‘South Park’ Dropped the C-Word in Vulgar Jeff Bezos Diss

After 22 seasons on the air you would think that South Park has said every vulgar word in the book. You would be wrong. In an epic finale that combined scathing Jeff Bezos and Amazon takedowns, the entire town getting high, and yes and parade of bikes, South Park finally dropped the c-word in their recent “Bike Parade” episode. And it was Santa Claus, of all people, who did it.

This season has jumped all over the map from painful comedy pieces about America’s ambivalence to school shootings to admitting that Al Gore was right all along about ManBearPig, er, global warming. But it’s been the last two episodes and their takedown of Amazon that have done the most work unifying this disjointed story. The second to last episode “Unfulfilled” starts with the boys wanting to compete in a neighborhood bike parade. To do that they need supplies from Amazon. The only problem is Amazon workers in South Park have been striking over employee mistreatment and that one time one of their colleagues was turned into a human package. So far, so weird yet topical.

“Bike Parade” is the natural progression of “Unfulfilled.” While the town strikes, a muscular telepathic version of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos uses their own greed to hold the town hostage. It’s bleak, but in the finale’s darkest hour the jolliest of saviors sweeps down to save the day — Santa Claus.

Santa is more than happy to save the stupidest town on television from Jeff Bezos’ all-encompassing reign, but he just has one question. Where is his trusty companion, Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo? It’s when the mayor admits that Mr. Hanky was kicked out of town for his bad tweets that Santa snaps, delivering this diss: “Merry Christmas! Have fun sucking Jeff Bezos’ dick, you bunch of cunts!”

Homophobic implications aside, what’s remarkable about Santa’s last line is its vulgarity. Though South Park routinely curses, there does seems to be a hierarchy of bad language on the show. “Fuck” is often used but always bleeped out. However Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s possible first use of the c-word on television flew through the censors without a beep. God bless whatever poor soul is in charge of censoring that show.

Ultimately everything turns out just fine as is always the case in this series. Jeff Bezos is defeated by the ‘tegridy and the fortitude of local businesses. The bike parade went off without a hitch. Even Mr. Garrison, South Park‘s Trump stand-in, was arrested.

Even though the message of its finale confusingly drifted between an embrace of older values — something the show specifically warned against with its Member Berries — and hypocritical praise for how fast Amazon delivers packages, Season 22 stands as one of the tightest continuous seasons the series has produced. But the most interesting moment of this finale doesn’t have to do with Santa or even Jeff Bezos. It had to do with this show’s cancelation chances. All year Comedy Central has been marketing the phrase “Cancel South Park” and in Season 22’s last moments the series touched on exactly what this means. If people are really offended by it, how is this show still on the air? Are Matt Stone and Trey Parker supposed to just keep making asses of themselves, to borrow a quote from the show? Where exactly does South Park live in this more socially conscious era of television?

But at the end of the day none of this matters and there are no real answers. South Park is South Park. Few shows can include a nasty burn from Santa, a country song bashing Jeff Bezos, a pensive reflection about why this series hasn’t been canceled yet, and the line “Alexa, kill Kenny” in the same episode. If this is what ‘tegridy means, it’s… something.

Where to stream South Park