Demonstrating that the show still has some life left in it after nearly two full decades, South Park tonight kicked off its 20th season with a jaundiced look at the current presidential election, particularly aimed at Donald Trump, along with some rambling (but funny) commentary on the controversy surrounding NFL player Colin Kaepernick. More impressively, the episode also included a nod to Matt Lauer’s now-infamous interviews with Trump and Hillary Clinton just one week after his widely-derided performance went viral. (Trey Parker and Matt Stone still really can churn these things out quick.)
The episode saw Mr. Garrison (as “Giant Douche”), with running mate Caitlyn Jenner, running for president against Hillary Clinton (as “Turd Sandwich”). After a poll shows him way ahead in the race, Garrison, much like many have said about Trump, realizing he actually has no clue about running the country and didn’t even expect to win. “You’re telling me we’re about to be voted into office and we have no idea what the f*** we’re gonna do?” Which pretty much says it all. Well, that and Garrison’s orange face paint making it clear just how much like Trump he’s intended to be.
So it is Garrison goes on Matt Lauer’s Commander In Chief forum where the South Park version of Lauer brings up Garrison’s repeated promises to, er, have sex with terrorists and illegal immigrants until they die. At first appearing to be a straight up skewering of Trump’s repeated promises to deport all undocumented immigrants, after showing a montage of Garrison’s threats, Lauer then limply asks “do you think that’s really feasible?” Eventually, Garrison decides he has to make sure Hillary (“Turd Sandwich”) wins.
In the b-plot, the show takes on the alt-right (sort of) and the national debate over police violence, with a plot about an anonymous internet troll who harasses people with bigoted comments. Everyone suspects Eric Cartman of being the culprit which, of course, he denies. This leads to the school’s girls basketball team sitting out the national anthem in protest against what they see as inaction by the school. Cartman goes so far as to decry online sexism (even coming out in favor of the Ghostbusters remake) but of course he’s wearing the shirt you can see in the image here, making it clear he’s probably the troll.
There’s also a pretty funny bit about how JJ Abrams was called in to reboot the National Anthem. We’ll have video from the episodes up tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you saw it, let us know what you thought in comments.