Can ‘South Park’ Bounce Back From Its Lackluster Last Season?

Last season should have been a slam dunk for South Park. It was an election year, the show already had an incredible Trump surrogate, and characters like the ever-absurd PC Principal were more relevant than ever. Instead, it was a mess.

Season 20 of South Park started off strong. “Member Berries” was one of the smartest, strongest, and silliest episodes this series has seen in awhile, and I say that as someone who is a fan of modern seasons. The brilliance of “Member Berries” stems from one of South Park’s ultimate strengths — it’s ability to start somewhere grounded and, in the span of 22 minutes, transform into something so spectacularly insane, it’s hilarious. The episode starts with the citizens of South Park obsessively watching a girls’ volleyball game to see which athletes will sit out the National Anthem and ends with Mr. Garrison poised to be South Park’s Trump, a Star Wars-loving fruit transitioning from quaint and nostalgic to racist, and JJ Abrams rebooting the National Anthem. It’s a truly great episode of television.

The problem is that the rest of Season 20 ignored South Park’s own strengths. Rather than give itself the blank slate the show needs to reach peak levels of ridiculousness, Season 20 used “Member Berries” as a foundation, and it heightened from there, becoming one long, winding rehash of this first episode. In many cases, Season 20 did not accurately reflect the world it was trying to parody, it did not comedically heighten that world, and it spent so much time on building its own mythology it often forgot to be funny. In short, this was an inflexible season of the most flexible show on television, and it didn’t really work

However, it doesn’t have to be this way for Season 21. Whereas Season 20 pushed the boundaries of South Park‘s ability to create plot continuity, by all accounts Season 21 seems to be a return to form for this very weird show. Here’s where South Park went wrong last season and how the things it did right should help the show in the future.

Season 20 focused too much on the election.

It makes sense why South Park would want to devote so much time and energy to the 2016 election. After all, it was the all-consuming cultural event that dominated part of 2015, all of last year, and has dominated most of this year. Of course a show that prides itself on responding to cultural events in as close to real time as possible would have to cover the election. However, the problem with having Mr. Garrison’s presidential run act as a cornerstone of this season is that is drastically limited the impact of South Park’s commentary.

Part of what makes South Park such an effective source of cultural commentary is its speed and brevity. Typically, the series only devotes one or two episodes to a politician, idea, or phenomenon it doesn’t like. It’s become so all-pervasive now it’s hard to remember, but the Douchebag vs. Turd Sandwich presidential analogy only came from one episode (“Douche and Turd”) as did Al Gore’s “ManBearPig.” Simply put, the more time South Park spent with Mr. Garrison, the less impact its election commentary had, and the more chance the show had to mess things up.

That’s exactly what happened. South Park’s take on Trump often felt inauthentic to the man who was running for president. South Park’s Trump was petty, rude, and grandiose to a fault much like the real candidate and later president, but he was also self-aware. In “Member Berries” Mr. Garrison realizes that there’s an actual chance he may be elected for a position he’s deeply unqualified for, and this realization terrifies him. Mr. Garrison then spends the remainder of his run doing everything he can to get Turd Sandwich (Hillary Clinton) elected. The lesser of two evils analogy South Park established certainly held up throughout the entire season, but a self-aware Trump intent on sabotaging himself did not. However, because South Park had already committed to the “Trump realizing his faults” storyline, that version of Trump held until he was elected in “Oh Jeez” and stayed throughout the remainder of the season.

This presidential focus also suffered from real life being stranger than fiction. Any way you look at it, the 2016 election was a bizarre chapter in American politics. News about Clinton’s emails was breaking until Election Day, and Trump’s name will forever by linked to the comment “grab them by the pussy.” It’s difficult to make ridiculous jokes in an environment that’s already insane. Most of the comedy scene suffered from this blow, but South Park, which was focusing more on politics than ever before, was balancing a new storytelling structure, and has always prided itself on being the most absurd show on television, was hit the hardest. It was just hard for Matt Stone and Trey Parker to outrun the absurdity of real life, which is a problem the series shouldn’t face in Season 21.

This season is moving away from the draining in-season serialization.

South Park started playing with in-season continuity in Season 18, and for the most part, these through lines have added a really refreshing breath of new life to the series. It’s funny to now see Tweek and Craig casually referred to as a couple or for Stan to make a passing jab at his dad, Lorde. However, these small through lines have always held up because they’re silly and unexpected. Every time South Park tries to build a season up of a big climax, it collapses.

It happened in Season 18’s “#HappyHolograms,” Season 19’s “PC Principal Final Justice,” and it happened in a big way in Season 20’s “The End of Serialization As We Know It.” South Park is such an insane show that’s willing to go into so many different tonal directions, it’s hard for the series to come together at the end. It’s he show’s flexibility that has kept the series not only relevant but at times essential to pop culture. Forcing it to stick to an ultimate end-of-season plan removes most of that flexibility, speed, and fun. Which brings me back to “Member Berries.”

If you watch Season 20’s first episode alongside its last, they watch as two versions of the same joke. The first is concise, irreverent, and funny, something you would expect from an experienced comedian. The other is rambling and a bit too self-congratulatory. That was the problem with Season 20. The series nailed the points it wanted to make in the first episode, so adding nine more episodes about it just felt exhausting.

That being said, there were some elements that bettered with time. I’m a sucker for any story arc that transforms Kyle in the villain and Cartman into the hero, largely because it’s so opposed to who these two characters are that when it’s done correctly, it’s brilliant. Also, Cartman’s insistence that women are funny and smart only got better with time as did the Member Berries’ increasingly more specific Star Wars references. However, most of the serialized elements that worked had to do more with character development than continuity. The troll trace plot started getting old by “Members Only,” the trolling vs. satire argument never felt like it could last past a single episode, and while Mr. Garrison’s transition into Trump was fun at first, it quickly fell flat. Season 20 was a deeply ambitious season, and one that had several highs. But it also had some inconsistent moments and frustrating lows.

That’s going to change with Season 21. Parker and Stone have already announced that this upcoming season will have less serialization than Season 20 and will feature Trump less, which feels like an excellent direction for the series. South Park always works best when it’s been able to do whatever it wants. Removing those strict serialized parameters will allow that flexibility to return. However, South Park’s ongoing experiment with serialization has also led to some of the funniest and most heartfelt moments the show has ever seen. PC Principal is an excellent character who has only been bettered by his past, and Stan’s hints of nihilism are always darkly funny. I didn’t love Season 20, but I’m happy that this show that’s been comfortably on the air since 1997 is willing to experiment. South Park may have been a bit rough before, but it’s learning, and hopefully, it’s going to come back better than ever.