December 11, 2019, was the last day that a regular twenty-minute episode of South Park aired. Ever since September 30, 2020, South Park fans have only gotten four extended hour-long specials. Fans have been begging for a new season ever since 2019, and on February 2, 2022, the first episode of season 25 aired on Comedy Central. 

   As soon as I saw the first episode, I knew that I would be in for a good season. One reason that people have been critical of the modern South Park episodes is because the seasons have become serialized. This means that every season has one bigger storyline, as opposed to one story per episode. I never really complained about the serialized seasons, although I did enjoy the show more when each episode had its own story. The first episode of season 25, called “Pajama Day,” is about the principal of South Park Elementary banning the fourth-grade class from wearing pajamas, because they were mean to their teacher, Mr. Garrison. The episode followed the kids of the fourth-grade class trying to get pajama day back. Having simpler stories like this as opposed to bigger stories was refreshing because we have had so many bigger, serialized seasons lately.

   My favorite episode from season 25 was episode three called “City People.” One of the kids at South Park Elementary named Eric Cartman got furious when his mom said she was getting a new job. She got a job in real estate, so Eric also got a job in real estate to put her out of business. The show pokes fun at how stuck-up and arrogant stereotypical real estate agents can be. While this episode isn’t a top ten episode of South Park, I still really enjoyed this episode, and it made me laugh quite a bit. 

   This season had some great episodes, but it had some terrible episodes as well. My least favorite episode was “Back to the Cold War.” This episode takes on the Russia invading Ukraine controversy, but it doesn’t do it well. It’s about the character, Butters, going against a Russian kid in his horse dressage competition. Everyone wants him to beat the Russian kid because the parents all support Ukraine. That was it. That was the whole plot of the episode. Normally I love it when South Park does social commentary because it’s normally funny, and it makes me understand real-world issues. However, I found this episode to be boring, and many people agree, as this is the lowest-ranked episode on IMDb for season 25.

   My overall complaint about this season is that it is only six episodes. I’m so irritated that we have waited so long for a new season, and only got six episodes. Granted, we have been getting a few hour-long episodes, but still, I would have loved to see more episodes in this season. I feel like there’s so much that could have been done, but they limited themselves to six episodes which saddened me.

   While it wasn’t a perfect season, I did enjoy South Park season 25, and I always looked forward to a new episode every week. I was really happy to see a return to form, with the un-serialized episodes.

   South Park season 25 can be watched on HBO Max.