Rent South Park: Series 23 (2019)

South Park: Series 23 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

With South Park’s 23rd season, the show really has shown its age and just how behind the times it has become. It used to be provocative for its take-no-prisoners approach to satire. Sometimes it works with a perfectly poignant episode that makes biting commentary on the times. But that home run of an episode hasn’t been present for some time. And the whole centrist angle not only grows irritating but empty in this season more previous entries.

Let’s go through this episode by episode.

Mexican Joker: A commentary on ICE amid Randy trying to sell weed. The resolve, however, is that white people fear this treatment will create a Mexican Joker, highlighting fears about the Joker movie inspiring violence. There’s some decent bite to this episode.

Band in China: Poking fun at Chinese censorship, highlighting Disney. Randy gets involved while Stan, Kenny, Jimmy, and Butters have an okay B-story about starting a death metal band.

Shots!!!: This is basically a victory lap episode highlighting how South Park has been going for 300 episodes. We also get Eric fearing vaccines will cause autism where the only joke is that he mistakes autistic for artistic. For reference, the show has already done this joke with him confusing Aspergers for ass burgers.

Let Them Eat Goo: Diet commentary on the nature of plant-based foods that ultimately goes nowhere fast.

Tegridy Farms Halloween Special: More family frustrations over Randy’s weed business and Butters befriends a mummy. A forgettable Halloween episode.

Season Finale: This is probably the best episode of the season because it highlights a white family with entitlement issues over adopting Mexicans. There’s a decent payoff with Mexican Joker and a handful of solid jokes about white privilege.

Board Girls: Aaaand here’s where the season falls off a cliff. The whole episode is trying to point out how transgender women getting involved with sports is cheating. But, wait, you may say, didn’t I just laugh at entitled white people? Why can’t I laugh at transgender athletes? The reasoning is simple. The white family of the previous episode is posed as a middle-upper class household that is paranoid and has a victim complex. There are people like this in real life that you have likely met. This episode features a transgender woman posed as Randy Savage trying to cheat his way into women’s sports. You have never met a Randy Savage-style transgender athlete doing this. The episode is also framed in a way where PC Principal has to work up the courage to say this isn’t fair. Sure, in this scenario, it makes sense. But the highlight of how this reflects reality, even on a purely allegorical level divorced from comedic replication of the classic wrestler, does not hold water.

Turd Burglars: Germaphobe episode driven by a desire for a Star Wars video game. Not too much to say about this one.

Basic Cable: Disney+ commentary on the kid character Scott getting a subscription to impress a girl. A bit of meta-commentary about South Park and shows going to streaming services that ultimately means nothing considering where South Park would ultimately end up.

Christmas Snow: Santa becomes a downer by telling people not to drink so Randy sells cocaine. Wow, these Randy episodes get tiresome.

Overall, this season felt worse than the last considering how uninteresting the plot of Randy owning a weed farm becomes. And it looks like this plot isn’t going to end for quite some time. South Park, the once provocative and biting animated comedy, is now some of limpest of animated satire, stalling in its own neutral slow-lane of centrism.