The continuation continues!
Warning: Full spoilers from the episode follow.
After tackling the PC culture in the Season 19 premiere, this week’s South Park went in a much different direction, setting its sights on Donald Trump and his immigration reform. Initially, I was a skeptical about this episode, especially since Matt and Trey had done such a great job on lampooning immigration in “Goobacks” (better known as the “They took our jobs!” episode). But given Trump’s recent quotes and the GOP debate last week, now seemed like a good time to revisit the issue.
But what I didn’t realize — and what turned out to be one of the funniest aspects of “Where My Country Gone?” — was that Mr. Garrison was the resident “Trump” of South Park. Not only that, but Canadians were the the target of his ire, which made it even funnier. This included humorous twists on the usual immigration complaints, like having to learn a second language (“A, B, C, D, E, F, Guy!”) and accepting various “religious customs” (e.g. playing Chuck Mangione once a day). I also thought it was amusing how, like Trump, Mr. Garrison’s following continued to grow with every passing idiotic statement he made. (“F*** them all to death! Let’s make this country great again!”)
Another fun couple of scenes came later on, when Mr. Garrison and the others learned that Canada had built a wall to keep the Americans out. In addition to the sly Monty Python and the Holy Grail homage, I rather enjoyed Mr. Garrison’s plunge into Niagara Falls and his subsequent, ahem, “confrontation” with Canadian Donald Trump. (Classic South Park, using sheer shock value — and poppers — to solve the problem.)
Meanwhile, Butters’ relationship with a Canadian girl was also really funny, as he wooed her with Lion King 2 quotes. (By the way, that analogy isn’t that far off. Lion King 2 is a pretty weird movie when you think about it.) But I think the biggest laugh for me was the Canadian girl’s dad explaining what had happened with their own presidential election, which basically summed up the Donald Trump phenomenon in one fell swoop. (“‘Okay, let’s get serious now, who should really be president?'”)
But as entertaining as this episode was, not everything worked. Not surprisingly, this episode continued South Park’s new continuity trend, which offered hit-or-miss callbacks. For example, I chuckled at Randy scorning Mr. Garrison at the bar, much like the PC bros scorned Randy in the previous episode. I also thought the “Hot Cosby” reference in the premiere hit its stride this week, as Butters fell in “Slow Cosby” with the Canadian girl.
That said, the return of PC Principal was pretty “meh,” and Kyle’s speech about Caitlyn Jenner didn’t really flow with the rest of the story (although it did seem to mirror President Obama’s recent tweet about the #IStandWithAhmed story). While it did spur Cartman to move forward with his Lion King 2 plan, the constant put-downs on Kyle’s speeches weren’t that funny. Plus, Jenner’s appearance here felt like it arrived one week too late, and not very strongly at that.
This week’s South Park improved upon the first, offering both scathing satire and a clear target: Donald Trump. With the help of both Mr. Garrison and Butters (and Canadian Donald Trump), “Where My Country Gone?” proved to be a surprisingly enjoyable entry, despite some muddled Kyle/Jenner callbacks from the premiere.
