The Season 22 premiere of “South Park,” titled “Dead Kids,” drew 1.5 million total viewers on Wednesday night, counting two encores. The episode received a 1.01 rating among adults 18-49, which is generally the demographic most-coveted by those advertising on entertainment programming.
Though Episode 2201 slipped from last year’s premiere, which was scheduled a few weeks earlier on the calendar and thus beat the fall broadcast season to air, the 1.01 rating was 5 percent better than Season 21’s average rating in the key demo. The half-hour was actually the most-watched 2018 comedy telecast on cable for adults of that all-important age range.
“Dead Kids” satirized how numb our society has unfortunately become to hearing about a school shooting.
On this episode of the Comedy Central cartoon, everyone in town is pretty apathetic to the kids’ elementary school getting shot up on the regular. Everyone, that is, but Stan’s mom Sharon, who sees how insane and terrifying it all is. Her husband Randy believes Sharon is overreacting to the recurring attacks, and blames it on either on her period or the early stages of menopause.
Naturally, the townsfolk all side with Randy and the children just go about their school day in a war zone like it’s completely normal. Yes, it was all perfectly “South Park.”
At the end of “Dead Kids,” Stan gets shot in yet another school-shooting. By then, even his own mom Sharon is unmoved upon hearing about the incident.
“South Park” airs Wednesday nights at 10/9c on Comedy Central.