Sometimes you just need to try something new. Season 18 found South Park altering its successful recipe of self-contained individual episodes, and began exploring the potential of continuity within the season. The A.V. Club was quick to note this change last year, when it accurately observed that this shift in style allowed the writers to “explore the consequences of the boys’ actions [week to week], allowing the plots to be motivated in part by their attempts to dig themselves out of a hole.” While I don’t necessarily agree that season 18 achieved this to great success, it appears that the team is trying to refine this new approach within season.

“Where My Country Gone?” is a near-masterpiece of an episode, and almost rectifies a number of the large criticisms that I had about last week’s season-opener. This week’s episode picks up immediately from the aftermath of “Stunning and Brave”, where President Obama has awarded Kyle for his begrudged speech on the undeniable benefits of political correctness. Much to Kyle’s vexation, he is awarded for his “courage” with a car ride back to South Park with Caitlyn Jenner herself. Of course, Jenner’s South Park characterisation is simply disturbing, drawing parallels to the show’s previous depiction of the plastic surgery-rotted Michael Jackson. She’s painted as a caricature of herself, with her tongue hanging loosely from her mouth and uneven botched eyes, as she delightful reminds Kyle of the benefits of seatbelts by exclaiming, “Buckle up, Buckaroo!”

As the two drive off, Jenner runs over an innocent bystander, which receives applause from the onlooking crowd. While this is primarily a reference to an incident in February, by which Jenner was involved in a fatal car accident, the greater insinuation is that the American public will blindly praise Jenner for any action — no matter how horrific — because to criticise her would be considered sacrilege. As this is aired live, Mr. Garrison watches live from the bar, and begins to accuse this newfound politically correct behaviour on illegal immigrants, as, “They keep coming, crossing the border with their dirty families, playing their stupid music.” Barely a minute into the episode, the writers play a beautifully immaculate prank on the audience, as our own racism is highlighted due to the almost natural assumption that the immigrants in question are in fact, Mexican. This is quickly shattered, however, and we’re left feeling guilt-ridden, as it is revealed that the immigrants are actually Canadians.

“…L, M, N, O, Buddy”

Due to the mass influx of the northern neighbours into America, the fourth grade class becomes largely populated with these “immigrants”, which infuriates Garrison, as his class is interrupted by the Canadian students necessity to face the east, and play Chuck Mangione’s ‘Feel So Good’ at 8am and 11am — in accordance with their “religious customs”, as PC Principal later explains. This joke is somewhat of a beautiful non-sequitur, as though Mangione himself is not Canadian, I can’t help but feel that this is somewhat of a coy homage to King of the Hill’s running obsession with the smooth jazz composer. This causes Garrison to explode, “Why don’t you Canucks go back to where you came from?!”, resulting in PC Principal forcing Garrison to take a Canadian language course, led by Mr Stkrndknmibalz (pronounced: Stick Your Dick In My Balls).

The entire notion that Canadian dialect is a language within itself is absolutely hilarious, as Stkrndknmibalz runs Garrison and the class through the Canadian alphabet, where the letter G is replaced with “Guy”, P is replaced with “Buddy” and V is replaced with “Friend”. Garrison fury becomes overwhelming, as he finds cathartic release in the form of a song, where he croons, “Where has my country gone?/It was a land of opportunity that we held dear, but now these other assholes are coming here/…It took 43 presidents to make us stand tall, and just one black guy to unravel it all.”

“Stunning and Brave” saw Cartman having an absurdly uncharacteristic change of heart, by which his motivations were solely inspired by a new found optimism that led him to try and save Kyle from the brutal wrath of the PC zealots. While there was an implicit sense that Cartman’s plot was just a ruse to serve his best interests, this was never successfully conveyed, and came across as convoluted. This week’s episode sees the continuation of Cartman returning to his typical ways, as he habitually turns the boys on Kyle, by positing the potential conspiracy, “Immigration is happening a lot more now, after [Kyle] decides to give a big speech about Caitlyn Jenner, because [he] wanted to bring down the cultural fabric of America, because [he’s] a Jew.”

