Review: South Park “Member Berries”

How did the biggest animated franchise on the planet do in it’s 20th season premiere?

Spoilers Below

I wasn’t expecting to be impressed by the first episode of season 20 of South Park, “Member Berries”. I’m a huge fan of the show, but knowing that the episode would be super political, and that Trey and Matt often try to cram as much social commentary as they can into each episode, I was wary. Also, I didn’t know if they would continue the arc-style season like the last. I’m sure they will, and I don’t dislike it, but I’m getting used to it. It’s just….different.

Anyway, “Member Berries” started out a little slow, with the commentary on sitting down during the National Anthem (a recent hot button topic in the news) via a kids’ sports game, and of course Randy is betting on it. We also see there’s an internet troll saying nasty things about the girls on internet message boards. Cartman has a shirt that says “Token’s life matters”. (Black Lives Matter). Garrison is running for U.S. President with Cait Jenner as a running mate (they refer to him as “giant douche”) and Hillary Clinton is running against him (the “turd sandwich”) in a hilarious throwback to their previous episode featuring douche and turd.

See what I mean about the references? However, there were a ton of laughs. Cartman shines– there’s also a throwback to Stan’s cynical episodes. Garrison is trying to lose the election, and J.J. Abrams has been tasked with rebooting the National Anthem.

Some of the funniest bits occur with the episode’s namesake, the “member berries”. They are literal berries– drawn really cute– that say little things like “..’member Ghostbusters?” — basically a clever metaphor for nostalgia. Randy is introduced to them, and sits and listens to them in a dazed state, while eating them. But later, the nostalgia starts to go wrong. The member berries start saying awful things like “…’member when there were less Mexicans?” and “..’member Reagan?” which definitely got a huge laugh from me. Also, they reveal at the end of the episode who the troll is, and it’s surprising.

I feel like this episode was a surprising win. I always enjoy South Park much more than I realize. It takes the edge off all the nonsense in the world, and puts satire on all the stupid crap we deal with every day. We’re all exhausted with politics, political correctness, and everything else. Really looking forward to next week’s episode.