The wait for Season 29 of South Park has been a long one. Even though it has been less than a year since the previous season premiered, the show has managed to generate just as much outside media attention and scrutiny from non-fans as it did in its heyday. To cap it all off, the series just won a Primetime Emmy Award for the Season 27 premiere, “Sermon on the ‘Mount,” marking the first win for the beloved series since 2013. South Park made even more headlines, though, when it announced that it would be changing its title ahead of Season 29, with the new crop of episodes being called “South America” instead, part of its continued gags centered around lampooning President Donald Trump.
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To that end, South Park fans were perhaps expecting the first episode of “South America” to continue its ridicule of Trump, but instead found a premiere that went somewhat back to basics. Not only was the president absent from the story of the episode entirely (he can briefly be seen in the opening credits), but the plot of the episode centered exclusively on the four main boys and the citizens of the town. Though the episode revealed that the “South America” change has taken root in the town to a major degree, even though no one talks about it, the series got back to its roots with a surprise: the death of Kenny McCormick.
South Park Revives Kenny Death Gag for Season 29
As longtime fans know, the death of Kenny used to be a major staple of the South Park franchise. For the first five seasons of the series, the character died in some horrific manner in almost every episode, with each instance prompting the now-iconic lines, “Oh my god, they killed Kenny” and “You bastards!” The repeated use of Kenny’s death largely ended when he died for real in the Season 5 finale, but was still used sporadically across the series for years.
Previously, there was a gap between Seasons 17 and 21 with no Kenny deaths, but this week ends the longest drought in South Park history without the character dying on screen. The last time Kenny died was back in the Season 24 premiere, “The Pandemic Special,” which aired September 30, 2020. This week, though, Kenny’s death is central to the plot of the episode.
After all the kids in South Park begin to purchase and terrorize the town on E-Bikes, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny deliberately buy cheaper versions so they can fit in with their friends. When a war begins to brew between kids on E-Bikes and adult cyclists, Kenny gets caught in the crossfire while trying to promote peace, blowing up. Though his death is assumed to be the fault of a cheap E-Bike, it’s revealed that Randy and his fellow cyclists planted a bomb in it to ignite a biker war.
Kenny’s death isn’t in vain, though, as it’s used as a means to get E-Bikes banned entirely. Though it means Randy and his fellow adults go back to enjoying peace in the town, it clearly has a major effect on the kids of South Park, as they all hang their heads low while walking to school.
What remains to be seen is if this Kenny Death will stick once again; they do name the E-Bike ban in memory of him, so it wouldn’t be too far-fetched. If he’s back next time, it wouldn’t be the first time Kenny died and returned without any questions.
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