TV Review: South Park's Season 27 Premiere Is One Of The Series Best Episodes
Did Paramount not see this coming? Did they really think that the guys who wrote “Shut Your Fucking Face, Uncle Fucker” in 1999, who depicted the prophet Muhammed five times (nearly inciting a religious war), who have ridiculed nearly every major religion, president, trend, fad, controversy and person since the late 1990s weren’t going to do something like this?
After weeks of back-and-forth, South Park kicked off its 27th season with an episode titled “Sermon on the Mount” that proves one thing and one thing only: Trey Parker and Matt Stone truly do not give a fuck what anyone thinks, and the results are still as shocking and funny as they were when they premiered in 1997. I think it’s clear that while the teasers leading to the new season - initially supposed to be released on July 9th - seemed to show a completed episode poking fun at air traffic controllers and Elon Musk, Parker and Stone did what they always seem to do: scrap everything and work up until the last second on a brand new episode to keep the show as relevant as possible. They do not hold back their feelings about the Paramount merger or the President. It is the biting satire that they have always been known for, with the gas pedal pushed firmly all the way down and firing on every cylinder.
Eric Cartman is sad - the President has cancelled his favorite radio station, NPR. You know, the one where all the liberals call in to whine and complain. It’s his favorite comedy show (oh, Eric.) But now, it appears that everything “woke” is disappearing. Even PC Principal, Cartman’s finest adversary, has turned against it. Changes are coming to South Park Elementary in a big way: Jesus is coming (back), and Christianity is coming back into the classroom. Without anything “woke” to rebel against, Cartman spirals into a deep depression.
The parents are getting pissed off; they voted for the guy who removed “woke”, but it’s made things worse. Naturally, all the parents get together to confront the President, parodied in previous seasons by South Park teacher Mr. Garrison. But the angry mob finds Garrison at home, resting on the couch, with his partner, watching The White Lotus. It’s not him. But then, who could it be?
We cut to the White House and see Trump’s talking head plastered over a South Park character's body, just like Saddam Hussein’s appearance in the South Park movie back in 1999. This is intentional. His voice his high-pitched, he whines about everything, threatens to sue everybody, and then ends up in bed with another familiar character - Satan, who keeps bringing up how involved Trump is in the Epstein files and pointing out how he has a small penis. None of this is a typo. You are reading all of this correctly.
The episode ends with the city of South Park settling a lawsuit with Trump and agreeing as part of the settlement to make several pro-Trump ads, this being a reference to the settlement that was reached between CBS and Trump dating back to a 60 Minutes interview, which Trump stated caused his campaign great harm. You know the presidential campaign I’m talking about, right? The one that caused him to win the election?
The team of South Park bands together and creates a deepfaked video of Trump wandering through the desert, getting naked, and, well…you can watch it here for yourself. I won’t ruin the surprise (but oh, have you been warned).
South Park works at its best when Parker and Stone are left to their own accord. If you tell them not to do something, you can bet that what they hear is, “Oh, got it! Okay, it’s going to be the theme of our episode next week. We’re going to scrap everything we’ve already written and make our entire job doing the thing you told us not to do.”
There is no doubt that there will be far more incendiary episodes to follow this season. It’s how they’ve always worked, and it’s why South Park is still one of the most relevant television shows in history, whether you love it or hate it.
The Trump White House is reportedly furious about the scale of this depiction (or lack thereof), calling South Park “fourth-rate” and a show that “hasn’t been relevant in the last twenty years”. Interesting. Well, Paramount must have felt it to be relevant, since Stone and Parker just received a payout of $1.5 billion the day before the show aired. That payout, in addition to the release of this episode, is maybe one of the ballsiest moves in television history, and a surefire way to make it clear who has the biggest dick in the room.
South Park airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on Comedy Central, and next day on Paramount+.
