South Park again proves it's at its best when addressing gun violence

Esquire

Comedy Central long-running animated series is usually hit and miss, but not when it comes to gun violence. The 2015 Season 19 finale that satirized America's obsession with guns was one of South Park's best-ever episodes, says Matt Miller. Wednesday's "Dead Kids" Season 22 premiere also showed South Park at its best, tackling the wave of high school shootings. "Last night’s episode wasn’t about one school shooting at South Park elementary school—it was about a lot of school shootings," says Miller. "I lost count because they were constantly happening in the background of the episodes—the students and teachers and parents carrying on their lives as if nothing is happening. In a rather mature move, we never actually see a child open fire. We never see the gruesome deaths of South Park Elementary School students. Instead, it’s just something that’s happening—an annoying hum—as the boys are all more concerned with failing a math test."

ALSO:

• “Dead Kids” was a chilling and an emotionally conscious episode of TV
• South Park has reached a point that we might call “predictably shocking"
• "Dead Kids" never manages to find insight or catharsis, ending instead on a darkly unsatisfying note