Last week’s episode of South Park left us with several pressing questions: Who is Cartman’s real father? Would the assembly of pissed-off celebrities succeed in kidnapping Muhammad so they could steal his “goo,” which makes him impervious to mockery? Would the gingers get there first? Could anyone find a way to defeat Mecha-Streisand, since Robert Smith was apparently too busy to do a cameo? Why does The A.V. Club continue reviewing this show, when week after week they just don’t get it?
Then, in the last 24 hours a far more pressing question came up: Would South Park continue making relatively light fun of the idea that even making relatively light fun of Muhammad is verboten, especially now that they’ve received death “warnings” from radical Muslims? And wouldn’t you know it, the answer to that question spawned its own question: Did the creators of South Park intentionally bleep out all occurrences of the name “Muhammad” tonight as a way of satirically commenting on the controversy? Or was it Comedy Central’s own fears over stoking the flames even further that caused them to chicken out? And by doing so, did America give in to terrorism?
Unfortunately I don’t have an ironclad answer for you on whether the bleeping was meant to be there all along—though I expect we’ll find out soon enough. On the one hand, yes, it seems like could it have been hastily added after the fact, owing to some combination of wanting to point out how ridiculous the whole thing is while also covering their own asses. (After all, the name “Muhammad” was bandied about freely last week, before anyone brought Theo Van Gogh into this.) On the other, it definitely would appear that the long bleeps covering up the de rigueur “I learned something today” speeches at the end were an extended “fuck you” to censorship, and as such they simply had to have been planned. It seems too crucial to the “message”—that if you let censorship have its way, art loses all its meaning (or something hifalutin like that)—for it to be a late addition, so I’m going to err toward the “it was planned all along” argument, while keeping the idea in reserve that Parker and Stone decided to just be really, really annoying about it once Comedy Central forced their hand. (After all, the network hasn't exactly been smiles and sunshine about this before.)
But whatever the reasoning, it’s sure to become one of, if not the most talked-about episode of South Park ever by this time tomorrow—which is sort of funny, considering it was once again less of a cohesive episode than a grab bag of balls-out crazy scenes and cameos only loyal fans would really appreciate. Like I said last week (though I think it was lost under the looming shadow of that “C+”), that’s not necessarily a bad thing. South Park has established an insanely complex backstory and cast of tertiary characters, and there’s a certain thrill in seeing it try and cram as many of those as possible into one place, storytelling logic be damned, just so we can see the return of favorites like Mr. Hankey, Dr. Mephisto, Mr. Slave, Big Gay Al, and Pip (who finally returned from his mysterious three-year absence, only to be crushed to death). But it is funny to think what sort of impression this episode will have on anyone coming to South Park for the first time, just because they read about it in the ensuing press.