The Return of Chef

After leaving South Park to join the "Super Adventure Club", Chef returns and the boys quickly notice that he is acting strangely as he expresses a desire to have sex with them. They go to the Super Adventure Club headquarters and discover that the group is made up of explorers who travel worldwide, molesting children. When the explorers' leader, William P. Connelly, unsuccessfully tries to hypnotize the boys, they realize that the club has brainwashed Chef. In an attempt to restore Chef to his former self, the boys take him to a strip club. Chef returns to his old self, but the Super Adventure Club members appear, and kidnap him. The boys follow them back to their headquarters and rescue Chef. As they are leaving, Connelly reminds Chef why he joined the Super Adventure Club in the first place, telling him that his life will be grand and eternal if he stays with them. Though the boys plead him not to, Chef walks back towards the club. However, the bridge that Chef is crossing suddenly gets struck by lightning and collapses, causing him to fall to his apparent death, therefore soiling his pants after dying. As a funeral for Chef is held back in South Park, the Super Adventure Club members resurrect Chef as Darth Chef, now fully embracing the club's ethics. ==Production==

Series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone described season ten's production as turbulent, particularly more so than other seasons, because it seemed that each episode they produced caused controversy and thus resulted in distractions. They specifically cited the circumstances surrounding Isaac Hayes' departure from the show as being a catalyst for the extra attention the show began receiving. They decided to create "The Return of Chef" as a way of retaliating to the press release statement that Hayes had made regarding his departure. They thought that Hayes and the show had parted ways on good terms, and were somewhat angered by the release, calling it "ridiculous". Before that press release, however, Parker and Stone had been working on what would turn out to be "Cartoon Wars Part I" and "Cartoon Wars Part II", with the intent to open the season with those episodes. They ran into difficulties with the network and postponed those episodes until later in the season. Parker and Stone felt that if the statement by Hayes was never released, they would not have produced more episodes involving Scientology. ==Reception==

The original television airing of the episode drew more than 3.5 million viewers, including 2.3 million aged between 17 and 49. This popularity made the episode Comedy Central's highest-rated season premiere since "Jared Has Aides" in 2002 according to a Comedy Central spokesman and Nielsen Media Research. The episode was also ranked fourth in video sales on iTunes. Adam Finley reviewed the episode for TV Squad, and described the episode as "one of the funniest, and most memorable, of the series". ==Home media==

"The Return of Chef", along with the thirteen other episodes from South Parks tenth season, was released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on August 21, 2007. The set includes brief audio commentaries by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for each episode. ==References==