Join Cartman, Kenny, Stan, and Kyle as they have a memorable Halloween, get super cereal with Al Gore, and try to win the top prize in the town’s bike parade in the enduringly popular series’ incredible 22nd season.
“South Park” has always been a neurotically told mirror held up to our best and worst inclinations. Whether it’s an elaborate diatribe of Tom Cruise hiding in Stan’s closet or the absolute evisceration of both Donald Trump (a Giant Turd) and Hillary Clinton (a Turd Sandwich), the show has foisted some rather poignant moments upon us in between the dick and poop jokes. Recently “South Park” has started a campaign to cancel itself. Rumor has it creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone can’t quite keep up with the ridiculous amount of lunacy in the world these days. It shows. This season of South Park, while lampooning fewer politics than its previous seasons, has very hit or miss episodes as it tries to establish a life outside of the political satire it languished in for several seasons.
Nothing about “South Park”’s animation or characters or world in general has changed. Instead, “South Park” moved from an episodic TV show (each episode is self-contained) into a more serial program (meaning they all follow one season long arc.) This season lambasted several cultural highlights (and low lights) namely: School shootings, Catholic priest sex abuse, electric scooters, vapes, Colorado’s weed farming, climate change, Al Gore, and Amazon Prime. While this frenetic pacing of topics per episode is nothing new to the casual “South Park” viewer the approach to each one wavers in execution.
The season starts out strong with an episode on school shootings in a tone that’s darkly hilarious and only very very few will appreciate. It moves from there to a few middle of the road episodes and lands its mid-season finale on a hilarious take on climate change. Al Gore gets to walk around South Park saying “I told you so” over and over to everyone’s chagrin. Sandwiched in between these ridiculous over-the-top roasts are episodes laughing at vape culture or the hemp farmers’ movement. I’m pretty sure there was a parody of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” except electric scooters were the birds. I swear I can’t make this stuff up.
“South Park”’s approach has always been to tackle subjects head-on. They never shy away from laughing at emotional apathy or even turning a mundane subject into a full-on musical. It’s what they’re known for: pushing everyone’s boundaries. This season works in some instances (especially on topics near and dear to everyone’s hearts – the broad ones like school shootings and climate change) but applying that acme mallet hammer to simpler topics like Amazon Prime doesn’t quite carry the same effect. It’s an overreach to ridicule something in broad strokes the way they do sometimes (and humanize in other times).
Look, no one watches “South Park” expecting to be enlightened. It’s a place for fart jokes and “c” words and some kind of ridiculous plot. It’s animated so the creators can really take it anywhere they want to (and they have before.) Still, it speaks to this older generation of watchers that our empathy can only be employed on so many topics before we’re just burned out. I admire the way they lambaste everyone and everything but in such broad strokes this season it only delivers half the time. I get the feeling Trey and Matt may be a little burned out on society too.
Episode Suggestions:
• Episode 1: Dead Kids
• Episode 3: The Problem With A Poo
• Episodes 6 & 7: Al Gore takes on Man-Bear-Pig
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