*2010: The End of Serialization as We Know It*

[nall]

SOUTH PARK
TITLE:  THE END OF SERIALIZATION AS WE KNOW IT
Episode #2010   Air date:  December 7, 2016

Cartman finally understands why Heidi wants to get him to Mars.

[jamespuppolo]

Oh boy, oh jezz, Cartman may be breaking up with Heidi. Heidi had said in the past she wanted to be with Cartman and so wanted to go to Mars for him. I wonder why now she wants to go to Mars? Is she an alien and her vagina is not like a normal one but of course Cartman didn’t know that but finds out later.

I don’t understand to title. Serialization, I think, is sending data from one thing to another, like an e-mail and how it is broken down and sent and then put back together somewhere else. So, will this be like a teleporter machine Heidi makes?

Could this also be a joke on an end to the seasonal continuation?

Either way I will feel bad to see Heidi and Cartman break up. I hope she at least stays with the show and isn’t killed off like Leslie was.

[zzyzx 2]

Hopefully the title of 2010 not only will close the serialization of season 20, but perhaps seasons 21 & 22 before they even begin in there years ahead. I hope so. These last few seasons of 10 episode serialization per season just didn't work. Imho M&T haven't perfected 10-episode serialization yet as they have perfected in earlier seasons where each episode is a stand-a-lone one. Maybe a three parter during a future season might work, but these 10-parters imo haven't worked.

I don’t understand to title. Serialization, I think, is sending data from one thing to another, like an e-mail and how it is broken down and sent and then put back together somewhere else. So, will this be like a teleporter machine Heidi makes?

Could this also be a joke on an end to the seasonal continuation?

The serialization of a storyline has been in effect since the 19th century. First started in magazines, only a portion of the story was published each month/week (whatever time frequency the publication was published). Then the next month/week, the next installment was published. Then the next, until it was over. In this sense, it has nothing to do with sending data. Serialization of stories have been going on for more than a century before computer technology existed.

[nall]

Press release:
http://southpark.cc.com/blog/2016/12/05 ... ss-release

Press images:

[zzyzx 2]

Cartman finally understands why Heidi wants to get to Mars on the season finale of South Park titled “The End of Serialization As We Know It” on Wednesday, December 7 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on Comedy Central.

As TROLLTRACE goes live, Sheila logs on to see Gerald’s on-line activity. At SpaceX, Cartman tries to convince the scientists that going to Mars is a bad idea. And defying their mom, Kyle and Ike get all the kids together to try to save the world from certain destruction.

Maybe Cartman realizes that ppl who want to go to Mars are also ppl that are smart and funny!

With Gerald out-of-town, what would prompt Sheila to see her husband's on-line activity? I would think she would want to check Ike's history, as she suspects HIM of being the troll. Maybe she found nothing in Ike's history, and now looks at everyone in her household.

Kyle and Ike getting all the kids together to try to save the world from certain destruction is a throw-back to many, many earlier seasons where all the kids also got together to save the world from certain destruction. This line alone in the press release gives me great hopes for 2010

As to the press images, I like how in 2016 the Broflovski's phonograph/record player is prominently displayed on the top of a cabinet, and other records are stored under it on shelves

And what about wrapping up the MEMBERBERRIES sub-plot during this 10-episode season? These berries STARTED this serialization, after all

[kfgg]

I see what they did there with the title.

[JVM]

Added to the wiki here based on available information so far.

Why does Heidi want to get to Mars? The original first post says why Heidi wants Cartman to get to Mars... let's assume the latter phrasing is relevant. Either she wants to get him to Mars out of kindness and sympathy for his desires, or she wants to get rid of him by sending him to Mars.

I'm not sure what to say except to say that "all of the kids" is exactly the kind of thing the fans have been waiting to hear. Maybe Matt and Trey got wind of how upset a lot of fans were about the lack of the kids.

The title alone is kind of huge.

[jamespuppolo]

Sheila does find out about Gerald being a troll. She seemed understanding about pee porn so she may not even care.

Cartman knows why Heidi wants to go to Mars, is this about starting a family with Cartman. It can be that Cartman is not ready to have kids and so doesn’t want to go to Mars. This could have a fun fight with Heidi telling Cartman off, how he liked what she had but for all the wrong reasons. And having kids are why to date someone and see their vagina.

I guess we will see some of the kids from town trying to save the world from Lennart and TrollTrace. I think the kids could only hack Denmark or go the SpaceX to then get to Denmark real fast while using some tech there or something.

Sheila does look mad and dirty like she been in that pantry too long. I wonder what she did for a bathroom? I guess there was food in there and did she drink her own urine?

[nwt000]

Man, so much promise for this episode already! Between the rest of the kids coming back, TrollTrace on the verge of being broken down and Sheila finally finding out about Gerald's disrespectful and destructive internet activities, it looks like Trey and Matt might actually be able to give this wild season a coherent and satisfying ending. I guess they'll probably let Kenny and Tweek finally say stuff, huh? As long as Heidi isn't written out of the show, I'm probably going to love the season finale!

