On September 26th, Comedy Central’s hit series “South Park” had returned to its original television network for its 22nd Season. After the series had briefly stopped airing episodes during its 21st season in late 2017, the show had returned back to Comedy Central after its brief and unannounced hiatus. The series has even come back with the new promotional phrase ”#cancelsouthpark,” which does seem very unlikely as the series will be renewed for its 23rd season in 2019.

The new season premiered with its first episode called ”Dead Kids,” which is supposed to be a parody of the recent school shootings that had taken place earlier on in the year. The episode starts off with the kids learning how to solve fractions, when all of a sudden, they’re interrupted by the sound of gunshots going off in the hallway.

Now one thing that I found interesting is the fact that throughout the episode you don’t actually see the identity of the school shooter, but rather you just hear the sound of the act that they’re committing, which I guess is supposed to be a little subtle commentary of how a school shooter’s identity isn’t usually mentioned as a way to prevent easy fame in articles.

After receiving his failed math test, Cartman then gets upset and blames Token for changing his answers at the last minute. Soon after while hanging out his friends, Stan then gets greeted by his mother because of the school shooting that had happened prior. Stan then tells his dad, Randy, about the event in which he brushes off and instead asks him about his math test. So in response to this, Stan’s mom, Sharon, goes off on a whole rant about the situation and basically wants them and the other people around her to care about the shooting. So, that’s essentially the whole episode in a nutshell. As mentioned previously, with the exception of the whole side plot with Cartman trying to blackmail Token to let him copy on the next test, there’s not really all that much going on in the episode, which I guess does make it a lot more concise and focused as a result of not much going on.

However, despite the minor criticisms that I gave towards the episode, I did find this episode to be one of the more sincere episodes in recent years. I think that the message of gun violence numbness was also very well handled for the most part, and I also liked how Sharon was pretty much the only voice of reason throughout the episode. I also found some of the jokes and scenarios in the episode to be pretty funny as well, especially the whole side plot dealing with Cartman trying blackmail Token. Overall, I found the episode to be a pretty decent episode with a good message, however, it did leave me wanting a little more. Now while I do miss the good old times of shared continuity and season-long story arcs from the previous seasons, I don’t really mind the random stories that the series has to offer from time to time. Either way, I’m still hopeful for what Matt Stone and Trey Parker have to offer for the 22nd season of their series.

Be sure to check out the second and third episode, as well as to tune in for the fourth episode this Wednesday at 10 p.m. PST on Comedy Central.