Seething with pure rage, Garrison interrupts a school assembly held by PC Principal to familiarise the students with the intricacies of Canadian culture. Perhaps my favourite joke of the entire episode rests here, as two girls talk under PC Principal, to which he quickly and unexpectedly jabs at the poor girl, “Hey Leslie, shut your fucking mouth.” While I still maintain my criticisms of the lazy conception of his name, PC Principal is undeniably already a greater comedic force than Principal Victoria. Mere moments into the presentation, Garrison finally detonates, telling PC Principal that “You have a pizza face and you suck your mum’s dick”, only to explain the more intricate details of his immigration policy, “Fuck ‘em all to death. I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking here kids. Sorry not sorry.” It becomes quickly apparent that the staff are using Garrison as a metaphor for Donald Trump’s absurdly ignorant immigration policies, with his use of “Sorry not sorry”, being an understated reference to Trump’s unapologetic comments that John McCain is “not a war hero.” The more I think about this, one could argue that these comments echo those of Kyle’s who refuses to acknowledge Jenner as a “hero”, but I digress.

Romeo and Juliet 2: Romeo’s Revenge

Garrison’s irrational fear substantiates Cartman’s previous suspicions that the influx of immigrations will have chaotic consequences, leading him to devise a plan, by which he draws parallels to a famous story, in which “two sides were fighting, the guy fell in love love with the girl from the other side, and it brought the two groups together.” It would seem that he’s describing the infamous trope of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But, that would be too easy, however, as Cartman hilariously misleads us to reveal that he was in fact referring to the ill-fated sequel to the Lion King: Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride. Of course, the one that is forced to embark on the task of creating this union is the innocuous Butters. Poor Leopold Stotch is thrown into the deep end, as he reluctantly pursues the young Canadian, Charlotte, where he shamelessly bites his pick up lines directly from Simba’s Pride, wooing her with the absurdly irrelevent pontification, “Do you think Scar’s up there? He wasn’t my father, but he’s a part of me.”

It is at this stage of the episode that the Trump metaphor comes into full effect, as Garrison begins on a political campaign, by which his solution to the immigration policy is to, “Fuck them all to death…I’m suggesting that we round them all up, pull down their pants and fuck them until their spirits leave their bodies, and after we’ve fucked every last one of them, we build a big wall, if anyone comes over the wall, we fuck them all to death too.” Obviously, the writers are taking Trump’s pathetic ignorance to task, and are amplifying his pure stupidity to the most extreme degree. Garrison is the perfect vehicle to express these criticisms, which are made most explicit as he unapologetically reflects, “I might not understand politics, or immigration policies, or the law, or basic ideological concepts…” — which are all clear jabs at the Republican frontrunner.

In a serendipitous turn of events, the Canadians have already constructed their own wall, with the border patrol officer nonchalantly reasoning that the wall was built as, “We don’t what you uh…raping our women and stuff. Look, there’s just some really cool shit back here and we don’t feel like sharing it.” Sometimes with South Park, it’s the smallest vocal inflections that can make for the most humorous moments. Whether it’s the adopted southern drawl of Garrison as he sings, “Where has my country gawn?”, or the border patrols dismissive acknowledgement of the wall, “Don’t worry aboot it”, Parker and Stone’s brilliant annunciation never ceases to have me in stitches. In order to address the erection of the wall, a political debate is held, by which Garrison ignores the issue completely, instead throwing abuse at his opponents, comically declaring that, “You’ve got a gaping gash, and you’ve got vinegary balls”, which is blatantly referring to Trump’s inability to address political topics, instead creating a foundation of authoritative credibility by personally attacking his adversaries. It’s times like these that I realise that I’ve missed the presence of Garrison over recent seasons. He’s an unrelenting force, and is one of the few characters next to Cartman who is never afraid to openly air any grievances he may have.

Meanwhile, Butters is under pressure to close the deal with a “Hot Cosby”, which harks back to last week’s episode, by which a students use of the word led to the dismissal of Principal Victoria. It’s here that Butters attends dinner with Charlotte’s family, which — of course — is poutine, Canadian bacon and maple syrup. This episode is just far too funny, as Charlotte’s father suspects Butters of having “Maple Fever” — a term I hope catches on for romantic relationships between Americans and Canadians. It’s just too stupid and funny to ignore. For an ancillary character, Charlotte’s father speaks the greatest truth in the episode, lamenting in a soliloquy that the reason for the influx of Canadians is due to the fictional scenario, by which, “There was this brash asshole who just spoke his mind. He didn’t really offer any solutions, he just said outrageous things. We thought it was funny. Nobody really thought he’d really be president. It was a joke, but we just let the joke go on for too long. He kept gaining momentum and by the time we were ready to say, ‘Ok, let’s get serious now, who should really be president?” — he was already being sworn into office. We weren’t paying attention.”

