Part six in my series of Trailer Park Boys reviews, as we gear up for the debut of Seasons 8 & 9! 

Part one: Seasons 1 & 2
Part two: Season 3
Part three: Season 4
Supplimental: “Dear Santa Claus, Go Fuck Yourself”
Part four: Season 5
Part five: Season 6

TRAILER PARK BOYS – The Complete Seventh Season (2007 Alliance Atlantis)

Even though it’s the most different from the classic, early seasons, the 7th and final season of Trailer Park Boys may be my favourite.  It featured a lot of changes, buit the show seemed revitalized by them.

Gone are Cory and Trevor, never to return (well, Trevor at least). In their stead are some new chracters: Tom Collins, the two “alien Trevors”, and expanded roles for Philadelphia and Jacob Collins. (Yes, apparently they are related! Nice ret-con.)

Ricky and Julian have roped Bubbles into helping them with their meat stealing business. Things go bad for Bubbles when he’s left in a freezing meat locker. (“Just pretend it’s winter,” says Rick. “Pretend you’re making snowmen out of meat.”) Bubbles decides never to work with the boys again, and then heads down to the United States with Ray (who is back on the road) selling scrap metal. Things go bad yet again when Ray is arrested for picking up two prostitutes (“friends of the road”), with Bubbles left hanging without a ride.

True friends Ricky and Julian head down to Maine to rescue Bubs, and to cheer him up, take him to a model train convention. There they meet Sebastian Bach (Skid Row) who wants to buy some of Ricky’s dope. A plan is set in motion, combining Bubbles’ skill with model trains and the Bach plan.

In other twists, Randy’s been messing around, and Lahey is still a cop, albeit things didn’t exactly work out for him the way he wanted them to. Jacob is obsessed with Julian, who realizes that he and his two “alien Trevor” buddies will make perfect “jail cover”. When Conky shows up, things get fucky.

Beefed up to 10 episodes, the 7th season was a change of pace.  A fresh direction was much needed after the 6th season, when it seemed Clattenberg and Co. were just treading water a bit. Having Sebastian Bach appear in multiple episodes was a stroke of genius, trumping the previous one-off with Alex Lifeson. Bach is hilarious.

The Rickyisms, amazingly, might be even more clever and off the wall this time. Another well written season, the absurdity of this show has been taken to an entirely new level. Smuggling dope across the border via a model train? It’s so stupid that you can’t help but laugh. All this leads up to a hilarious cross-border confrontation.

Sometimes a show suffers when new characters are needlessly added.  I don’t think that happened here.  Beefing up the characters of Jacob and Phil, as well as introducing Tom Collins, was exactly what this show needed before it seemed like it was on repeat. Sometimes a show needs a shot of new blood after this many seasons, and Trailer Park Boys was very lucky to have the entire original cast intact for 6 whole seasons plus a feature film. In addition, this season wraps up in a nice neat little package like never before. You may even get warm fuzzies. But will it last?

No, it wasn’t to last. One last episode was tacked on (“Say Goodnight To The Bad Guys”) which we will talk about next time.  The jail-freedom-jail-freedom cycle never ends!

Yeah, season 7 is probably my favourite. Not a weak episode in the bunch, and a great story arc.

5/5 stars