South Park Returns With a Pandemic Special That Savages Trump

South Park, the groundbreaking animated show that famously made it “cool to not care,” firmly went against its own core ethos on Wednesday night. Its hour-long season 24 premiere tackled thorny issues like police brutality and President Donald Trump’s poor response to the coronavirus pandemic; it also made a direct plea, asking its viewers to get out and vote.

Dubbed “The Pandemic Special,” the new episode brought the coronavirus pandemic to the show’s title town—which, in addition to the global health crisis, also had to grapple with an increasingly violent and deadly police force. (After some of the South Park cops are fired for police brutality, they’re hired at the local school and eventually shoot Token, a Black character.)

But it was Trump whom South Park attacked most viciously. Halfway through the episode, the character Stan calls this universe’s president, Trump stand-in Mr. Garrison, and asks him to help save the town and stop the pandemic.

“Why would I do that?” Mr. Garrison says in response. “Stan, this is going to be very difficult for a child to understand. But I made a promise to the American people to get rid of all the Mexicans.”

After Stan expresses justifiable shock and confusion at those racist comments—and notes that the coronavirus is deadly for the entire population—Mr. Garrison adds, “It’s killing a lot of them.” He then cites data that the coronavirus has been more deadly to people of color. “I’ve gone over the statistics. All I have to do now is sort of guide the avalanche in the right direction, and I’m fulfilling my promises to the American people. I was doing a crap job until this pandemic happened,” Mr. Garrison says.

He concludes with a blunt assessment of his own performance: “I am going to actively not do anything.”

Toward the end of the episode, a scientist notes that while life may never return to pre-pandemic normalcy, there could be a path forward to some kind of eventual COVID-19 cure. Then Mr. Garrison arrives and kills him with a flame thrower. As the scientist burns alive, he directly addresses the audience: “Don’t forget to get out and vote, everyone. Big election coming up!”

In 2017, after Trump won, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were asked how they would try to parody the president going forward. They agreed that it was difficult to spoof someone who so readily says and does outrageous things: “If you have like a little monkey and it’s running himself into the wall over and over and you’re like, ‘That’s funny, but how am I gonna make fun of the monkey running himself into the wall?’ I can discuss the monkey running himself into the wall, I can copy the monkey running into the wall, but nothing’s funnier than the monkey just running himself into the wall,” Parker told Bill Simmons.

“Or if I flip off the principal and the principal flips me off back, that’s really funny, but I really don’t know where to go from there, you know what I mean?” added Stone. “I moon him and he moons me back. If he moons first, [it’s] like, ‘Oh fuck, that guy shouldn’t be the principal.’” Three years later, it appears like they’re actively trying to make that a reality.

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