‘South Park’ Takes on Anti-Maskers, Bitcoin and Matt Damon in Wild Season 25 Premiere

There hasn’t been loads to chuckle about over the previous two years, which could be why South Park has been comparatively dormant. Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s animated Comedy Central hit has lengthy rooted its humor in well timed considerations, and whereas that’s continued to be true throughout the pandemic, it’s resulted in solely a quartet of COVID-era specials, the final of which—November’s South Park: Submit Covid and December’s follow-up, South Park Submit Covid: The Return of Covid—imagined a dismal future through which the world was nonetheless grappling with the viral plague. Thus, because the collection lastly returns for a correct season (its 25^th), it stays to be seen how recurrently Parker and Stone will deal with our ongoing international nightmare—though at the very least on the premise of its eagerly anticipated premiere, the present doesn’t appear prone to cease pushing topical buttons.

“Pajama Day” kicks off the most recent South Park run with Kyle, Stan, Cartman and their colourful classmates going again to high school following a break marred by “a number of distractions.” Whereas it’s not laborious to infer what that refers to, COVID isn’t overtly talked about as soon as throughout the ensuing, extraordinarily foolish half-hour. Relatively, the preliminary focus is Mr. Garrison, who regales his college students with tales about his new affair with a gray-haired and mustached gentleman named Rick, whom he far prefers to his “narcissistic psychopath” prior beau Marcus. This wholly inappropriate narrative is quickly interrupted by each an look by Rick (who finds his presence within the classroom awkward), and a name from Marcus that goes haywire when the children—who’ve been ordered by Mr. Garrison to remain quiet—refuse to assist again up their trainer’s claims to his ex. Their silence sends Mr. Garrison into an abject tizzy, thereby attracting the discover of PC Principal, who views the fourth graders’ disobedience as so disrespectful that he does the unthinkable: he prevents them from sporting pajamas on the college’s upcoming Pajama Day.

“We hold not doing something improper, and we hold getting fucked!” laments Cartman about this punishment, and that sentiment is among the episode’s many thinly-veiled allusions to America’s current frame of mind. When Wendy asks PC Principal to rethink, he counters by declaring that with a view to mission energy and management, he has to stay to his weapons—after which derides Wendy and her buddies for making Nazi Germany references simply because they haven’t gotten what they needed. It’s not lengthy earlier than nearly everyone seems to be slandering PC Principal’s stance because the form of measure that solely a goose-stepping Third Reicher may love, together with an area TV information reporter who goes from casually dropping German phrases into his broadcasts to sporting an SS uniform and screaming at youngsters as a Deutschland band performs within the background.

South Park’s residents are so outraged by PC Principal’s anti-Pajama Day actions that they retaliate by publicly sporting their pajamas in a present of assist for the children. As is usually South Park’s specialty, this sweeping sleepwear motion takes place to the tune of an absurdly cheery ditty—right here, a buoyant youngsters track whose lyrics ask “What time is it?” after which reply, “Pajama time!” What begins as a communal act of solidarity, nonetheless, rapidly turns right into a contentious craze, since some South Park residents resolve that they don’t wish to put on their pajamas, and vehemently object to being ridiculed at work, or denied entry to IHOP, for his or her alternative. As soon as the police grow to be concerned, arresting pro- and anti-pajama people alike, South Park devolves into a well-known powder keg.

Parker and Stone aren’t refined about their pajamas-as-masks metaphor, however then, who tunes into South Park for subtlety? Frustratingly, although, “Pajama Day” lacks a transparent perspective—a shortcoming that usually mars these ripped-from-the-headlines (and rushed-through-production) installments. Since everyone seems to be ultimately decried by their enemies as Nazis, the fabric’s true satirical goal is revealed to be our overheated rhetoric-of-demonization. But with out extra focus, such skewering feels unnecessarily scattershot, as if the present doesn’t wish to come down on both facet of the persistent public safety-vs.-personal freedom masks divide. Rather than boldly taking a stand, the episode goes obscure and, consequently, comes off as gentle.

Nonetheless, there’s humor to be present in “Pajama Day,” a lot of it coming from the mockery of considered one of Parker and Stone’s favourite targets. Rallying his fellow college students to struggle again in opposition to this anti-Pajama Day injustice, Cartman tells the children to recollect what Matt Damon says in his current bitcoin industrial: “Fortune favors the daring!” In fact, even Cartman admits that these brave sufficient to take heed to the actor have misplaced all their cash—a jab that’s repeated at a number of factors all through this premiere, as when Cartman reminds everybody to be courageous, “however not too courageous or else Matt Damon will come and take all our cash.” In response, a comrade asks, “Can we lay off the Matt Damon jokes please, they’re simply getting outdated.” However after all, they’re not—nor do Parker and Stone actually imagine they’re, on condition that they’ve been poking enjoyable on the Oscar winner since 2004’s Crew America: World Police.

Whereas Matt Damon receives no reprieve by the conclusion of “Pajama Day,” the remainder of South Park is saved when PC Principal, throughout a dialog with Wendy, hits upon an impressed treatment for the disaster he’s created: cancel Pajama Day and, as an alternative, make it Reverse Day! This isn’t fairly the tack advised by Wendy, whose smart recommendation—“Saying you’re improper is typically the strongest factor you are able to do”—goes completely unheeded. Nonetheless, it permits everybody to at the very least briefly mood their anger, thus proving the form of neat-and-tidy answer that, alas, doesn’t appear very relevant for our present fractured-society circumstances.