South Park finds new ways to make fun of “City People”
Trey Parker and Matt Stone take on the real estate bubble in a Cartman-centric episode
TV Reviews South Park
On paper, South Park making fun of yuppies and suburban expansion almost feels passé at this point. What more could there be left to say on either topic after the greatness that was “The City Part Of Town”?
Not a whole lot, it turns out. But as the pseudo-sequel, “City People,” proves, a successful South Park episode isn’t always about what’s being said, but how Trey Parker and Matt Stone are saying it. When an influx of the title characters start flocking to town as a means of escape in the wake of the pandemic, they look about how they have in the past. It’s clear that, as soon as they step out of their Teslas, the show is once again going to skewer how quickly overdevelopment and a certain kind of migration can wreak havoc on a community.
But these latest city people don’t have the condescending calmness of their forebears. Rather, they peck about like urban-dwelling pigeons, blurting out their wants through one-word sentences like “pilates,” “oat milk,” and “metal water bottle.” In classic South Park fashion, their communication becomes more aggressive and panicked as the episode progresses, the repetition reaching a fever pitch that’s undeniable in its humor. Sure, the point is still more or less “Don’t these people suck?,” as driven home by another titular “city”/“shitty” pun from Mr. Kim/Dr. Janus. But the pigeon comparison is so blunt, fun, and stupid that it works like gangbusters.
There’s just as much glee in the way South Park targets a different group this week: real estate agents. After jacked-up rent prices push Liane Cartman to get a job selling houses, we’re introduced to the finer points of the profession—namely taking a business photo that involves a demented grin, crossing your arms, and leaning backward at such a sharp and awkward angle that your bones break. While the ghastly professional photo of a real estate agent is by no means a new phenomenon, South Park finds such a true and specific way to make fun of it that you wonder why another comedy series hasn’t already pushed it to such extremes.
The episode’s primary conflict arises when Cartman, claiming to also want to make easy money for essentially doing nothing, cuts in on the real estate game and starts offering up his friends’ houses to the out-of-towners at increasingly high prices, with Butters in tow as his cameraman. Not only does this anger Liane—who’s doing her best to support their family—but her new coworkers as well, who are driven into a frenzy by the latest competition.
By the time the town council (with Mr. Kim among their ranks) arrives to gun down all of the real estate agents, they find that the work has already been done for them. In an effort to take flashier photos to keep up with Cartman, the agents have all bent their bodies so out of shape that their spines have snapped. This intentional anti-climax foreshadows the city people’s conclusion, too. When Cartman shows them the recently vacated home of Tolkien and the gun-toting town council makes an appearance, you expect there to be a bloodbath. After all, this is South Park.
But instead, the gunshots merely drive away the city people without any injury, and the focus of the episode turns to a more vulnerable moment between Cartman and his mother. As they duck for cover from the bullets, it’s revealed that Cartman’s pivot to real estate wasn’t driven by a desire to make money, but to sabotage Liane’s new career so she could remain at home and continue to take care of him. Selfish, sure. But a different kind of selfish.
Similar to the season premiere, “City People” never quite explodes into the kind of bonkers finale promised by the episode’s front half. And yet the quieter look into Cartman and Liane’s codependent relationship proves to be interesting in its own right. There’s something both fascinating and depressing about seeing Cartman’s mom—the butt of so many jokes over the years—take literal agency and try to make something of herself, only to be thwarted by her son’s parasitic needs.
The final nail in the coffin comes at the tail end of the episode when, still unable to afford rent (turns out Cartman never got a real estate license or joined an agency, and therefore didn’t make any actual money), both characters are forced to live in an abandoned hot dog truck. While it may not be the most narratively cathartic ending for the Cartmans, it feels like the ending they deserve—at least for now.
Stray Observations
- As some folks may have noticed in an earlier draft, I originally interpreted the city people as chickens. But several of you pointed out that they’re more like pigeons, which makes much more sense as a joke (hence the updated copy). That being said, I’ve rewatched several times and they still feel more chicken-like than pigeon-like to me. What do the rest of you think?
- Although we didn’t get a direct continuation of last week’s episode, I’m glad the show at least acknowledged it by showing that Tolkien’s family had moved. Here’s hoping that the Randy/Steven feud continues.
- I love that South Park has gotten to the point where there can be an entire episode without Stan or Kyle and it doesn’t feel out of place.
- The real estate commercials—complete with boilerplate drone shots and numbingly calm music—were right on-point.
- It also felt right that Cartman both began and ended the episode with disgusting food-stuff all over his face.
29 Comments
B+? Really? This episode was weak, like really weak. Had solid foundation for a plot, but no real humor to bite into, it felt very phoned in overall, especially after last week’s brilliant and hilarious episode. The city people are chickens or birds or whatever was humorous for a moment, but they really beat that dead horse into the ground for far too long throughout the episode so that by the end I was just annoyed with the recurring bit. Hopefully next week is considerably better, and hopefully Matt and Trey don’t actually feel this to have been as good as B+ quality, I want them to continuously aim higher than this.
Yup. It had two whole jokes in the entire thing that they just ran into the ground over and over again.
You’re a real estate agent, aren’t you….
