Bass To Mouth

I'm going to go ahead and jump right in with Season 15's newest episode, Bass to Mouth, that aired on Wednesday. I will make reviews on the other episodes in this season after this one.

Personally, I felt Bass to Mouth was one of the strongest episodes of this season. Leaving off with Stan's tenth birthday for the midsummer hiatus left fans wondering if this would be the end of South Park. Trey and Matt's original plan was to infact end the show with season 15 however, popular demand called for them to sign off on two more contract years. With this, they had basically dug themselves a hole in which one of the main characters, Stan Marsh, would have to pull through. Bass to Mouth succesfully pulled off the transition from Stan's shit-filled attitude to the normal routine and equation of South Park. I had been waiting for the time when Stan would go "back to normal" and the boys could coninue on with their socially controversial adventures.

As for the story line itself, I felt the strong merge of humor as well as seriousness that the show is orginially supposed to have. The past two episodes of the returning season were much darker, lacking in humor and more substance. With Bass to Mouth, the writers sucessfully conveyed a bit a nostalgia, humor and social critique. The relevance, however, was off from what is normal for the show. The controversy of the "Wikileaks" issue was brought to the surface as a rat portrayed to look like Julian Assange, was used to leak information about the boys' personal lives on a website named "EavesDropper." I was happy to see Lemmiwinks and the Frog King along with the other mystical beings were brought back from season 6 to complete the storyline. All along with the original, humorous, ballads of Lemmiwinks.

Of course the humor of the episode came from the side jokes such as Stan being accused by his own girlfriend, Wendy, of being "addicted to crack," really meaning butt-crack as Stan's scandalous text about another girl's "hot crack" had been leaked to Eavesdropper. The other comical and genius lines came from the Frog King, as brought back from season 6, as he inserted the thoughts and feelings behind an uninterested Lemmiwinks though Lemmiwinks was simply being a gerbil. And of course, Bass to Mouth, the title of the episode, added to the overall hilarity by portraying a new mystical being; a fish that supposedly made an underage, teenage, fish, perform "bass to mouth." These simple jokes that would come from none other than Trey and Matt really brought the show back to it's well needed light-heartedness after the past 3 mostly depressing episodes.

But what about the celebrity? Of course the SP team would never forget to add a satire of a celebrity and so the ever-feared light was shone on noneother than Selena Gomez. As Cartman's award for preventing anymore students from commiting suicide, counselor Mackey and principal Victoria, promised to beat up Selena as Cartman watches. This was infact quite comical as Cartman of course acts like a 4 year old that just recieved a new train set on christmas morning.

In all, the creators did a fantastic job with commenting on the overall blown-up recent idea of cyber bullying as it mocked the extreme, unesscessary emphasis that teachers and parents have continued to place on the entire subject matter. The show screamed out the idea that teachers and school administrators will literally go through any means of preventing a tarnished reputation even if it means poisoning all the cafeteria food with laxatives. Most importantly, Bass to Mouth offered closure on the wikileaks affair of Julian Assange as Lemmiwinks killed off his brother Wikileaks and put an end to Eavesdropper.

Compared to South Park overall, I would give this episode the rating of a 3.5 out of 5. However, in comparison to the rest of Season 15, Bass To Mouth easily earned a 4.5.

Those are my thoughts. Tell me yours. What did you think of "Bass to Mouth?" How does it compare to the other season 15 episodes and what would you give it as an overall rating? Feel free to leave a comment below!