South Park takes on the expensive, confusing world of club sports – with a nod to Heated Rivalry

The US midterms made it into this week’s episode, which focuses on gay couple Craig and Tweek as they join a ‘pay-to-play’ sport team which promises them a better future

South Park (or South America, as it’s known this season) is renowned for its turning around episodes far quicker than just about any scripted series, resulting in some of the most topical humor attempted on TV this side of Saturday Night Live. The “blue wave” in the US midterms one week ago made it into the start of this week’s episode – but they are not discussed much more than that, because Donald Trump suffered a big defeat and “it’s no fun punching down on a helpless loser”.

But it does mean the return of PC Principal, who delivers a funny torrent of profanities and belligerent vows of diversity and tolerance in a hyper-emboldened liberal version of the right-wing gloating we’ve seen in past elections.

Two other South Park characters are also back this week after a noticeable absence: Craig and Tweek, a couple of gay elementary-schoolers who are celebrating their anniversary – or rather, not celebrating it, as Craig forgot.

The perpetually frazzled Tweek hasn’t had a major role on the show in five years, and it’s been even longer for his mostly-unflappable bestie/boyfriend Craig, who is distracted by his participation in “pay-to-play” club sports. That’s the actual subject of this episode, titled We Be Clubbin’, and a comic corollary to the recent New York magazine report about this real-life phenomenon.

As both the article and this episode explain to the blessedly uninitiated, club sports used to be a specialized area for young athletes who showed particular promise beyond the boundaries of local teams, and could join more competitive “travel teams” to further hone their skills. Increasingly, though, these organizations depend on wildly ostentatious displays of commitment, asking students to “pay to play” with the vague promise it will look good on college applications. It’s like the athletic version of SAT tutoring, and it sounds about as fun. Maybe less; as Cartman explains, these kids typically “aren’t able to do anything ever again.” Practices are long, games involve out-of-town travel (sometimes including mandatory hotel stays – something that sounds like a South Park gag, but is also true), and expenses pile up.

Tweek learns all of this first-hand when, desperate to spend more time with overbooked Craig, he asks his parents to look into getting him into club sports (left hilariously unspecified). The club, run by the owner of a failed branding company shilling underwear, welcomes Tweek into the fold as his parents can afford the $26 try-out fee, $26 assessment fee, $10 parking fees, $20 spectator fees, and endless hotel bills, among other charges assessed by the South America Club Sports (SACS for short). The itemizations may be exaggerated, but the total price for real club sports can run into thousands of dollars.

At first, Tweek’s newfound jock life doesn’t bring him any closer to Craig beyond some initial physical proximity. His entire family is run ragged endlessly driving him from town to town, checking into hotels, and tapping their credit cards for fees upon fees. He’s also sorted into the ‘B-tier’ athlete group, presumably because he’s not all that good at sports. But when the club owner realizes that Tweek and Craig are a couple, they’re both promoted to “triple A” status, mostly because of the show Heated Rivalry. It turns out that the other parents, desperate to prove their worth by spending ungodly sums of money, are subsidizing these elite few.

We Be Clubbin’ scores some great, accurate points. Series mastermind Trey Parker has a daughter the exact right age for him to have some experience with real-life club sports, whether first-hand or through peers. If he or someone else on the writing staff somehow hasn’t been sucked into this particular form of youth-sports hell, the episode does a great job faking that frustration – to such a degree that it’s not all that satisfying as an instalment of South Park.

The digs at club sports are funny, but like those credit card taps, they happen over and over with only nominal variation. The schism between Tweek and Craig feels like an afterthought, and it’s resolved in a sweet but perfunctory fashion: Craig flips out about the pressure he’s felt to join this nebulous team to allegedly secure his future, and reconciles with Tweek after realizing he forgot their anniversary.

The two get to briefly swap roles: Craig is the one racked with anxiety, while Tweek gets to be chill for a few minutes. They pledge to be more hopeful about their future, and ditch SACS so they can just be normal kids for a bit.

It’s a nice moment, preceded by what may be a sly circling back to those show-opening midterms. “You got swindled by a fat conman who played into your anxieties,” Tweek says to Craig, without pushing the metaphor any further. Letting that one sit there makes sense; there’s no harm in mostly eschewing up-to-the-minute news stories in favor of a story that actually engages with the lives of its kid leads, and it’s great to see Tweek and Craig again. But, unexpectedly for a show known for its irreverence, this week’s South Park depicted modern parental anxieties almost too well.

South Park is streaming on Paramount+ in the US, UK and Australia.