Sons a Witches

"Sons a Witches" is the sixth episode in the twenty-first season of the American animated television series South Park. The 283rd overall episode of the series, it originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 25, 2017. The episode parodied the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations by comparing them to a witch hunt.

Plot

Gerald drives a carpool of Randy and other friends, who are all dressed as witches, to meet with other men and have a party where they get drunk and smoke crack cocaine. Meanwhile, Cartman tries to hurry along Heidi Turner to get to a pumpkin patch carnival but she repeatedly delays their departure by taking a long time to prepare. By the time they arrive at the pumpkin patch, many of the attractions have already closed. Chip Duncan, one of the guys at the party, reads from a spellbook from Salem, Massachusetts and transforms into a real witch. He flies away on a broomstick and attacks South Park with flaming pumpkin bombs. He eventually attacks the pumpkin patch forcing Cartman and Heidi to flee before Cartman can enjoy anything at the carnival, then kidnaps a child and flies away. The following day, Cartman is seen brooding and staring intently at Heidi while the rest of the boys discuss how to stop the witch. When Randy and the guys try to resume their party for another night, they discover that the park where they hold their party has been closed, as Randy believes the town is on a witch hunt, although he instead refers to it as a "witch pursuit thing." Their inability to use the term "witch hunt" becomes a running gag through the episode.

While Chip continues to attack the town and kidnap children, Kyle and the boys try to design a plan to stop the witch when Cartman comes in with a plan to get rid of Heidi instead, as her poor time management skills are infuriating him. Stephen Stotch tries to convince Randy to admit to everyone about their crack cocaine use, but Randy delays him from doing so until the following morning. He then calls one of his friends to arrange to have Stephen sacrificed to the Devil. The boys realize that their parents are all missing, so Stan has Butters call the one member of the witch party who has been missing; President Garrison. Meanwhile, Cartman realizes that the witch is kidnapping children, so he invites Heidi to a Halloween costume party, and as Cartman takes Heidi down a path they are confronted by the witch who takes Heidi while Cartman hides.

Randy and the rest of the witch club have Stephen brought to a Ross Stores parking lot where they accuse him of being the bad witch, but Chip flies in and confronts them. He reveals that he is using a bag of holding to carry the children and plans to use them to increase his power. As he speaks, President Garrison flies in on Air Force One. Chip threatens Garrison, and Garrison calls for a satellite to fire a laser in response which immediately burns Chip to ashes. The police release all of the children from the bag except for Heidi who cannot leave until she is fully ready. Heidi is later seen irritating Cartman again with her long preparations as she constantly delays their trick-or-treating.

Critical reception

Jesse Schedeen with IGN rated the episode a 8.3 out of 10, summarizing his review with "South Park continues to establish a winning formula this season, focusing on more standalone storylines that still pull from current headlines in clever ways. 'Sons a Witches' works as both a commentary on the Harvey Weinstein scandal and its fallout and fun, simple tale of Randy and his friends being stupid."^[1]

Jeremy Lambert with 411Mania rated the episode a 8.2 out of 10, summarizing his review with "'Sons a Witches' builds on what has been, in my estimation, a strong season for the show. It had a timely story passed off as an evergreen story, a couple of classic scenes, and plenty of jokes that landed."^[2]

Charles Bramesco with Vulture.com rated the episode with one out of five stars, stating in his review "The one thing South Park won't do is take a side, insulating itself from criticism by hiding behind the 'equal-opportunity offender' line. As some cry that this is not normal, Trey Parker and Matt Stone can only shrug and respond that things have always been all messed up. Business as usual."^[3]

Dan Caffrey with The A.V. Club gave the episode a B+ rating, stating in his review "'Sons a Witches' rightfully calls out that sort of self-righteous hypocrisy—the people who view themselves as different from the Harvey Weinsteins of the world, when in reality, they’ve taken advantage of the same gross power imbalance in Hollywood and elsewhere. While getting loaded and smoking crack in the woods may be a crass metaphor for the systematic nature of toxic masculinity, it fits right into South Park's wheelhouse of symbolism."^[4]

Chris Longo with Den of Geek rated the episode 3.5 out of 5 stars, and stated in his review that "The episode is better off and more effective by focusing on the toxic culture of masculinity that includes but extends far beyond Trump. And after all, isn't Trump the poster boy for a witch getting away with disgusting behavior anyway?"^[5]

References

External links

• South Park Studios Episode 2106 "Sons a Witches" Press Release
• "Sons a Witches" on IMDb