User Reviews

'South Park' is always timely to the point where you can revisit episodes later and get a slice of life and current events from the air date. The world has gone through a lot of changes in the 21 years of 'South Park' which is why it is so unfortunate that the Catholic Church seems worse since the 2002 episode 'Red Hot Catholic Love'. 'Red Hot Catholic Love' is in my opinion an episode that could be considered one of the best of the entire series. In the episode Father Maxi discovers he is the only priest in all of Catholicism who is not a pedophile. The town soon becomes the kind of atheists who spend all their bragging about their atheism( the subplot has everyone " spewing crap out of their mouths") . The warm conclusion is that everyone agrees that the bible should be more of a recommendation on how to live instead of a translation of power. In 2002 this was on point as the scandal was shocking and raw. In 2018 "A Boy and a Priest" is appealing to an audience so jaded that the approach to the humor is one of apathy as it holds up a mirror to a cynical audience.

This is a better episode than 'Dead Kids' because it uses the same type of humor and commentary in a crazier fashion. The Catholic Church has become nothing more than a joke to the residents of South Park. The community only goes to church so they can laugh at it and make pedophile jokes. It's lost all it's power. I laughed a lot. These moments are the best of the episode. The best comedy always brings a person or institution full of themselves down a peg and 'South Park' has made that kind of humor it's bread and butter. Father Maxi eventually closes the church and Randy begs the archdiocese to get him back because he still has some zingers he needs to use.

The rest of the episode isn't quite as funny but the story is engaging. I like Butters and how innocent he is. He is completely oblivious to the world around him and befriends Maxi because he is being bullied. What follows is an episode of people getting the wrong impression about their relationship. The scandal has gotten so bad that these jokes don't quite have the bite they might have.

At the end Maxi directly acknowledges 'Red Hot Catholic Love' and says his conclusion and appeal to the audience is no longer valid. The church is too corrupt to be considered good. He is the good apple in a barrel of bad ones. I don't know if 'South Park' can do another commentary on this. The fact that the Catholic priest harbors molesters isn't shocking, it's just a tragic norm like gun violence. I wonder if this cynicism and acceptance of these horrible societal ills will become a recurring theme this season.

While I enjoyed Dead Kids, I can't help but feel that THIS was WAY better. They made not only Butters' character more likeable, but Priest Maxi. The plot and jokes were on point and this feels like a sequel to Red Hot Catholic Love, an episode in Season 6. Infact, Maxi even mentioned the episode saying something about going to the Vatican and keeping his mouth shut about the whole thing. The way Butters treated Father Maxi showed the best in his character. Even when everyone else didn't want Priest Maxi around, Butters still stuck with him. Also, the clean up crew was HILARIOUS. Watching the clean up crew trying to locate Maxi was really funny and entertaining as well. THIS is how to make a South Park episode. And because of all that I've said above, I'm giving this episode a 10/10 just because of all the things it does so well. Good job Trey & Matt.

Once again they're showing serious problems that priests raping kids in funny way. Like priest playing with cards, Vatican hiding all sins made by the priests. The cleaning team was hilarious. Top phrases: "It's 8 years old boy birthday party of course it's cum" and "Should we call a police or buy some condoms" :D made me laugh.