It’s difficult to imagine that we’re now nineteen seasons into South Park. After 250 plus episodes, it’s interesting to stop and reflect on the shows legacy, despite being renewed up until 2019. While South Park has in no way suffered over time in the same way as the Simpsons, I feel the show has deviated too far from the glory days of episodes such as “Scott Tenorman Must Die” and “Butters’ Very Own Episode”. As the series has progressed, South Park has sharpened its satirical scalpel, becoming renowned for commenting on the most prevalent topics permeating through America during the week. It’s this ability to quickly piece together an episode of precise cultural parody that has gained Stone and Parker a great sense of notoriety. However, this constant need to cleverly air societal criticisms has meant that the show has arguably begun to suffer. Where the show once crafted clever story lines independent of what was plaguing America that week, it now seems to rely heavily on dissecting what’s in the news. While it’s admirable that the South Park team can so quickly inject the stories of the four boys with implicitly relevant social examinations, it seems that this comes at the price of newer episodes losing a sense of timelessness. Perhaps the most classic example of this comes in the form of “With Apologies To Jesse Jackson”, which found South Park analysing the controversy surrounding Michael Richards’ racially charged outburst in 2007. Watching the episode back, it has some beautifully constructed jokes, and a well paced story line. However, with the Richards’ controversy now over seven years old, the episode doesn’t feel as though it holds up nearly as well as when it first aired; it has lost its relevancy. While this may seem cynical, it’s important to concede that this culturally relevant approach is what has kept South Park from seeming exhausted and played out. It now feels as though the shows best strength is within the idea that it’s best consumed within a specific moment in time, while the wounds are still fresh.

Season 19 premiere “Stunning and Brave” continues this now expected trend, and I fear that, while it is a commendable episode at best, it may suffer as time goes on. The episode finds Principal Victoria fired, only to be replaced by the lazily named, PC Principal, who is an overtly politically correct dictator, that enforces his own views of outrage at the marginalisation of minority groups on everyone around him. Of course, as this is South Park, PC Principal simply serves as a metaphor, acting as the personification of the difficult to ignore groupthink of political correctness that is slowly rotting away at our society. The shows writers do an immaculate job of imbuing subtle implications about the politically correct crowd, with PC Principal quipping that he “Googled ‘South Park’” before he arrived. Of course, the insinuation is that the politically correct armchair activists truly have no authority on a large majority of these matters, as their substantiated research is nothing short of a quick glance at a Wikipedia article. While the uninspired naming of PC Principal infuriates me, his characterisation is undeniably on-point, with the newly instated authority figure being painted as an inconsiderate Oakley wearing douchebag. While I didn’t think the douchebaggery could be amplified, it’s the little touches that define this character, such as wearing his sunglasses on the back of his head, or folding his arms in such a way that his hands are tucked into his armpits, which made me appreciate him just that tiny bit more.

Naturally, a new authoritative figure results in problems for the boys, with Kyle being issued detention for airing that, “I don’t think Caitlin Jenner is a hero.” This is perceived as “transphobic, bigoted hate speech”, despite Kyle’s flawless logic that, “I didn’t like Bruce Jenner as a person when he was on the Kardashians, and I don’t suddenly like him now.” Of course, this line is quickly uttered, before Stan corrects him to check his pronouns. This line acts as a classic example of the boys ability to be the voice of reason, while the absurd chaos of the world constantly flies around them.

As Kyle struggles to resist against the unreasonable smarm of political correctness that has flooded the town, Cartman begins to question his own bigoted behaviour. He becomes disenchanted, doubting his highly unethical ways, only then persevering to challenge PC Principal, due to the inspiration of his hero, Tom Brady. The episode begins to falter at this stage, as it attempts to draw parallels between Eric’s own actions, and that of Tom Brady’s during the “Deflategate” scandal. Eric rationalises that he is an “invulnerable cheater” (read: Brady), who has come up against “an elitist corporate dictator” (read: NFL). While I don’t feel that this metaphor works as well as that of PC Principal, it’s refreshing to hear the honesty of the repercussions of that particular scandal, which the episode immaculately describes as “a perfect storm of hypocrisy that everyone in the country has to deal with for months on end.” The writers are correct; no one should have had to have been victim to such a petty scenario.

Cartman’s way of dealing with such a smug tyrant is to drench Butters underwear in PC Principal’s urine, with the intention of black mailing him for child molestation. Usually, older episodes would dictate that Cartman should succeed with such an insanely unethical plot, yet, he gets the shit beaten out of him by the Principal, forcing him to concede that, “I’m going to admit I did something wrong… I’m never going back to the person I was.” At first, it appears that this change of heart is all apart of a typically manipulative orchestrated plan on Eric’s behalf, but the episode portrays his change as genuine and honest; which is to suggest that the plot is entirely convoluted and unclear. Even if this change of character was done in severity, with the intent of changing Cartman’s perspective for the remainder of the season, it’s a massive stretch that assumes a large amount of intelligence on the behalf of the audience. And this is what just stinks of lazy to me: how can you assume the audience is so stupid that they needed to so explicitly name the new principal “PC Principal”, yet, they expect us to be able to draw the parallels and connect some widely spaced dots about Cartman’s unclear stance on political correctness?

