South Park: Season 22 Episode 6 "Time to Get Cereal" Review

"Outside of school is the one place kids are supposed to be safe."

-Sgt. Yates

The 6th episode of season 22 of South Park opens with Jimbo and Ned out hunting and coming across the real ManBearPig, which takes off with a captive Ned.  As the beast continues killing, Cartman and Kenny are the main suspects of the South Park Police Department.  The boys have no choice but to track down Al Gore, who was right about everything, but Gore wants many apologies before he is willing to help.  Eventually, they learn ManBearPig is a demon and summon Satan to help them find away to stop the best.  It turns out, ManBearPig has made a deal with someone in South Park and now it has come to collect.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Yates is getting sick and tired of all the deaths and wants to just go home and play Red Dead Redemption 2.  Al Gore tells the boys it is their responsibility to save the world now and they try to explain the situation to Yates, who completely ignores them and takes them into custody.  Finally, we get a scene that suggests Marvin Marsh is the one who made a deal with ManBearPig.

What Works:

"Time to Get Cereal" has a really exciting opening sequence that gives a sense of urgency to the story, especially now that we know it's a multi-episode story.  We've been getting a lot of old characters coming back this season and we get that here with Ned, who has speaking lines for the first time in many years.  When he gets attacked and taken by ManBearPig, I thought we might witness the end of Ned, which got me to the edge of my seat.  Ultimately, we just saw him get dragged off, but he might be dead.  I wouldn't be shocked to see him go.  This is some solid suspense and makes me really excited for the next episode.

The Red Dead Redemption 2 jokes were hilarious.  I haven't even played the game and I found them very funny.  They were just so unexpected and out of nowhere with a few characters that they remained fresh.  Satan and Al Gore's jokes about it caught me off guard and I found them especially funny.

Satan as a whole was great.  He's a phenomenal character and I love when South Park uses him to give exposition.  His scenes in the library were similar to his scenes with Stan about freemium gaming in "Freemium Isn't Free" and both were very funny.

Sgt. Yates is another fantastic character and he shines bright as always in this episode.  He is unbelievably funny and always has some of the best dialogue and that remains true here.  Every scene with him is gold and I never get tired of watching him.

Finally, I just want to commend Trey Parker and Matt Stone for apologizing in this episode.  I like that they are willing to admit they were wrong about something.  It's refreshing and adds even more to this show and its history.

What Sucks:

The only thing I didn't like about the episode is that some of the Al Gore stuff got a bit stale.  We've seen the interactions between the boys and Gore before.  Apart from the apology, the episode doesn't really do anything new with the character.  That could change in the next episode, but so far, he's the weakest part of this story, but I'm still very much on board.

Verdict:

"Time to Get Cereal" is another very solid episode of South Park.  It has an amazing opening sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the episode, the Red Dead Redemption 2 jokes were hilarious, Satan and Sgt. Yates were fantastic, and I love that the show is willing to apologize for the stuff it gets wrong.  I didn't love Al Gore's inclusion, but I'm extremely excited to see where this story goes next.  I'm super cereal when I say this episode has got it going on.

 9/10: Great