on it.