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After sleeping on it, I’ve significantly upgraded my estimate of this episode. It’s still meh creatively, but politically it is both genuinely courageous and actually consequential. To be blunt, I wouldn’t dare do something like this in the current environment (hell, I’m even wary of putting my review in my newsletter). I don’t have the wealth, fame, or unassailable “heritage citizen” status required to pick such a fight. But Matt and Trey do and have. And notably, few people at their level, who could pick such a fight, have chosen to do so.
The premiere is an interesting litmus test. If you’ve never watched the show and suddenly like it, you’re a leftie hypocrite. If you’ve always liked it and suddenly don’t, you’re a rightist hypocrite. Anyone who has consistently watched the show and will continue to, has true centrist cred imo.
It’s always been a center-right-libertarian show, but with a sensibility center-left and left could enjoy (the transphobia was a dealbreaker for the far left). This premiere, notably, was not a swing leftwards. The attack on Trump was mostly along the libertarian vs authoritarian axis. The subplot of Cartman moaning about “woke is dead” so he has nothing to make fun of, is a clear signal that they haven’t shifted left (the weird Cartman-Butters suicide pact thing, as someone pointed out on X, is a Matt+Trey statement, which I didn’t get at first). 1 reply
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