#apart from anything else i've also seen people call eps like all about mormons and cartman sucks 'filler'

[weedle-testaburger]

I haven't shared a South Park Fandom Hot Take (tm) in a while, but I've been thinking about one lately based on posts I keep getting recc'd and I kinda want to share it as politely as possible.

I keep seeing posts trying to divide the show into 'filler' and 'story' episodes and basically insinuating you should skip the 'filler' ones and just watch the 'story' ones to follow the 'lore', and... no offence to the people doing that, but I think that's a really bad way to watch the show. South Park isn't a serialised drama or even much of a narrative-driven show, it's an issue-of-the-week comedy series. The writers barely bother to keep the characters' traits consistent (Stan's asthma and Kyle's diabetes anyone?) because they aren't the point of the show, the social commentary and jokes are.

I get doing it if you want to rewatch and kinda try to pick out bits that stay consistent, that does sound fun, but if you only care about 'lore' it's harder to appreciate the point and/or humour of an episode. Plus it means you have to prioritise, to be blunt, watching a fair amount of the shitter stuff in the show and skipping some really good stuff. I mean ffs, telling someone to skip All About Mormons and watch Mr Garrison's Fancy New Vagina is basically a hate crime.