TV Recap: South Park, ‘Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers’

South Park review- “Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers” Last week, for the first time ever. South Park didn’t deliver an episode on time. Hit by a power outage at the studios, “Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers” was sidelined a whole week allowing for additional retooling if need be. As we have learned so far this season with “Let Go, Let Gov” an extended period to produce an episode doesn’t always yield the best result. While even in their usual six day format the show tends to have clunkers it’s the manic nature of that production process that makes the need to be as fine tuned as possible necessary. “Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers” while amusing and funny in small doses is too many ideas at once failing to be utilized to their full extent. The Goth kids have literally been the dark horses of the extensive South Park roster usually showing up when need be to lash out against conformists and similar groups like the vampire kids. This time they take aim at emo culture which is a joke well past its expiration date despite the slight enjoyment I got from hearing Sunny Day Real Estate blasting from Henrietta’s iphone. The big thing about making this a Goth kid centric episode is the attempts to give this group character and back story. I believe this is the first time we have gotten everyone’s name especially the little one who we now know is named Ferkel. In one of the many unique ideas here we learn that the emo culture slowly taking over the Goths and vampires is actually plants who admit spores that contain the emo gene. If it was left at this it would be rather entertaining with everyone being tied to a chair and forced to submit to some shaking house plants. However this isn’t the whole picture and the twist turns out to be that the man harvesting these plants is actually on an episode of “Yes! I’m Scared!” Plot twists in South Park are nothing new as the season premiere showed but it usually serves a purpose no matter how big or small it gets. Since it comes so late in the episode there is no time to justify any of the actions in the episode and we are left hanging on the point. The laughs are rather small this week but some things deserved a chuckle. The random black Twilight fan was brilliant but it should have been a quick gag similar to the black Marlon Brando impersonator way back in “Cartman Joins NAMBLA.” The ghost of Edgar Allen Poe should just be as present as Jesus was for a good chunk of the earlier years. I could spend hours watching the author pout about being lame and sad and I loved Michael’s reaction to Henrietta explaining about the emo take over. There is a great set up involved here with Henrietta being whisked away to a camp that will conform her to normality and a great moment involving the remaining Goth kids explaining to a CPA worker the difference between Goth and Emo. This all works in theory but by the end everything falls apart. While I said last week that the beauty of this show is Matt and Trey trust their viewers to figure out the underlying theme it’s truncated here greatly. It’s implied that both Henrietta and Ferkel used this emo invasion as an excuse to break away from what they are use to but it’s never fully explained. The idea is simple: people will tell small lies to escape having to give an explanation to change. It’s not much and sadly this was a rather weak outing. “Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers” has all the potential sitting right in front of it but it’s executed poorly with a lot of plot strands left flapping in the window. At this point these characters can’t be a center to the show and need to return to their sporadic appearances or when they are working as a plot device to someone else. It’s a bold attempt to stray from the path which South Park has been doing for ages but it just doesn’t measure up here. It’s not that there isn’t much to say here but it’s a lot of great ideas just never given the chance to flesh out and ultimately falls to a series of short gags and missed opportunities.

All photos credit to and courtesy of Comedy Central