South Park, "Let Go, Let Gov"

It’s been nearly 11 months since the last episode of South Park, the longest gap between seasons in the show’s history. Understandable, since Trey Parker and Matt Stone are busy guys with a hit Broadway show traveling the globe, but still too long for this fan. It seemed like a lot of news and pop culture events that were tailor-made for the show to destroy happened specifically in its absence, though it might have only appeared that way because there was no spring half of a two-part season we were used to.

Now, we finally get a shorter, unbroken season of 10 episodes (which really seems more like an extended fall half), and this season premiere dives right in to a big thing that happened while the show was gone: the revelations about the NSA. The episode has many of the show’s trademarks: satire both direct and subtle, surreal plot turns, stinging, almost mean shots at celebrities (Alec Baldwin is in Stone and Parker’s sights once more, as the episode hilariously spoofs the actor's recent propensity for doing commercials and making homophobic remarks), and the classic reversal the show employs to make a point about how the other side sees things (or just for the hell of it).

That reversal has the adorably innocent and oblivious Butters, warned by Cartman that the government can see and hear everything he does, making the omnipresent watcher his new religion, and sets up the local DMV as his house of worship. The premise itself may not have been as funny as other uses of this tactic (and it’s not as much a reversal as, say, “Red Man’s Greed” was), but it resulted in a lot of funny moments. One had Butters awkwardly confessing his naughty and slightly disturbing sins to a confused DMV clerk (followed by a similar darker moment from the seldom seen Officer Barbrady). Another was the very last moment in the episode, an absolute sucker punch that had me in stitches.

As for the other storyline, Cartman tries to play Edward Snowden, getting a job at the NSA and sharing its secrets online. But I should point out that almost always, Cartman takes the immoral, less defensible side of any issue the show tackles. And yet, here he’s put on the side of a man that some have hailed as a hero. Indeed, the show treads very lightly on the NSA, with little in the way of criticism save for a Team America-esque parody of tough-talking Hollywood monologues justifying extreme measures. Instead, the target is the average citizen who shares everything on social media (signified again by Cartman as the most obnoxious smartphone user ever) and then attacks the government for peeking into their life. The point is made, but at the near expense of humor.

For that reason, this isn’t quite one of the show’s hysterical classics. But I did laugh, sometimes lightly, sometimes heartily. There’s nothing like this show’s outlook, its humor, or its willingness to go there, as they say, and rebut the public consensus. It’s good to have it back.