Recap: South Park – Season 21, Episode 03 ‘Holiday Special’

This week’s episode of South Park finds Randy Marsh scattering to discover his ethnicity after having Columbus Day declared no longer a school holiday. On one side of this story, the school kids are furious at losing a day off school. On the other, ever politically-correct Randy faces many challenges to hide the fact that just a few years ago, he liked Columbus, despite now seeing him as the spark that ignited a genocide.

South Park is conquering some pretty heavy issues with ‘Holiday Special,’ but the episode is still a clunker despite its politically charged message (which is the very thing that made the past two episodes so great.) Here, the Columbus Day issue is spread too thin: it’s not a big enough issue to require twenty minutes, even though the episode dedicates both its main and side story to it. As a result, ‘Holiday Special’ moves very slowly and loses its novelty quickly.

That’s not to say the episode doesn’t get its laughs, but they certainly are fewer and further between than the rest of this season so far. One of the funniest parts of the episode has to be when Randy’s wife, Sharon, is just plain tired of Randy’s obsession with Columbus. As the episode plays out, its easy to feel sympathetic towards her position.

New episodes of South Park air Wednesday nights on Comedy Central.