South Park Revived [Spoiler]'s Funniest Gag - and It Created Pure Chaos - CBR - Comic Book Resources

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WARNING: The following contains spoilers for South Park Season 25, Episode 3, "City People," now available on Comedy Central.

In the South Park Season 15 episode "City Sushi," the show leaned hard into an Asian turf war. Lu Kim defended his Chinese restaurant City Wok because he felt Takayama was stealing his customers by opening City Sushi next door. As drama ensued, the episode revealed that Lu Kim was a white man in disguise; he was really the psychologist Janus, who had a split personality. The story played on cultural appropriation in the snowy Colorado town by showing the stereotypes Americans often tag Asian people with and their unconscious bias -- which Stan also demonstrated in Season 25 with Tolkien.

Janus would somehow continue living and working as Lu Kim, though, bringing Asian issues to light the same way Apu did with The Simpsons, albeit by poking fun at white people for their ignorance. In the latest Season 25 episode "City People," Lu Kim brought back his funniest gag -- but rather than continuing a restaurant rivalry, he created pure chaos via a purge.

Lu Kim instigated the slaughter of city people in South Park

The original joke was tied to Lu Kim's pronunciation of the word "city," which was originally spun into a more derogatory term that reminded folks South Park wouldn't ever stop with its toilet humor. All of his food had the prefix attached to it -- which was the show's way of saying purchase from authentic vendors, not white people masquerading as them in the business world.

That gag returned when the character took aim at "city people" after they came in droves to South Park to buy up homes at cheap prices. They wanted away from the hustle and bustle and were looking down at the town as a place they could appropriate, turning it into hipster areas filled with items they couldn't do without: MacBooks, La Croix water, WiFi, water in metal cans and edamame.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker had previously talked about self-serving bureaucracy during the COVID-19 pandemic; in "City People," they addressed gentrification and how these real estate predators similarly just want land to create a diluted version of the city. Lu Kim took offense to this, making it clear the new arrivals would see the town as a fad, spending money in the short-term but breaking the economy when they got bored and left. The town hall didn't really grasp his words until he made it clear "city people" hate "city people" more than anything else -- so by becoming cosmopolitan the town was shooting itself in the foot.

With his bad language now painting a clearer picture of these folks' toxic lifestyles, Mayor McDaniels made a shocking decision. She urged all of South Park's townsfolk to bear arms and declared open season on realtors and their clients. By killing these people off, they'd protect their land -- which held a deeper meaning because it was also the series making reference to how the Native Americans suffered atrocities and genocides for their land.

The order led to South Park citizens shooting up open houses like Tolkien's residence -- which was empty after the family moved out to the mountains to have their own war with Tegridy Farms, looking to crush Randy's culturally-appropriating weed business. This purge didn't alarm Lu Kim, however; it felt better than continuously poking fun at these obnoxious people the way Cartman poked fun at Matt Damon. And more importantly, it kept South Park the utopia that Lu Kim always wanted.

South Park Season 25 airs every Wednesday at 8 PM ET/PT on Comedy Central.

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I'm a former Chemical Engineer. It was boring so I decided to write about things I love. On the geek side of things, I write about comics, cartoons, video games, television, movies and basically, all things nerdy. I also write about music in terms of punk, indie, hardcore and emo because well, they rock! If you're bored by now, then you also don't want to hear that I write for ESPN on the PR side of things. And yes, I've written sports for them too! Not bad for someone from the Caribbean, eh? To top all this off, I've scribed short films and documentaries, conceptualizing stories and scripts from a human interest and social justice perspective. Business-wise, I make big cheddar (not really) as a copywriter and digital strategist working with some of the top brands in the Latin America region. In closing, let me remind you that the geek shall inherit the Earth. Oh, FYI, I'd love to write the Gargoyles movie for Disney. YOLO. That said, I'm on Twitter @RenaldoMatadeen. So holler.