South Park Returns to Finish Season 11

Love the show or hate it, South Park returns in only a few weeks to finish up its eleventh straight season. While its earlier episodes in the spring left certain fans unfulfilled, many fans like myself can not wait to see what Matt Stone, Trey Parker, and Co. start the second act with on October third.

Many episodes this season deserve to be among the most poignant and classic South Park stories. In the season opener "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson," one of the boy's parents, Randy Marsh, is criticized for saying the N word during a televised game show. The episode attacks the issues of censorship and decency, while at the same time involving the headline-making rant that Seinfeld actor Michael Richards made at a comedy club last winter.

The show also paid homage to another madly popular show, 24, in the episode "The Snuke." Cartman must face the threat of a nuclear terrorist attack under the guise of Hilary Clinton during her campaign trips for the upcoming presidential election.

Finally, the last real noteworthy episode was "Fantastic Easter Special." The boys discover the true history of Easter - namely why rabbits and colored eggs dominate the holiday - in ways and plot twists lampooning The DaVinci Code. Few fans would argue against this episode being among the best of the last few seasons. The other four episodes of the spring run of the show were not the worst in the series, but simply remained average in most respects, and were entertaining enough to at least wonder what else the show has in store.

With the mixed bag of the earlier episodes of season eleven it is hard to not be excited for what the next seven episodes will hold. There are plenty of big events in politics and entertainment that happened during the summer; Matt and Trey will have no shortage of material to end the season with. Hopefully, there will be many other episodes worthy of being on the list of the South Park elite. And while there are no real ways predictions can be made (there are no two-part episodes yet like in season ten) fans should have little worry for the show. As is the tradition, a mixture of the crude, intelligent, and extreme await every South Park fan in less than a month's time.