First 10 South Park Season Finales Ranked

There is no real template to what makes a South Park season finale a South Park season finale. Until Season 18 there was no serialization, almost no episode-to-episode continuity of any kind, so it’s not as if, outside Season 1’s finale, the episodes felt they had to go out of their way to promise more. And, considering the show became such a pop culture juggernaut so early in its run, there was really no necessity in trying to get people back in front of their TVs for the next season’s premiere. If there’s any consistency at all when it comes to South Park season finales, it’s the show’s tendency to make them Christmas episodes.

It makes sense the show had so many Christmas-based finales throughout its first 10 seasons because they tended to be of the highest quality, with one being one of the series’ best episodes to date. And, of those first 10 years, there’s really only one season capper that’s outright weak. Let’s see which is which.

10) “Prehistoric Ice Man” (Season 2)

Parker and Stone themselves have claimed they find the writing in Season 2 to be particularly weak. Many die-hard fans of South Park‘s early days would beg to disagree, as episodes like “Ike’s Wee Wee,” “Chickenlover,” “The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka,” and “Chef Aid” are all stone-cold winners. But “Prehistoric Ice Man” does far more to back up their take on the season than the fans’ take.

All in all, it’s a middling episode. The only real highlight is the late Steve Irwin constantly talking about how he’s going to jam his thumb inside of various animals. But what very nearly sinks the sophomore season’s finale entirely is the lameness of the boys’ insults to one another. Parker and Stone’s biggest issue with the season seems to be that it was a case of trying to give the fans what they want. Specifically, the boys ripping on one another. For the most part, it’s still great, but in this episode it’s as if they just wanted to see how crass they could get, even if the insult itself doesn’t make sense. Worse yet, if any episode on this list flat-out doesn’t feel like a season finale, it’s this one.

9) “Cartman’s Mom Is a Dirty Slut” (Season 1)

“Cartman’s Mom Is a Dirty Slut” is an important episode when analyzing just how little South Park enjoys sticking to convention. This isn’t so much because it’s an episode that caps off the season with a cliffhanger, but rather where it led.

Of course, Season 2 opened with “Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus,” which had absolutely nothing to do with this episode. As could be expected, that spawned a fan backlash, which Parker and Stone ate up like a dessert. When “Cartman’s Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut” finally did air, it proved itself to be the funnier of the two. Even still, Season 1’s closer is a solid episode…it’s just that the episodes that follow are better.

8) “Stanley’s Cup” (Season 10)

While we’re on the topic of episodes that ruffled people’s feathers, there’s really no better example than “Stanley’s Cup.” It rubbed viewers the wrong way for several reasons. For one, there’s a cancer-focused throughline that was a little too flippant about the disease for some people’s liking.

Secondly, there’s the episode’s closing scene, which has the pee wee hockey team Stan is coaching go head-to-head with the Detroit Red Wings. And suffice it to say the Red Wings do not pull their punches. But, for those who can get behind it, the conclusion is one of the funniest in the show’s history and, as far as ways to end a season go, it has to be the least expected in television history.

7) “A Very Crappy Christmas” (Season 4)

There’s just something about the first four seasons of South Park. Watching them now is nostalgia fuel. And, by the end of those four years, South Park itself was beginning to feel a bit nostalgic.

“A Very Crappy Christmas” was the best way to cap South Park‘s formative years. After all, it shows footage from Jesus vs. Santa, half of The Spirit of Christmas, which was what helped put Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and South Park itself on Comedy Central’s radar.

6) “Bloody Mary” (Season 9)

Some people really love Season 9’s “Bloody Mary” while others find it to be extremely offensive. Perhaps that’s what makes it such a solid season finale. Not to mention, it was one of the earliest episodes to devote most of its focus to Randy Marsh.

There are a few highlight moments, like Randy failing his breathalyzer test via an inadvertent dropping of his pants. But, overall, there are other entries on this list that are more important and, in general, funnier.

[RELATED: If You Had to Replace One of the Main South Park Kids, Who Would It Be?]

5) “World Wide Recorder Concert” (Season 3)

Mr. Garrison’s parents aren’t quite one-off characters who should return. Why? Because they’re put to such great use in Season 3’s “World Wide Recorder Concert.” It’s also the episode where everyone across the globe poops their pants (in Kenny’s case, to death).

It’s one of those episodes where there are essentially two A-plots. The one with the boys, where they’re trying to pinpoint just which note of music causes people to spill their bowels is fun, classic South Park stuff. But the pure messed up nature of Mr. Garrison feeling neglected because his father didn’t molest him is what bumps this episode towards the upper half of the pack.

4) “It’s Christmas in Canada” (Season 7)

This episode and the next entry on the list are essentially tied. The Emmy nomination for “It’s Christmas in Canada” was well-deserved as it’s overall a brilliant send-up of The Wizard of Oz.

The only thing that makes it fourth place instead of third is the fact that South Park‘s one-note depiction of Canadians isn’t for everyone. But, even factoring in Terrance and Phillip, this was the episode that did that one-note depiction the best. And, like the following entry on this list, “It’s Christmas in Canada” has a standout Cartman plotline. Here, he constantly complains about missing out on a “Christmas adventure” apparently fully failing to realize that he is, in fact, having a “Christmas adventure.”

3) “Red Sleigh Down” (Season 6)

Season 6’s “Red Sleigh Down” was released the same year as Black Hawk Down, and it wears the influence of that film on its sleeve to great effect. This is another winner of a Christmas episode and, considering it kills off Jesus (for quite a few seasons), it’s an important one.

The fact that the narrative’s core event, Santa Claus being kidnapped while delivering presents in Iraq, is caused by Cartman’s faux niceness to get presents is perfect. Jesus telling a pair of antagonists that he’s “packing” is much the same. Even still, the highlight (outside the closing moments saying from now on Christmas will be about remembering Jesus, as if it’s a novel idea) has to be when, instead of sparing the life of the man who tortures him, Santa just puts a half dozen bullets in his head.

2) “Butters’ Very Own Episode” (Season 5)

If the number one entry weren’t so brilliant, the hysterical “Butters’ Very Own Episode” would clinch the win. Butters Stotch was a presence on the show from the very beginning, but the first episode where he actually played a part in the narrative’s events was in Season 3. After that he would pop up on occasion but, in Season 5 he, well, got his very own episode.

The four boys are hardly in Season 5’s finale, and it shows that Butters is as capable of leading an episode as any of them. The central plot of his mom trying to kill him after discovering that her husband has been having sex with men is hilarious, as is the moment Butters first discovers his dad in a bath house (and has no idea what he’s seeing). Parker and Stone have come to regret how negatively John and Patsy Ramsey and Gary Condit were portrayed. But with O. J. Simpson, let’s face it, it’s fine.

1) “Woodland Critter Christmas” (Season 8)

The South Park season finales that followed Season 8’s “Woodland Critter Christmas” have all fallen far short. Admittedly, it’s been a mixed bag since then, but not even Season 11’s “The List,” Season 14’s “Crème Fraiche,” or Season 15’s “The Poor Kid” could measure up.

It’s also the best of the show’s Christmas-themed season finales, and Parker and Stone must have recognized they couldn’t do any better than it considering the didn’t revisit the holiday in a Season finale for another full decade. Season 8 as a whole is the show’s best, and this was the perfect way to end it. The very construction of the episode is brilliant. Cartman’s story is so involving that, like the other kids in his and Stan’s classroom, the viewer is desperate to hear how it ends (and, throughout most of the episode, the viewer doesn’t even know it’s just a story being told by Cartman). Of course, what the story really is, at the end, is an attack on Kyle.