As I continue to watch this brilliant nineteenth season of South Park I continue to notice one constant theme: the residents of South Park seem intent on bringing their town into 2015, with all the “social justice” and political correctness that doing so entails. As a life-long fan (or South Park historian if I’m feeling cocky) I have a very strong feeling that in these first three episodes of their 10 episode season, Trey Park and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) are setting up everything that by the end of the season, will lie in ruins.
In this week’s episode entitled “City Part of Town” Randy Marsh, who has recently become PC, addresses the two and proclaims the only way South Park can truly join 2015 is by getting Whole Foods to open a store in their town. They must do this by gentrifying the poor part of town: Kenny’s house. Kenny McCormick is the boy who is famous for dying in every early episode of South Park and being the one poor kid in town. A Williamsburg-esque eating and shopping center are quickly erected surrounding Kenny’s house. Live action shots of what can only be Portland and San Francisco eateries are intercut with creator Trey Parker’s soft voice narrating an advertisement for this new neighborhood: SoDoSoPa (South Downtown South Park). This display is repeated several times throughout the episode and captures the alluring vibe of commercials for “new” neighborhoods built a safe distance from low income residents.
Not much else happens in this episode other than Kenny getting a job at the local Chinese restaurant and the Whole Foods representative inspecting the town and approving a new store be opened. What the episode does do is set up even more obnoxious, blind justice tropes of 2015 that I can only hope will lie in ruins by the end of this season. Because Kyle Broflovski, South Park‘s moral compass, has been forbidden from making any speeches, I can only suspect that it won’t be until the end of the season when we get to see Matt and Trey’s full take on all of these modern annoyances. It seems this season, South Park is preparing for war by building up everything that will all come tumbling down by the end.