'South Park' Episode 1, Season 20 Review

Image from Screenrant

By Darian Scalamoni

            South Park has been a show that has been in existence since I was only two years old, and it hasn’t lacked in material ever since it’s began. For the first time ever last season, the show followed a linear storyline and I wasn’t too sure how I felt about it but it definitely made for some more laugh out loud moments. This season marks the monumental 20^th season of the animated comedy created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and boy, was it hysterical.

            The episode was titled Member Berries and in a perfect comically timed episode, it tackled (no pun intended) the current protest in the NFL started by San Francisco 49ers’ backup quarterback, Colin Kaepernick to kneel during the national anthem due to racial tension. They did so by opening the episode with a girls’ volleyball match in the South Park gymnasium stockpiled with the local townspeople as they waited to see how many players would sit down during the playing of the national anthem due to a misogynistic internet troll on their school message boards. While this is going on, Congress decides that the Star Spangled Banner needs to be rebooted so who do they go to other than, J.J. Abrams for help. This is playing off of the fact that Abrams recently directed the feature film Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens which essentially rebooted the Star Wars franchise as a whole. This opening imagery was laugh out loud funny and played so well to current issues in the sports and entertainment fields, respectively.

            In addition to these early gags, we also see our first extended look at Randy Marsh and his political stance in this season when he’s visited by a local pollster. Randy informs the man that his family will be voting for the “turd sandwich instead if the giant douche” meaning that they’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton over the giant douche who is Mr. Garrison doing his best Donald Trump impersonation, so it seems. This leads to more hilarious moments throughout that involves Clinton being referred to as “Mrs. Sandwich” during debates and showcases Garrison as a candidate that no longer wants to be taken seriously as him and his running mate, Caitlyn Jenner look to swing the votes more towards the turd sandwich.

            With Marsh stressing over the current state of the political polls in South Park, he is met with a solution thanks to Butters’ dad. He recommends eating a new superfruit called “member berries” to relax (hence the name of the episode). The fruit, which are small purple berries that utter nostalgic phrases initially relax Randy until they begin to ask him to remember politically incorrect standards causing a freak-out from Marsh.

            Also, within the main confines and story of the episode, Kyle and the victimized girls of South Park believe that Cartman is responsible for the messages in which the girls are being bullied online. Cartman denies being the internet troll but he doesn’t help his cause by hosting an assembly of sorts: a stand-up comedy show exclusively in which the girls of the school are to perform. After a failing attempt at this, he then fakes an attack from the girls afterward. Traumatized from the events, Cartman also says they drew a vagina on his face which is drawn actually to have a clitoris with testicles attached. It makes for a very, very funny moment to which Kyle notifies Cartman that vaginas don’t have balls. We eventually find out at the end of the episode to much of a surprise that it really isn’t Cartman who’s patrolling these acts of online bullying but it’s in fact, Kyle’s father, Gerald.

            This was a fantastic premiere episode for the long-running Comedy Central show that has transcended comedy television and animation programs everywhere. I think it was a great way to kick off the season.

8.7/10