SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't watched the episode yet and want to be surprised, don't read this article. Hopefully you realized what a "recap is" but we just wanted to be safe.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker have probably spent a fair amount of time near Denver recently. Colorado was the first state to legalize programs such as Lyft and UberX and probably the first to experience the controversy that comes along with ridesharing services as well. Unfortunately many viewers who watched Wednesday's episode "Handicar" probably had no concept of ridesharing, much less the political issues that come in tow (pun intended...you'll see later).
Having spent three years in New York City, we can attest that services such as Uber are a godsend when public transportation can takes hours across town...and you're drunk as all get out. It's tough hailing a cab, and when they're not already occupied, the drivers are gruff and the interior is a mess. We once grabbed a ride with a Manhattan driver who couldn't identify Randall's Island (just know it's huge land mass in between Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn). Uber, on the other hand, allows you to signal a driver via a simple app, they'll be there within ten minutes and when all is said and done, the phone charges it to your account so you don't have to fumble around for cash (you can also get estimates in advance, to prevent fraud).
So what's the controversy? Standard cabs don't like it, and they've raised stanks across the U.S. and even bigger protests abroad (Uber is, ironically, banned in Germany). When Timmy launches the service "Handicar," he draws the ire of local cabbies and the "handicapped mafia" of Nathan and Mimsy try to shut down Timmy's business to prevent him from raising the funds necessary for the kids to go to summer camp.
Parker and Stone probably realized they had milked the topic for all it was worth within the first ten minutes of the show. So Nathan then lures Tesla into the game, because somehow the hybrid car industry is worried by ridesharing now (they aren't).
The best thing that can be said about this episode is that it gets all parties involved in a recreation of the classic '70s Hanna Barbera cartoon "Wacky Races," encouraging all of the show's parents to get together and have a breakfast cereal party while they watch Timmy come home triumphant (Dick Dastardly and Muttley make a guest appearance...unfortunately the Gruesome Twosome does not). Although we get to see the parents, none of the main characters make an appearance during episode four of the new season, and the interlocking story arc from the previous three episodes also comes to an end (although Randy Marsh is briefly seen strumming an acoustic guitar and singing "la la la").
The moral? Ridesharing services are the logical next step in transportation and should be allowed to replace taxis. The problem with that moral? Everyone knows that already. No one outside of cabbies themselves—and the government officials receiving political donations from cab companies—think Uber is a bad thing. Not much edgy material to cover this week and not much fodder for jokes as a result. Let's hope something newsworthy happens this week for Parker and Stone to at least offend us with next week.
OUR FAVORITE QUOTE: "If you're a shepherd and there's a snake in the field, what do you do to the snake? All you have to do is prove to the sheep that the snake is a totally inferior entity." -Nathan, adjusting his shepherd-and-snake analogy for the third time.
