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.
One of the hobbies that South Park fans can take part in from week to week is trying to figure out what the subject of that week's episode will be. The team behind the Comedy Central staple has gotten so efficient at creating episodes that it can work that week's news issues into an episode and turn it around for a Wednesday-night audience. We come to expect all the big news stories—Ebola, Ferguson, NFL controversy—to be featured in an episode during the upcoming season. Our hunch, if anything, was that somehow the midterm elections would play in. Maybe ISIS would finally get its due.
Imagine our surprise when we got "Grounded Vindaloop." For the first time since Season 17's "Goth Kids 3," we got an episode with almost no social commentary to go with it.
It seems right form the beginning that we're getting a classic Cartman-fooling-Butters episode, in the same vein as the "AWESOM-O" classic. Butters walks the school in a pair of chemistry goggles, guided by the voice of Cartman on a walkie talkie, falsely believing that he's in a virtual reality world, able to pursue dreams like "touch[ing] Wendy's boob."
The comes the natural progression of how Cartman is going to get out of trouble when Butters—overly confident thanks to his "virtual" status—punches his dad in the balls, steals the family car and gets stabbed by a hooker, Grand Theft Auto style.
Here's where things gets sticky: Cartman gets a call from a tech support agent named "Steve" (actually a stereotypical Indian phone representative, working for companies such as Ocular and Korean Air). He understandably thinks his friends are trying to screw with him...until we see the real Cartman comatose at a computer with a virtual reality helmet stuck on his head.
Soon we find that Kyle and Stan may actually be the ones stuck, with the others trying to get them out. The episode soon becomes a mystery to discover what/who is real and who's a computer model—all while cross-referencing classic sci-fi flicks such as The Matrix and Total Recall (although this is somewhat the second episode of South Park to follow an Inception-esque story arc). Meanwhile reality begins to feel the effects of the twisted virtual reality game: Mr. Scotch can't remember why Butters is grounded, just that he should be, and Steve the customer support agent gets a call from himself requesting customer support.
The Indian employee soon realizes that there are three things (not two) that you can't do in virtual reality: 1) You can't die, 2) you can't be grounded and 3) you can't call tech support. The boys have created what he calls a "Vindaloop" that can only be broken by ending his call with a report of good customer service. Stan acquiesces and the imaginary characters around him begin to disappear. Finally he himself finds his way back to Cartman's room and removes the real Oculus helmet.
The last punchline is that the boy's are played by real actors outside of virtual reality, dressed in proper outfits all of them. The real-life version of Cartman, of course, is the best.
The whole episode was very confusing, and it was meant to be. Although far from the best we've seen during Season 18, it's refreshing to know that Matt Stone and Trey Parker aren't scared to go old-school, crafting entire episodes around something far removed from the news. Sometimes we need a break from real life as well...a trip to virtual reality even.
OUR FAVORITE QUOTE: "I'm a baaaaaaaaaad man!" -Butters as he goes on his crime spree, perfectly offsetting the Butters we all know and love.