[Big-Will]

Can't wait to see what Heidi has been planning all along. Until now, she's been going along with Cartman's vision, but asking once in a while if he's sure it will work, and saying she'd miss everyone. She's given no hint of any intentions on her part.

[the1forgotten17boy02]

Am I the only one who doesn't have very high expectations for this episode? To me it seems like it's going to be another rushed finale and, similarly to the scatter-brained season premiere, "Member Berries", it's going to try too hard to establish the resolution to most plots which can be hard to cram into a 20-minute finale.

In my opinion, the boys and the girls coming together to stop TrollTrace should have been a plot completed by last episode, or even in "Members Only", and in a 20-minute finale with resolutions to several different plots needed, to me...maybe this episode is going to feel rushed and anticlimactic with all of these characters making comebacks, especially if we're not left with proper resolutions like last year, especially since this episode implies that season 21 will go back to having episodes establish their individual identity like the first 19 seasons.

(I know seasons 6, 18, and 19's episodes were all connected, but each episode was able to feel like a standalone episode while staying true to what has been established from the beginning of those seasons. Here we have one long, dragged out story arc with the same jokes which is why this season felt incredibly stale. Granted season 19 also somewhat rehashed jokes, but we had different topics to cover in the first seven episodes of that season (except for the ads trilogy) which is why I preferred the continuity in that season.)

Ahem...getting back to my main point, you don't have to read the parenthesized part. Point is that the plot lines (Heiman, Cartman trying to stop the scientists from finding a way to Mars, TrollTrace, the Broflovski family, and the member berries) all need a proper resolution, and it seems difficult to cram all of this in and may result in an episode that feels as incohesive as the first episode, which crammed several plots together that personally left me unsatisfied, which is why I have low expectations for this episode, and honestly, I'm not really a big fan of this season. I'm just desperately hoping there's a way to smoothly pull this conclusion off, but for now, I remain cynical.

[Big-Will]

Matt and Trey suck at season finales, more so when there are so many threads to weave in all at once (so now you know what's going to happen to this one). Every finale ends up missing some threads and creating more questions than it answers.

[JVM]

There's still a lot to cover, but I suspect Garrison and the Member Berries will remain 'the balls in the air', much like how Matt and Trey have suggested the ads are still out there despite Leslie's death.

Also, the press release tells us TrollTrace will go live - so that plot is basically done. The kids are just trying to prevent destruction. I would divide us into 3-4 plots:

• TrollTrace will go online.
• Heidi, Cartman and Butters at SpaceX, with Heidi cracking the code to reach Mars and Cartman trying to somehow stop it. No idea how Butters will play into this.
• Sheila will discover via TrollTrace what Gerald has been doing online, and the presumable fallout within the Broflovski family, all depending on when and how Gerald escapes Denmark.
• The kids teaming up to try to prevent the inevitable destruction in the wake of TrollTrace's launch.

Now, this is South Park, so no matter what happens, this is going to be a rushed finale. This is how the show's always done business and even in standalone episodes, the ending usually sucks... but I think there's less balls in the air than there were at the end of S19, for sure.

[Big-Will]

- Memberberries evil plot (!)

Will they be back for the finale? They were not present at all last week. One can say that now that a conservative is in office, their work here is done.

- Garrissn as president

This one will continue beyond this seasons, barring any unfortunate events for Trump.

- Denmark's evil plot

As we've known all seasons, Troll Trace will go live and reveal everyone's e-mails and Internet histories. Gerald has been soundly beat at his own game, but how's he getting out of this now? And, if Lennart Bedrager isn't Danish, who and what is he?

- Cartman/Haidi love story

Can't wait to see what happens next.

- Tension between boys and girls as South Park elementary

The gender war has never officially ended, no one has called a truce, but it's now on the back burner. One can argue that the war ended when the kids got together for the "Danishes for Denmark" fundraiser, and Heidi was going to help the Danish find the troll. That got dropped and now she switched to helping Elon Musk get his rockets to Mars.

- The troll.

As mentioned above, Heidi was going to help Denmark discover whom the troll is, but that story disappeared, only to reappear in two places:
1. The US Government got to Skankhunt42 before Denmark did, and then turned him over to Denmark when Hillary lost the election.
2. Kyle picked up the scent after learning from Sheila that Ike has been trolling the school's message board. Kyle remembered that Heidi said it was an adult who was trolling the message board, not a kid. So if it's not Ike...
But this information still hasn't gotten out, and the gender war ending still depends on the troll being revealed.

- Butters issues, Hillary's plot to milk all the males for their semen

I can't think of any, except that Charlotte dumping him led to his MRA phase and Bill Clinton warning about what Hillary intends for us males has him spooked.

[Female345]

Hopefully the finale will be good.