20x09 Not Funny

7.8/10. I tend to enjoy when show’s go meta. So when Kyle complains to the denizens of South Park that they used to overcome a new challenge every week and then face the next one, but now they keep doing the same things over and over again, it comes off as a very funny acknowledgement of some fans’ real reactions to the serialized format. The same goes for Kyle asking Ike (who’s voiced by Trey Parker’s daughter) where he learned such foul language, and Ike responding “Daddy.” The grain of truth behind the comedy makes it all the more potent, and the self-reflexive quality of it adds a certain novelty.

And that’s really the genius of South Park, its topical bent, and its six-days-to-air immediacy. It allows the show to regularly inject a bit of reality into the program, even when the series isn’t commenting on itself. That makes the show feel vital and reflective of the current day along the lines of something like Last Week Tonight or SNL, but it has the remove of fiction and the benefit of its own world and characters that gives it the narrative distance to throw rocks at the news of the day.

That makes for a nice balance in scenes where folks as varied as Kyle himself and a returning Mr. Slave(!) call Mr. (President) Garrison to goad him into (or out of) bombing Denmark. Part of it works as a continuing critique of Donald Trump, and a fear that he’s so thin skinned and reactive that all it will take is a particularly irksome person challenging his authority or gumption to make him do something terrible like start a war in another country. Then, there’s the fear that he has no real principles and so an equally irksome person on the other side of the issue can just as easily manipulate him into flip flopping. So Garrison being equally moved by the silly insults of Mr. Slave and Kyle to go back and forth on whether he should bomb Denmark completely work as a parody of Trump.

But they also work on a pure comedy level, and as consistent characterization. I’m not sure how Matt and Trey lucked into making Garrison their Trump stand in so early in the game, but that idea works just as well with the temperamental, grudge-holding, mercurial Mr. Garrison we’ve known for two decades’ worth of South Park. The absurdity of the fact that he has world leaders and prominent figures on the phone, but is most interested in chatting with one of his former third grade students and ex-boyfriend is a hoot. (The same goes for him casually eating a pint of ice cream in the situation room.) The upshot is that the bit succeeds as both text and commentary – the comic ridiculousness of Mr. Garrison being president works perfectly in concert with the insanity of someone who shares certain qualities with Mr. Garrison actually being the president.

The same sort of idea flourishes in the Cartman/Butters side of the story. The “mission to mars” plotline functions well as an illustration of how people are worried about what’s happening and want an escape or a reassurance. But it’s also just a nice little twist for Butters to not only be convinced that girls won’t want boys around anymore (thus necessitating their starting over on Mars) but also slowly undermining Cartman’s faith in Heidi, and his new feminist ethos. Heidi solving the Mars fuel problems using emoji analysis is another fun and irreverent bit, but the real meat comes from Cartman crumbling so quickly at Butters’s adorable warning that girls will just “poop on your heart.” It’s a nice reversal of their usual relationship, where Cartman is able to persuade the easily suggestible Butters that some terrible event is going to befall them.

There is, however, a terrible event on the horizon, even if Butters’s fear of a “Planet of the Dames” style matriarchy is farfetched. For as much as Season 20 of South Park has had some trouble keeping up momentum and consistency amid the new serialized format, the escalation and reveal that the head of Trolltrace is himself a master troll, doing it all for the lulz, is a great development.

The reveal works because it completely turns Gerald’s self-justifying nonsense on its head. When faced with the consequences of his own actions, Gerald lets himself off the hook, claiming that he’s just pushing buttons to be funny. It’s a feint, a way to take things he does to get his own jollies, and claim that they’re a part of some larger social movement that provides an overall good to society. He professes regret and apology for the bad things that have happened, but chalks himself up as being harmless at worst and a force for good at best.

That’s why the Trolltrace reveal is so brilliant. As amusing as seeing the Rickroll once more is, there’s the idea of the faux-Danish head of the company as the ultimate troll. He’s pushing everyone’s buttons, knowing that deep down, everyone has a little bit of troll in them, a little bit of a propensity to say things just to get a reaction, and a fear, much like Gerald’s that they’ll be exposed and judged for it. The idea of using that common part of human nature to turn people against each other, to fear a result that could be avoided if everyone respected one another’s privacy and didn’t “feed the trolls” is a bit of South Park’s usual incisiveness, and a deft narrative move as well. The fact that it shocks Gerald, to hear his own self-justifications used by someone starting World War III and claiming it’s all good because it’s funny, is the icing on the cake.

But it’s also that much more potent because it works for South Park itself. That same criticism, that same hypocrisy, can be directed at the very show exposing it, and I think Matt and Trey (and the rest of their team) are very self-aware on that front. For twenty years, South Park has been a show that pushes peoples buttons, that provides social commentary, that uses foul language and shock value and other arguably trollish methods against assorted public figures and ideas under the auspices of making people laugh and exposing the ridiculousness at the core of some of the world’s major issues through the lens of comedy.

Over the past two seasons, however, there’s been more self-reflection about that as revealed through episodes like this one, where South Park is, perhaps, acknowledging that as much as folks like myself enjoy the humor and the wry take on the issues of the day, there’s consequences to what they do that can’t just be shrugged off.

From the show’s early days, when Kyle and Stan made fun of a Charlie Brown movie asking “Why do cartoon characters always have such big heads?” there’s been a strain of self-awareness and self deprecation. As the show rounds out its second decade on the air, that reflection goes deeper and deeper, and makes the points of a show where kindergarteners spout curse words, Danish workers force internet trolls to strip and watch Rick Astley videos, and Presidents go to war because they were called little bitches, somehow feel weighty, potent, and smart as it continues to push buttons of its own.