South Park S26 Ep 1 Review
It’s been half a year since we visited South Park, Colorado, but Comedy Central’s flagship is back. Better still, the season 26 premiere sees the show return to basics. They focus on the boys, give Randy minimal attention, and focus on something other than whatever the news focuses on this week. Instead, they focus on older news by taking shots at the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.
Cartman “Tries” to be a Good Person…with Cupid Ye?
Lately, Kyle and Tolkien have been making TikToks together, and Stan’s depressed/jealous over this. Thus, Cartman decides to “be a good Christian” and help Stan. Since it’s Cartman, though, he does it in the most sociopathic way possible: telling Tolkien that Kyle runs Hollywood. Soon the rumor mill starts working, and the next thing we know, Kyle’s being pestered by kids (and Randy) about making movies, which eventually drives a wedge between him and Tolkien.
I had to look this up as I was writing this, but Cartman’s latest slander stems from the false conspiracy that Jews run Hollywood. That stems from the fact that many of the earliest pioneers in Hollywood were Jewish. And the one whose telling Cartman to spread this misinformation is his imaginary friend(?), Cupid Cartman.
Except he’s not Cupid Cartman anymore. He’s Cupid Ye now. That’s right, this whole episode is a roast of the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and it is hilarious!
Take That, Kanye West!
South Park has made Kanye West the butt of repeated jokes over the years, and all of them portray Ye as an idiot. A man so dumb that he couldn’t figure out a joke about fish sticks was a pun and became convinced he was a gay fish. But in recent months, it seems like Kanye’s become just as crazy as South Park portrays him, saying he likes a certain dictator and spewing hate-filled messages. Everyone thinks that Kanye’s gone crazy or isn’t taking his bipolar medication when he really should be. The end result? Cupid Ye uses Cartman as an outlet to spread intolerance and anti-Semitism. It gets to the point where even Cartman’s appalled by Ye saying Hitler was a good guy and tries to stop him.
It gets weirder. Despite implying Cupid Ye is an outlet for Cartman to act out, the episode’s climax sees Cupid Ye run around South Park Elementary as an anti-cupid. Instead of shooting arrows of love, he shoots people with arrows of hate toward Kyle. The craziest part is that everyone can actually see and interact with him like he’s real.
This is some Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends stuff in here!
Moral of the Story: Fact-Check Rumors and Myths
Thankfully, Cartman manages to undo the damage he helped cause, and Stan admits to Tolkien and Kyle he was jealous of them hanging out. As for Cupid Ye, he takes his meds and reverts back to Cupid Cartman. If this were most other shows, this wouldn’t make sense. In South Park, this is par for the course, though.
The moral of the story is that we shouldn’t blindly believe the rumors people may spread and that we shouldn’t let ignorance lead to intolerance. And that if we see someone on TV ranting and raving about a group running the entertainment industry without any proof, find out the truth first.
This was a very hilarious and chaotic start to a new season of South Park, and I couldn’t help but laugh at them roasting Kanye. And when the episode ends with Hollywood bigwigs deciding to put Kyle in charge. Here’s hoping the new season keeps up this momentum and sticks to the basics. If they do that, South Park can be better than it has been in years.
Also, props to Comedy Central on breaking the cycle of creating bad animated series for the 10:30 slot after South Park and just going with the Beavis and Butt-Head revival.
