Review: South Park ‘Stunning and Brave’

Spoilers Below:

In the season 19 premiere, South Park Elementary fired Principal Victoria and hired a more tolerant leader named P.C. Principal to diversify the school and forcefully enforce a more tolerant attitude.

Kyle almost immediately got into trouble for saying, “I don’t think Caitlyn Jenner is a hero.” When Kyle’s dad told his buddies at the bar about the incident, they all agreed that Jenner is a hero, fearing the wrath of the politically correct college bros that frequent the pub.

Back at school, Cartman was fighting his four-day detention sentence – à la Tom Brady – by attempting to frame the new principal with a child rape rap. Instead, the bro ended up picking apart the casual comments by Cartman and insisted he’s intolerant. He then beat the shit out of Eric. In his hospital bed, Cartman repented on his previously hate-filled attitude and actions.

Randy went to confront the principal, but ended up being hazed into the fratty group of P.C. dudes run by the principal, which he went along with for the booze. He was eventually required to “check someone’s privilege” (basically shaming them in humiliating ways), and that person turned out to be an unrepentant Kyle.

When Cartman found out his friend was in trouble, he launched another attempt to frame the principal and his P.C. frat by planting pregnant Mexican women & tacos, Syrian refugee children, and Jared from Subway at one of their parties. It was working, but eventually Kyle stepped in to stop everything, proclaiming that Caitlyn Jenner is a hero, and also stunning.

The episode ended with Randy making it into the frat based on Kyle’s conversion, and Cartman opined that sometimes joking about un-PC things can actually be important because it starts a dialogue. Kyle then pointed out that Cartman is only saying that because he’s the only one that really won in this situation – just like Tom Brady.

In Case You Missed It:

1) At the start of the emergency school meeting, Randy immediately threw a ball of paper at Mr. Mackay.

2) Cartman’s detention was for calling someone “clitty litter.”

3) Why is there a window that looks into the faculty bathroom?

4) Butters did have many lines, but his “Oh no!” was amazing.

5) Cartman doing his own echo will never get old.

6) When all the people were sent by Cartman into the frat house to get everyone in trouble, amidst all the chaos, Jared could be seen getting held back from the children.

Welcome back, South Park. (And Kotter.) We missed you, and can’t wait for your extremely short ten-episode season. (Guys, we’re already 10% of the way through now! NOOOO!) Thanks for not disappointing.

This was the epitome of current South Park episodes. It may not contain as many big laughs as some of the classics, but in some ways it’s still just as funny. The plots used to be something that simply connected the jokes together on the show, but now more and more plots are the joke. What the characters are doing is just as funny as a lot of the lines of dialogue, in some instances. This is one of those.

Obviously the show is doing one of their signature things where, although the tone and delivery can vary, every side of an issue is expressed by someone in the episode – extreme to extreme. And although one can generally guess what the final stance taken by Trey & Matt will be, it’s hard to be sure exactly how they’re going to present it. This one took a neutral-ish approach by saying P.C. people are somewhat necessary to keep others in line, but we shouldn’t all have to walk around on eggshells, and jokes should be acceptable as a way to start dialogues on issues – assuming they aren’t totally malicious about it. Although, as Cartman smartly hinted at, it’s hard to have your cake and eat it too.

This installment also did a few other positive things. For one, it referenced old episodes (toward the beginning, via P.C. Principal), but managed to do it in a way that was actually funny. It didn’t ruin any classic jokes or try to add on to them unnecessarily – it was simply the use of past episodes as past offenses committed by South Park residents.

Oddly enough, there were (at least) two funny junk jokes: Cartman telling Princical P.C., “By all means, keep your dick out,” as well as the Randy pointing out that “Dicks on your face are a very first-world problem.”

It was also nice, as always, to see how extremely topical South Park can be. Of course they’ve been sitting on the Caitlyn Jenner topic for months, but the Tom Brady and Syrian refugee issues have only taken place in the last few weeks. The quick turnaround never ceases to impress me.

Was this as funny as a topical social issue episode like last year’s “The Cissy”? Not quite. And it didn’t take as strong of a stance as that one either. Coincidence? Probably. Why is this? I don’t know…less funny jokes? Cartman being nice for a bunch of it?

Whatever the answer, this was still a strong episode, probably on par with the premiere of season 18. Last year was a fantastic season, so if that’s any indication, I can’t wait for the rest of this one.

Who are we kidding? I already couldn’t wait.