The following article may contain spoilers for episode one of “South Park.”
“South Park’s” 29th season premiered on Sept. 16, and it came back better than ever.
Leading up to the 29th season, “South Park” won the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program for the first time in 13 years. After the win, “South Park” took to social media to taunt current President Donald Trump, posting an image of Trump in a celebratory pose, along with the text, “you finally got your Emmy.”
Clearly this post proved that “South Park” creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are not backing down from poking fun at the current president, this time going after his continued outspokenness that his show, “The Apprentice,” never won an Emmy. This show also changed all their social media handles and logo to read “South America,” continuing to poke fun at Trump by attacking his recent renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America.
The heavy political attacks on social media made me nervous going into Season 29, especially because during the last two seasons I grew fatigued of the focus on politics and Trump. This being said, the first episode of Season 29 is a pleasant return to form for the show.
Season 29 premiered with the episode “South American Biker Gangs,” addressing a topic affecting our everyday lives, this being the prevalence of electric bikes across small towns in America. The episode follows the four boys getting e-bikes, with Eric Cartman getting one after begging his mom, while the other three boys, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny, buy cheap e-bikes from the City Bike Shop, run by Tuong Lu Kim. The show then moves to Randy Marsh becoming one of those bikers that thinks they are the next Lance Armstrong or Chris Froome, along with following his, and the other dads’ in town, hatred of the e-bikes. The dads in town increasingly become more violent in their efforts to get rid of the e-bikes, with Stan, Kyle, and Kenny eventually coming up with a plan to end the violence. Kenny steps in to broker peace between the kids and adults, but afterwards is killed when his e-bike explodes. The town then uses Kenny’s death as a scapegoat to outlaw e-bikes, while also capitalizing on the tragedy by selling shirts that say “South America Strong.” The episode then ends with Cartman getting his e-bike confiscated, while he weeps and is completely devastated that he is no longer “better than everyone else.”
Season 29’s premiere was an episode designed for the fans. Not only did the episode shift away from focusing on politics and Trump, something the fans have been begging for after Seasons 27 and 28, but it also saw the return of one of the show’s oldest jokes, killing off Kenny McCormick. The show also saw the return of Mike Judge voicing Kenny’s unmuffled lines, a rare occurrence for the character. This was also the first time since the 1999 film, “South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut” that Judge has provided the character’s voice.
The remainder of the season will be released on a bi-weekly schedule, with episodes coming out Sept. 30, Oct. 14, Oct. 28, Nov. 11, and Nov. 25. Each episode airs at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central, and is available the next day on Paramount+.
