Blu-ray Review: South Park: The Complete Twentieth Season

Seriously, twenty years? It does not feel like it’s been twenty years since I first enjoyed South Park. The series has no real signs of wear and tear. It is as strong, as daring, as relevant as ever. The Complete Twentieth Season contains all ten episodes on two discs, plus plenty of bonus features. The country and our culture have gone to shit, and the folks behind South Park – Trey Parker and Matt Stone – are well aware of it. The episodes that make up the twentieth season tell one complete story (well, actually, several connected stories), involving our nation’s complacency, lowered expectations, nostalgia repackaged and sold back to us, and of course a man becoming president who has absolutely no qualifications or understanding of the job. Serious subjects, but of course handled with humor. And that’s what we need right now, as so many of us are still reeling after a year of disbelief, shock, anger and despair. It’s a damn good thing we can turn to South Park for a little perspective this holiday season.

As the twentieth season opens, the question on everyone’s mind is, Will a black fourth grader take a knee during the national anthem before a volleyball game? After the question is answered, the crowd disperses, leaving the children to play the game with no audience. The girls, however, are more concerned with the online bullying they’re receiving from someone calling himself “Skankhunt42.” Meanwhile J.J. Abrams is asked to “reboot the national anthem” in order to bring a divided country together again. “The new anthem is said to have everything the old one had, but some new surprises as well. You’d have to be an asshole not to stand and support it.” But the answer to all our problems might be found in member berries.

This series has a lot to say. I love that when a student quits Twitter, it’s treated like a suicide. And other students considering quitting social media are counseled: “You’ve got so much ahead of you, Scott. So many posts and tweets still ahead of you.” When Cartman is forced offline, he joins the lost souls who have abandoned social media, and he changes, actually becoming a better person, even getting a girlfriend. And the police investigate his disappearance. “Most people that quit Twitter leave at least three paragraphs stating that they’re quitting Twitter before they quit Twitter. This child just stopped using it.” Ah, was it a Twitter suicide or a Twitter homicide? And Heidi – Cartman’s girlfriend – says: “The hardest part is not having any followers. I used to go places just to show them where I was.” Oh, you know there are people who actually do that. Will they realize how ridiculous they are when they watch these episodes? Another thing I love about this season is how it plays with the new use of the word “troll” and the traditional use of the word, having two online trolls meeting under a bridge.

The war between the girls and boys escalates, and it looks like the next president is going to be someone who doesn’t even want the job. Mr. Garrison laments, “I told people I could make the country great again, but I didn’t have a plan.” I love that they relate the troubles to the fact that The Force Awakens wasn’t nearly as good as people thought it was. “It may seem fun to go back and recycle the past we love, but we end up with no sustenance.” And when the election is concluded, no one can believe the results. Mr. Garrison promises, “Just as J.J. Abrams did with Star Wars, I will make this country great again.” He transforms into Donald Trump in Darth Vader’s meditation chamber. Like many people after the election, Cartman and Heidi want to leave the planet. But for Cartman, it’s more a matter of him not wanting Heidi to see his internet history. War is imminent, because Denmark has a plan to release everyone’s internet history.

South Park is a series that is aware of itself. The season is partly about the role of a comedian who pushes people’s buttons in a nation that is now run by someone who loves pushing people’s buttons. And in the penultimate episode of the season, they even joke about how the entire season has dealt with a single subject, essentially poking fun at their own decision. The twentieth season is excellent, and is something you will likely want to watch all in one sitting.

Special Features

This two-disc set contains quite a bit of bonus material, most of it on the first disc. There are deleted scenes, including one with Cher eating the pizza pocket, as well as an air strike on Denmark. The deleted scenes are presented in the order of episodes. There are a couple of short promotional pieces – South Park By The Numbers and South Park: We’ve Been There. South Park: The Fractured But Whole E3 2016 Game Trailer makes fun of the whole superhero franchise idea, which is marketing and not storytelling.

There is a commentary track by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, which plays over segments from different episodes of the season, and is approximately twenty minutes. They begin by joking that it is the commentary for season twenty-one, then talk about the idea of doing a serialization, and how the troll idea was related to Donald Trump, and how America has lost its way. The story they’d mapped out had Hillary Clinton winning. So like everything else, Trump fucked up this plan too.

You can also watch each episode with occasional notes at the bottom of the screen, notes about characters and so on, delivered as if on social media.

The second disc includes the 2016 Comic Con panel with Matt Stone and Trey Parker. They start by talking about The Spirit Of Christmas, and how they chose the style of that short by their own artistic limitations, plus their love of Terry Gilliam’s animation in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. They also talk about how television has changed so much since they started, so that the early stuff seems so tame by today’s standards. They also talk about video games and role-playing games, with Trey saying how always being the Dungeon Master when he was a kid helped make him a good storyteller. (Trey also says he thinks the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons is “fucking awesome.” I do not entirely agree with that statement.) Toward the end, they take questions from the audience. What the fuck is up with that person in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt seated behind the first girl to ask a question? Anyway, this feature is approximately fifty-five minutes.

South Park: The Complete Twentieth Season was released on June 13, 2017 through Comedy Central.