Warning: Fullfrom the South Park: Season 19 premiere follow.

While watching tonight's new South Park episode, I was reminded of an old adage from my college days: "You shouldn't call a fraternity a 'frat.' Would you call your county a c--" well, you know. To me, this summed up "Stunning and Brave" to a tee.As with every South Park season premiere, creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker had a wealth of new topics to choose from: Deflategate, Caitlyn Jenner, Bill Cosby, "Whip/Nae Nae" -- and while all of these things were addressed at one point or another in this week's episode, the overarching theme here was much bigger: political correctness. And it wasn't just the theme; it was also personified by an all-new character, PC Principal, who came in to replace Principal Victoria after a "Hot Cosby" scandal.The dynamic between PC Principal and the boys turned out to be one of the more enjoyable aspects of the episode. Cartman's Tom Brady-inspired storyline and Kyle's struggle with calling Caitlyn Jenner a "stunning and brave hero" made for some timely references amidst their new foe's constant need for tolerance. For me, the guttural laughs were few and far between, but it was still a very smart premise for an episode.

In fact, "Stunning and Brave" made a lot of very good points for both sides of the PC argument. On the one hand, Matt and Trey finally acknowledged that, after 18 seasons of irreverence, their lexicon could probably use an update. PC Principal's first scene captured this perfectly, as he went through a laundry list of terrible things the town had said and done over the years, from their frequent use of the R-word to a white man pretending to be Chinese and building a wall around the city to keep Mongolians out. (Hey, I remember that episode !) Even the boys admitted that maybe it was time for a change, as Cartman suggested that they finally "grow up." Of course, this wasn't the first time Matt and Trey have toyed with that idea, but now that they've started incorporating continuity into the show, maybe this is their way of exploring it even further.On the other hand, the creators made a fine case for the opposite side, namely the PC community's tendency to shut down any dialogue in favor of obnoxious preaching and privilege-checking. Obviously this was instigated by the "PC" frat bros and their violent reactions to closed-mindedness, which yielded some funny moments -- at least at first. The joke got old pretty quick, but it helped that Randy was also indoctrinated to spice things up (because of course he was). I also loved how he always woke up hungover and regurgitated PC morals while also trying not to regurgitate his liquor. ("I had some refreshments, and I checked your friend's privilege.") This subplot also seemed to reflect Jerry Seinfeld's recent comments about doing shows at colleges.That said, I ultimately wasn't sure what position Matt and Trey were trying to take with this. If the point was to remain objective and fairly depict both sides of political correctness, then I guess they succeeded, but that's not their usual M-O. Rather than picking a side and sticking to it, it felt like they were just raising a bunch of points and seeing what stuck. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was surprised they didn't choose to give a voice to one side in particular. Perhaps that was the reason behind Cartman and Kyle's final allusion to Brady: "We all lost, and you won."As a side note, I'll be interested to see if PC Principal really sticks around like Cartman said. Normally, I'd assume the next episode would reset back to normal. But, again, after last season's introduction of continuity, I'm inclined to think what Cartman said was true: PC Principal is here to stay. I can't say his character is worth much more than the one episode's worth of comedy he got, but I guess we'll know for sure in subsequent episodes.