No sir, just a big South Park fan, and fan of comedy in general. I have decent expectations for this series, especially after the phenomenal episode before this. So I’m not lying when I say this one was a major disappointment for me, I don’t get how this guy saw something worthy of a B+ when I think I laughed out loud, maybe once in the episode? Though I’m struggling to think what it would have even been for, there were simply few laughs to be had with this episode. At least the plot was OK, we’re not talking the 2 Startling episodes here with no comedy and an awful plot, so at least this one had that going for it, but that’s not enough to elevate it beyond a C in my book, and I’d probably giveit a C- at best.
Chickens? They were clearly supposed to be pigeons. Y’know, sky-vermin, the flying rats of the city.
Whatever they were aiming for, they really ran that bit into the ground. Was slightly funny when first introduced, but quickly wore out its welcome. Less episodes like this, and more like last week’s please. Thanks.
quickly wore out its welcomeWasn’t that the point though? Urbanites moving into smaller towns jacking up property values and pricing residents — like the Cartmans — out of their own communities and generally upsetting the economic and social balance?
I believe it was also supposed to be funny. And that’s where it really missed the mark, ya know after the first 10 seconds of it anyway.
Ah, that would make much more sense! I have to admit, I just rewatched and they still came off like chickens to me. I’m going to update the review to get everyone’s opinion!
I thought chickens as well. My take was a poke at the fact that city people used to make a huge deal about people having chickens as being dirty and poor but now everyone wants a fancy little chicken coop so they can have fresh eggs, at the same time I felt it was a nod towards ‘the interview,’ Oprah with her carton of eggs in hand while visiting Meghan and Harry’s fancy little chicken coop.
While the intention could have been pigeons, chickens just makes more sense to me.
I thought chickens as well. My take was a poke at the fact that city
people used to make a huge deal about people having chickens as being
dirty and poor but now everyone wants a fancy little chicken coop so
they can have fresh eggs, at the same time I felt it was a nod towards
‘the interview,’ Oprah with her carton of eggs in hand while visiting Meghan and Harry’s fancy little chicken coop.
While the intention could have been pigeons, chickens just makes more sense to me.
(hopefully this isn’t a duplicate response. I got the loading ellipses for a few minutes, reloaded and it wasn’t there so trying again.)
Turkeys and turkey shoot, something people in the country do, though not usually at mansions. You City People
Turkeys and a turkey shoot
I mean they were supposed to be pigeons but they did def sound like chickens, probably because the cooing didn’t work as well as clucking given the stupid repetitive nature of the characters.
The way the guy said macbook was obviously cluck cluck
I like the pigeon reference but I also initially thought they were chickens and it reminded me of the “Pick-a-Little Talk-a-Little” number in The Music Man.
Tolkien?
It’s a reference to the previous episode.
Did you really think his parents would name their child “Token” Black? Wow, just wow…
I really enjoyed this one. It felt more like the South Park of old where you’d take a topic, give it a silly spin and just keep upping that to ridiculous levels. The city people only being able to say certain words was completely dumb but I kept laughing every time as it grew. Cartman’s story was perfectly Cartman and while it is getting a bit tired seeing Mrs. Cartman always giving in to him, it was nice to see him get a little comeuppance at the very end.
Two very solid episodes in a row now after a very shaky debut for this season
Great episode! My wife and I both thought that this is Cartman’s first step toward ending up homeless like we saw in the future episodes.
I think y’all missed the point of the city chicken-pigeons blurting out “cortado,” “LaCroix,” “pilates,” etc. They want all of the square footage bucolic South Park has to offer for what it costs to rent an apartment in the city, but they also still want all of the trappings of urban living, i.e., “cortado,” “LaCroix,” “pilates,” etc.Did you notice the first family to arrive said “WiFi” almost as soon as they got out of the Tesla? Can’t exactly “work from home” without it, can you?
Turkeys and a turkey shoot, like Jimbo would take part in.
I think it would of been better if they had just killed all the city people at the end. Everyone dies but the cartmans before their final fate and that would of maybe been more a release from the set up. its southpark so fuck it, kill all the real estate agents and the city people it would of been more funny imo
I think you missed the most important reveal in this episode: When Mr Kim means to say “city”, he says it properly; at around 15 minutes into the episode, his speech goes: “What the one thing chitty people hate most? Other chitty people. Chitty people wanna get out of the City”.
The reveal here is that for the past 20 seasons, every time Mr Kim said “Welcome to Chitty Wok”, he was genuinely saying – “shitty”.
They were turkeys and the hunters had a turkey shoot at the mansion.
They were turkeys and the episode ended with a turkey shoot.
They were a bit like chickens, a bit like the aliens from Sesame Street, some Jakovasaur as well.
The hot dog truck is not actually a truck. It’s clearly based on a real hot-dog shaped restaurant called Coney Island that exists near South Park to this day. Even the reference of it being in “Aspen Park” is based on the former location of the hot-dog stand, which is where it was when Matt and Trey lived in Colorado. It actually was moved 17 miles down the highway in Bailey, Colorado.
This episode ripped more on Real Estate agents than it do city people IMO. And I loved it, because everything they did or said about Realtors is true. One of the most useless “professions” people get paid stupid amounts of money for….