South Park continues to impress in its stellar 20th season. With episodes four and five, “Wieners Out” and “Douche and a Danish,” the show further developed the running plot threads of the election, trolling and the boys versus girls conflict, and weaved them together in hilarious and interesting ways.
Gerald’s story took a dramatic turn in these episodes as he was located by fellow troll “Dildo Shwaggins,” who warned him of the Danish plan to find all trolls. This led to some really interesting character moments for Gerald. Gerald doesn’t consider himself to be a creepy basement-dwelling troll, but rather a well-adjusted man who does it for laughs.
However, he has to face that this may be who he really is, causing him to experience some real cognitive dissonance that was engaging to watch. This ends soon though, as he joins a secret community of trolls to harass the entire country of Denmark in response to a new website the country built to find and expose all trolls, a website that has tools to expose anyone else as well.
The rest of “Wieners Out” was focused on the boys vs. girls conflict, where Kyle tried to find a peaceful solution to the gender drama by suggesting the boys show support for the girls’ volleyball team to show the boys care about them. This is undermined by none other than Butters. He whips out his wiener during the national anthem at the game in defense of men’s rights (having nothing, of course, to do with his recent dumping by his Canadian girlfriend from the last season). This led to a very humorous scene of PC Principal in a “PC Pretzel” by having to respect both the boys’ protest and the girls’ original protest, for he couldn’t body-shame the boys’ wieners.
Cartman, fresh from his vaginal awakening, turned into a painful advocate for social justice. With them sporting “Token’s life Matters” shirts, the show follows him and his new girlfriend, Heidi, as they began to try to mend the gender gap. They also gross out and confuse everyone in the process as they have become “that” couple. (With disgusting amounts of public affection.)
The episode “Douche and a Danish” brought Mr. Garrison back into the limelight. It chronicled his attempts to crash his campaign to avoid being president. The show’s creators used his Trump parallel to respond to Trump’s recent tape scandal. Mr. Garrison went into a stand-up like rant where he claimed he would put his finger up a woman’s ass. He added, “You’ve been okay with ‘Fuck Everyone to Death,’ all the Mexican and Muslim shit, but fingers in the ass did it for ya? Just wanted to see where your line was,” at women leaving his rally. What followed were hilarious scenes of angry supporters and campaign crew members feeling duped and chasing Garrison as he tried to run away from the race.
Garrison tried to run back into school to teach the children, and also encountered Randy’s member berry support group where he learned the connection between him, member berries, Star Wars and the ominous J.J. Abrams.
Overall, the episodes worked really well by continuing the plot threads in interesting and humorous ways. Both episodes contained hilarious scenes that don’t deserve to be spoiled. Trey and Matt’s approach to satirizing sensitive topics, like the Trump campaign and trolling, were masterfully done, skillfully balancing bipartisanship and humor. Much of their points centered on over-reaction, how terrible trolling en masse can be and the dangers of a hasty counter-response.
It wasn’t all perfect; the new Cartman is the weak link. Watching his new form has been entertaining, but it’s starting to become irritating as I lose patience with what his secret motivations really are.
Despite this, I am more than pleased with these episodes, and South Park‘s story structure is continuing to pay off. I am excited to see what’s in store next. Maybe J.J. Abrams could just reboot the entire election process with a new cast? I would appreciate that.
Contact CU Independent Arts Writer Austin Willeke at austin.willeke@colorado.edu.
