'South Park' Season 15, Episode 13 Recap - 'A History Channel Thanksgiving'

The word you're looking for to describe this episode is "ridiculous."

Not ridiculous to a "Crab People" level, but still some good old-fashioned "South Park" ridiculousness. Hey, they can't all be brilliant satire of current issues, people. Sometimes these guys just have to put out a weird episode to fill a week.

Here's the story: the boys are assigned a report on the first Thanksgiving, but decide to watch the History Channel for research instead of reading books.

What they learn from the History Channel is that the first Thanksgiving was visited by alien pilgrims who hold an interplanetary battle against alien Indians over their vast stuffing mines.

Of course, this all turns out to be true, and Earth is visited by Miles Standish, a pilgrim from outer space, who turns out to be kinda like Thor. Natalie Portman is there too.

The result is pretty disjointed, and it comes down to Kyle having to take Natalie Portman on a date so that she'll "open her wormhole." Honestly, I'm not even sure how we got there.

But the message of the episode is clear: the History Channel is full of s**t. They sensationalize every bit of history by having "experts" with degrees from University of Phoenix (Kyle is known as Professor Broflovski of DeVry) come on their program and bring up theories that can't be disproven. As Kyle tries to explain, you can't prove a negative argument.

It seems as though it might be time for the History Channel to change its name. Suggestions: The Alien Channel, WWII Fun Time, Hitlertown, the Wild Theories from Talking Heads Channel, and TCN (The Crackpot Network).

As for "South Park," there's only one more episode in this season. We'll forgive you guys for the strange tangent this week, but let's finish this one with a bang, shall we?