Season 17 has so far not been the most memorable season for South Park.
A number of undercooked ideas ranging from crossbreeding Yo Gabba Gabba with Miley Cyrus to the halfway-house idea of Kyle being Gandhi in suffering Cartman's farts have dominated most of the series.
Yet somehow, they've pulled a cohesive trilogy among their best efforts in the last few series.
Three episode arcs seem to allow more time for concepts, ideas and stories to breathe than a bog-standard 21 minute episode, and the marriage of Game of Thrones, Black Friday, the Xbox One and PS4 launches and all sorts of other throwaway gags would've been very tricky to squeeze into one episode.
Its a lot of conceptual stuff as well for people who aren't as well-versed in the works of George R. R. Martin, or foreign viewers like us Brits not well acquainted with Black Friday.
Its certainly a brutal US tradition, which sees the day after Thanksgiving devoted to massive reductions in prices at shops. This year was as brutal as ever, with the headline-grabbing incident being a woman tasered in a fight in a Philadelphia shopping mall, as well as shootings, stabbings, pepper spray attacks, mayhem, riots and the like.
In a decade where the increasing commercialism of society has come under fire at more time than any other, this is consumerism in its most brutal and shocking form. Its even more disconcerting that, rather than fully animating it, footage from real Black Friday brawls is used in and amongst the animated battles.
The first two episodes set up the preparations for war. This part is a good set-up, as it establishes the tribe of boys wanting their new consoles and divides them up into two teams united under the flag of one console each - the XBox One army, led by Cartman, and the PS4 Army, led by Stan. There's the divide of them spoken through the shortcomings of each console, and the attempt to assemble teams that can brave the Black Friday bloodshed to get the new gaming console.
The teams are also decked out in the wizard clothing from the much-delayed South Park: Stick of Truth game, which has hit several snags in its long and winding production. In fact, its not out until March next year, having previously had a launch date of December 2012.
There's even a snarky line from the Wizard King Cartman on how a pre-ordering is basically "just committing to paying for something that some assholes in California haven't even finished working on yet." Coincidentally the game pre-order is still on Amazon, for those who fancy committing to paying the South Park Studios for a game yet to be finished.
Anyway, the first part sets up the stakes. There's the mall security staff, including Randy and his attempts to get bargains from the inside, while Butters voices his agitation of Game of Thrones' obsession with penises, and the dividing faction's hopes of the bargains are under threat from people who want the lovably un-PC "Stop Touching Me Elmo" doll.
The set-pieces and humour are impressively crafted, and for GoT fans there is plenty of fun references and use to direct it towards satire.
This continues for part two, which begins with a narration from the now-Princess Kenny is so daft its almost believable, in a similar way to Idris Elba's speech on "cancelling the apocalypse" from Pacific Rim.
Equally bizarre is the recurring skit of the Betrayal Garden, which somehow manages to deliver both on its promise on changing the stakes as in the real thing and amusing gags as Cartman and a man from his bedroom exchange barbs.
The more glacial pace of this episode is better than the "cram-it-all-in", as it helps keep the story building, introduces more elements - Bill Gates' brutal murder of the sole voice of reason aka the Microsoft CEO, George R. R. Martin's penis obsession, Princess Kenny - that keeps things in a bizarre whirlwind of character introduction but still keeping it interesting and funny.
Then, things get even more insane when Princess Kenny is given the full-on anime treatment for one scene near the end of A Song of Ass and Fire and even more during 3rd and final segment Titties and Dragons.
This is not excluding the first episode with a full choir fully blowing up the penis obsession into "Weiner Party!" to the tune and rhythm of the actual Game of Thrones theme tune, in front of an increasingly pissed off Butters and an unwell Scott Malkenson, who have been kept prisoner while George R. R. Martin piles it on.
It maybe overkill for some but for a show largely touted as "sex, blood and dragons" with a lot of emphasis on the former, its fairly accurate. It also allows for the expert "the pizzas are coming and they're gonna be huge!" reference that passes for dragons.
But even so, the wiener stuff is dialled down. Its condensed use in Part 3 is in keeping with the mood and works a lot better in a smaller package (yeah yeah).
The climax is then given a set up early on when the boys decide to work together and hire the Red Robin burger restaurant for a wedding, evoking the Red Wedding concept. However, its not quite the infamous Red Wedding Massacre that Game of Thrones infamously pulled off.
There's no massacre here. But there is a realisation and a set up for the titanic battle between Bill Gates and Sony CEO Kazuo Harai, which is built up on Stan's moment of zen - that this war is just manufactured to whip up hysteria and advertising, and the kids decided they should finish their war themselves. Gates even said as much after killing the voice of reason in Part 2.
In keeping with this bizarre moment, it came after the series of betrayals had culminated in the end of Stan and Kyle, after Kyle made Stan take the fall for Cartman making good on his promise of taking a shit in the Betrayal Garden after another confrontation with the old man.
This was mistaken identity after Randy had somehow become Head of Mall Black Friday Security following a number of deaths. This allowed for a number of great lines about dispensing with characters just as we'd made heavy emotional investment.
It also created more comic betrayal as mall bargain increased - 96% off means a PS4 is $16, or about £10 if we did a similar concept. Plus it allowed a hugely comic scene similar to the White Walkers or for the Walking Dead, as hordes of shoppers awaited to be let in.
After the hordes entered - chopping off George R. R. Martin's weiner in the process - it ended up with the boys alone surrounded by rivers of blood, corpses and loose Stop Touching Me Elmo dolls, all to finally get their hands on XBox One's.
Probably no surprise given the Microsoft console sponsored the middle episode, but even more of a surprise was the realisation that, like in love, the thrill was more in the chase than having the object of desire.
It ended with the most devious double-cross plug, saying "All we need to play is stuff like this stick!" before a cheeky plug for that much-delayed game.
It suitably bought the curtain down a myriad of humorous layers and was a delightful way to end. Maybe South Park should do 3-parters more often if they're always this good...
4.5/5
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