South Park: Ranking Every Season From Worst To Best

5. Season 19 (2015)

South Park is still as funny as ever, but after experimenting with serialism last year and not quite getting it right, Parker and Stone spent last fall constructing a story that was more than just topical and hilarious - it was damn compelling edge-of-your-seat suspense. As usual, the show was merciless in attacking its targets, and in Season 19, everything revolved around a takedown of phony progressives: people who support gentrification because they like the aesthetic of poverty and ignore its problems, people who applaud a gay couple that isn't actually gay, people who think that the right to a "safe space" entails literally lynching reality in the town square.

The satire has been well-balanced; it would have been too easy to merely mock social justice warriors without acknowledging the very real problems they're attempting to address, but that would have demonstrated a lack of the thought and nuance that has made South Park so brilliant over the past two decades. What made this season so amazing, though, is that it completely embraced the concept of a "season" as a themed unit of television with overarching themes and plot.

In the age of Internet streaming services and binge-watching, Parker and Stone had to know that Season 19 will be consumed as a single entity in the future, and they designed it perfectly for that purpose. While each episode is great (only You're Not Yelping is even average), when taken as a single unit, Season 19 puts together the best mixture of humor and story the show has ever seen.

My one quibble is that the conclusion didn't really give us a concrete answer to the season's mysteries, but on the bright side, it looks like we're set up for an entire season of Garrison/Jenner 2016 to tie everything up. Here's hoping Parker and Stone can make next season as great as this one.

Best Episode: Safe Space

Worst Episode: You're Not Yelping