Piece of the Puzzle: South Park S18 E1 - Go Fund Yourself

In which I review the latest episode of South Park.

In South Park's Season 18 premiere, Stan, Kyle, Eric, Kenny and Butters start a company on Kickstarter.com with the expressed goal of being paid for doing absolutely nothing.  Realizing that the Washington Redskins' trademark has lapsed, they take the name for their new company, despite  the actual Redskins' owner's protests.  As their company gains unprecedented success, however, internal resentment over the name choice and increasingly radical action by a disenfranchised NFL team threaten to destroy everything that the boys have built.

The new face of the Washington Redskins.

It is truly amazing that series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have continued to maintain the show's high quality of writing for going on eighteen years.  While small episode counts per season and keeping the episodes as topical as possible have helped, the credit rests solely on the duo's ability to transform the mundanity of trademark registration law and crowd sourcing into engaging and hilarious launching points for their characters.  Avoiding the problems of similar animated sitcoms - where the second half of the episode has, at best, a tenuous connection with the first half - they seamlessly blend the two topics into a singular comedic experience.

Only South Park could make the Washington Redskins - an organization that has been subject to constant media scrutiny and public ire - into a tragic, defeated people that only want to preserve their dignity on the public stage.  While lesser writers would have made them the butt of a few jokes and called it a day, Parker and Stone parade the team through the episode in the same, insensitive manner that the team has done to Native Americans for decades.  They aren't named after a specific tribe or region - they aren't the Blackhawks or the Illini - but a skin pigmentation.  There is shockingly little difference between naming a team the "Redskins" and naming them the "Negroes" or the "Caucasoids."  Like a patient kindergarten teacher waiting for an ignorant student to learn his lesson, South Park holds the team's hand as it walks them a mile in another's shoes.

The show additionally calls out the unassuming Kickstarker - an crowd-sourcing in general  - for making money off of what is essentially doing nothing: sitting back and raking in profits off of the hard work and fundraising efforts of their membership.  The criticism is, in of itself, lacking.  Unlike their criticisms of the Washington Redskins, Kickstarter is ultimately harmless.  They are the medium between companies (or products) and their micro-investors: a common meeting point where people know to go for entrepreneurial enterprises.   It's like complaining that eBay (or any brick-and-mortar auction house) makes a profit off of the merchandise that their clients bring in to sell to interested parties.  That being said, however, they make excellent use of the website as a launching point for the boys' interactions with the NFL, so any issue with the weight of the satire can be excused for what they manage to do with it.

The show looks to be off to another phenomenal season.  As long as Parker and Stone continue to capitalize on their proven formula for the show, South Park will continue to be among the funniest and most insightful comedies on television.  Ultimately, I would give the episode an 9/10.