Liam Hoofe reviews the fifth episode of South Park season 20…
After totally ignoring the election last week South Park season 20 shifted its focus back onto the race for the White House this week as the season’s bigger picture began to become clearer. After last week’s episode focused solely on the trolling story line and the gender war at the school this week opened with a truce being called by the children. With tensions have risen to boiling point at the end of the last episode, this week opened with a stare down between the groups, only for Cartman and Heidi to unite the group towards helping Denmark deal with their trolling problems.
Last week I criticised Cartman and Heidi’s plot line, saying that it felt all too familiar (Eric pretends to be good, then turns more dastardly than ever) but this week I am glad to admit that I was wrong. This episode allowed the pair to flourish as a comedy duo, Heidi has become just as self righteous as Cartman and the pair’s displays of public affections (PDAs to the cool kids) gave the episode several of its best moments.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph Mr Garrison and his Trump inspired presidential candidacy made their comeback this week and provided the show with some wonderfully on the nose moments. First of all we had Garrison’s attempt to further alienate his audience, this week by targeting the females in the audience. An obvious reference to Trump’s now infamous ‘grab her by the pussy’ remarks. Surprisingly however this time it worked and the electorate attempted to lynch the former high school teacher. It is in these moments that South Park does what it does best – that perfect blend of social commentary and humour that is continues to nail season after season. Yes the remarks made by Garrison were clearly a direct attack at Trump but the reaction was a comment on the hypocrisy of his followers. Why is it that it was okay for him to attack Muslims and Mexicans, but the moment he makes a comment about women his followers have a moral compass all of a sudden? This also led to a great moment towards the end of the show where Randy explained the phenomenon of memberberries to Garrison, though the bigger picture with these still remains slightly unclear.
Where things now seem more clear however are with the Danish Vs the trolls story line. In my last review I said that I felt this would be the driving force, thematically at least, for the season and this episode really moved the whole thing forward. Gerald and Dildo Shwaggings trolling a whole country into believing their whole government were terrorist sympathisers seemed to me a point about the ‘post-truth’ era we now live in. In times where politics have gone mad, the inmates have taken over the asylum and a whole government, or political ideal can seemingly be over thrown by someone just literally making something up. This is validated later in the episode when, the people, despite being told that it was all rubbish, still refuse to believe it. £350m a week to the NHS anyone?
The episode also managed to feed us more memberberries, this week chucking a reference back to the conference room hotel that has played host to Cartman’s crazy conventions on several episodes. A nice touch for all the loyalists out there.
Douche and a Danish was perhaps the best episode of season 20 yet. The season is really gaining momentum and it is beginning to look as though it could be one of their best seasons ever, which is no mean achievements after nearly two decades on our screens.
Liam Hoofe
Originally published October 20, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