#sorrynotsorry

It’s blatantly obvious that South Park are trying to warn its viewers about the real possibility that Donald Trump could keep gaining momentum, leading to a clusterfuck scenario, by which this man could legitimately become president. In light of this realisation, Butters drops his own prejudices, expressing to Charlotte that he’s like to try a nice “Slow Cosby”, which apparently, in Canada, is referred to as “love”. I love how the seeds of the “Hot Cosby” joke were planted so innocently in the season premiere, only to be fully explored in this episode. While last season did this with the likes of gluten-free Pabst Blue Ribbon, these continuity-based jokes seemed to suffer from overuse, whereas the Cosby joke is being expanded upon, rather than driven into the fucking ground. As a cynical asshole, I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t call it a “Cold Cosby”, which is the obvious antonym, but, it’s kind of a moot point.

Furious with the fact that he’s been disallowed entry to Canada, Garrison naturally is loaded into a barrel (casually warning, “Watch the balls”) and sent over Niagara Falls, where he finds himself washed up in a seemingly post-apocalyptic Canada — void of all citizens, barring one, who jumps off a skyscraper in response to the dire state of his once-great country. Fixated by his mission, Garrison finds the Canadian “President” (despite the fact that Canada has a prime minister) in his office with two assistants. While a politically informed audience member may have expected to find an over-the-top characterisation of Stephen Harper, we are instead greeted with a Canadian rendition of Donald Trump, who holds the same steadfast over-the-top stupidity as Garrison himself, declaring, “Tell the president of China to suck my balls.” As Garrison enters the implied-Trump’s office, the Canadian “President” is dancing to Men Without Hat’s Safety Dance, which can be interpreted in two ways: the first of which would be to assume that that this is a flirtatious nod to Trump’s obsession with his “Make America Great Again” hats, or, it’s a subtle meta throwback to season 6's “Asspen”, where Butters dances carefree to the very same song. Regardless, it’s a song worthy of satire. Much like last week’s onslaught of pregnant Mexicans and Syrian refugees, it feels as though the South Park team saved the most politically incorrect joke until the end, as Mr Garrison literally rapes Trump to death. Oh, and of course, Garrison snorts the shit out of some amyl nitrate to help facilitate the situation. As I said, this episode is full of beautiful little touches. You can’t be certain, but it could even be argued as though the writers were trying to use this brutal depiction as a way of suggesting that Donald Trump should suffer such a foul fate, for holding such ignorant views.

“Where My Country Gone?” seems to make a clear division of ideologies: either we succumb to the fragile and overprotective mindset of the politically correct crowd, and refer to them as “undocumented immigrants” — as Randy does early in the episode — or, we subscribe to Garrison’s absurd concept of fucking them all to death. It feels as though that this may be laying the foundations for the remainder of the season, by which these two opposing extremes will be forced to come to a head. Amidst all of this is Kyle, who — throughout the season thus far — is constantly shunned for having the foresight to predict that a shit storm is inevitably about to unfold. With Trump dead, the Canadians all safely return home, resulting in Garrison to declare that this success has only motivated him to take his ideological views to the only logical conclusion: the White House. This victory speech is quickly interrupted, as Kyle urges the citizens of South Park to exercise caution, “We have to stop sensationalistic politics before we allow the same thing to happen to us…” While he is immediately shut down by the palpable anger of the towns citizens, Kyle is right, and I feel that the unanimous disapproval of Kyle’s pontifications is simply planting the seed for something largely climactic later in the season. Furthermore, I found myself oddly touched by the unexpected turn in the relationship of Butters and Charlotte, who unfortunately returned to Canada amongst the others. Hopefully, this will also bring about another storyline, introducing a potentially delightful romantic sub-plot to the season.

With this, it feels as though Season 19 is shaping up to be one continuous story line, with a true overarching story. While season 18 toyed with this idea through Randy’s alter-ego of Lorde, it never truly committed to this concept. Where last week’s episode made me feel uneasy for the fate of this season, “Where My Country Gone?” absolutely shattered any and all of my preconceived concerns. While this episode is not without its minor criticisms, I am ecstatic and surprised that — for a show almost in its twenties — South Park is still capable of being both delightfully thought-evoking and hilarious.