PC Principal’s story then overlaps with that of Randy, who has been forced into nearly every episode for the past few seasons. While I appreciate Randy’s absurdist transformation from mildly stupid geologist to Homer Simpson level stupid, I feel that Randy is a character who shines brightest when used sparingly. I never thought it would be possible to be bombarded with too much Randy, but it now feels as though he’s stupidity is being jammed down our throats excessively, just for some dumbed-down “Bruh” jokes. It really just comes down to an exercise in restraint. “Stunning and Brave” sees Randy pledging for some sort of psuedo-PC fraternity, led — of course — by PC Principal for reasons unknown. Randy’s antics find him and the other pledges harassing Kyle, as he is perceived as a greater enemy to political correctness than Brett Favre, whose only true crime was clapping in a half-assed fashion for Caitlin Jenner. Despite my criticisms, Randy does deliver the best line of the episode, as he attempts to rationalise his frat fuelled drunken behaviour as simply imbibing in some “refreshments”.

Brett Favre.

However, the episodes ending is a rushed clusterfuck, finding Cartman outraged that his “friend” Kyle is being severely harassed by the PC fraternity. This really doesn’t seem to make any clear sense, as Cartman’s rationalisation to rush to the defense of Kyle seems to cloud his newly born-again persona. As it is Eric Cartman, his way of dealing with such a scenario is to bombard the PC frat house with the most un-politically correct things he can think of: pregnant Mexican women, Syrian refugees and ex-Subway spokesman, Jared. It should go without saying that this is a thickly veiled way of Stone and Parker justifying their own controversial decisions, rationalising through the smug toned voice of Cartman that, “joking about UN-PC things is important, as it starts a dialogue.” Yet, this doesn’t translate clearly on one run through of the episode. You could argue that I’m simply not perceptive enough to notice this on the first watch, but it did take two views to truly understand what this episode was trying to say. Yet, Cartman’s plan is derailed as — much to his own chagrin — Kyle concedes defeat, and admits that Caitlin Jenner is — in fact — a hero and an inspiration. This leads me to wonder, if Kyle didn’t interrupt the plan and conform to this new politically correct world, what the hell was Cartman’s end game? Furthermore, it was extremely disappointing to see perhaps the most ethically staunch character in the South Park universe — within Kyle — to admit defeat. Or maybe that’s some intended irony, in that the only people who can ethically challenge Kyle are those more morally uptight than himself. Regardless, the town applauds the “bravery” of Kyle, which is accompanied by a real life clip of Brett Favre’s weak applause. Usually, these interpolated clips of reality within the context of the South Park universe are hilarious (see: Nancy Kerrigan screaming “Why?” in agony during season 7’s “Toilet Paper”), but this clip only adds to the complicated and hurried nature of the episodes conclusion. “Stunning and Brave” never is tied up in a neat little package, but much rather, wrapped in newspaper with duct tape and carelessly thrown under a Christmas tree, as Kyle criticises that the only true victor of the entire episode’s scenario is Cartman, who takes pride in the fact that he’s going home to go fuck his non-existent Tom Brady looking wife, “that kind of looks like a dude”. So, this is all to assume that Cartman in fact, won, as he now has the immunity to be a politically incorrect asshole under the guise of being morally righteous. If this is what we are to assume as the viewer, then is that a sign of self-depreciating introspection on Stone and Parker’s behalf? We can’t really be sure, which is what truly irks me about this episode; there is no closure.

Ultimately, while this episode might be able to fool some with its confidence in its conviction, it doesn’t feel like a particularly strong start to the season. Furthermore, it is strongly inferred that PC Principal is to become a permanent fixture within the school and the show, as Principal Victoria was fired due to a student referring to rape as a “Hot Cosby”. If this is to be true, then this means that there is a strong possibility that season 19 will continue with the use of continuing storylines, much like last year. This is a trend that caused some division amongst the shows fans. While many appeared to appreciate the consistent throwbacks to jokes of previous episodes, such as Randy’s exhausted stint as Lorde, and the pervasiveness of gluten-free goods, I found the consistent recycling of jokes to be lazy, and appealing to the lowest common denominator. Why reuse jokes, when you can simply make new ones? And this episode has some great jokes, but I’m just not looking forward to hearing them for the next nine weeks.