The City Part of Town

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"Where My Country Gone?"

"The City Part of Town"

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"The City Part of Town"
Episode no.	Season 19 Episode 3
Production no.	1903
Original airdate	September 30, 2015
Episode chronology Previous Next "Where My Country Gone?" "You're Not Yelping"
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"The City Part of Town" is the third episode of Season Nineteen, and the 260^th overall episode of South Park. It aired on September 30, 2015.

Synopsis

As the town is gentrifying around him, Kenny attempts to climb out of the cycle of poverty by taking a job at City Wok.

Plot

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

Due to Mr. Garrison's's bid for President in the US elections, South Park is ridiculed by Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show; and as a result, the town plans to have a Whole Foods Market built, to boost their image. In order to attract Whole Foods and make their town look better, Mayor McDaniels, with the help of Randy Marsh, decides to have a fancy and modern district, SoDoSoPa ("South of Downtown South Park"), be built around Kenny's house. The new district is intentionally built around Kenny's dilapidated home to appeal to young hipsters who enjoy the "rustic charm" of the scenery. SoDoSoPa runs several commercials (filmed in live action) advertising that all of the new restaurants and shops are "supporting" the original poor residents - when in fact no one in Kenny's family actually works at any of them. Soon the new district starts building middle-class apartment units for customers and employees to live in - all while claiming that this is revitalizing the poor residents that it was simply built around. The new district quickly attracts many people who start leaving the Chinese restaurant, City Wok. Proprietor Tuong Lu Kim hires a child labor force to try to cut costs, and Kenny manages to get a job in the restaurant.

Meanwhile, Randy phones Whole Foods Market Inc. to convince them to build a market in South Park, and they eventually send a representative. As the representative comes into town, all the citizens try to behave properly to give the town a good impression. After speaking with PC Principal the representative seems to have a good impression of the town. However, when Randy and others find out that Mr. Kim is creating his own gentrified district named CtPa Town ("shitty part of town") and hiring children, a large group of citizens moves madly towards City Wok, and forcibly takes the child laborers out of the restaurant. Kenny becomes angry and kicks Randy who starts beating him as well, and this triggers a fight between the children and the adults. However, everyone becomes silent when they notice that the representative was observing the fight. He, however, seems to like the energy that the town put in to impress him and decides that the city will have the market. Everyone cheers and leaves, except for Kenny and Kim, who grants Kenny his "child labor wage". Kenny then comes back home, and his father reacts cynically when Kenny says that he earned nothing at his work. Kenny then enters his sister's room, however, and gives her a new doll - revealing that he did not "earn" anything for himself because he spent all his wages on the gift. She smiles and finally, Kenny goes to sleep in his room which is right next to the SoDoSoPa that is very loud and active during night-time hours. The episode ends with the citizens walking inside the new Whole Foods Market.

Critical Reception

AV Club gave "The City Part Of Town" a "A-" rating saying: "Parker and Stone like to use stereotypes to prove a point, even when the stereotype in question is acknowledging how offensive they are, and some of the episode’s best moments come from the Kim narrative. As the presence of SoDoSoPa continues to push out the McCormicks, Kenny, along with an entire child-labor force of disenfranchised kids all too happy to work, picks up a job at City Wok. Even with his new employees in place, Kim’s restaurant is still floundering, so he tries to rebrand his neighborhood as its own yupster haven. But his commercial ends up being an unintentional inverse of the ads for SoDoSoPa, soothingly describing his product while the visuals expose the pile of greasy, deep-fried shit it actually is. At the same time, it’s no less valid than the lies being spewed out (at a nice, leisurely pace of course) by Randy, Mayor Henderson, and everyone else behind SoDoSoPa. In fact, it’s probably a little more noble (though not by much)."

IGN gave "The City Part Of Town" a "7.5" rating saying: "While Kenny's character-driven subplot felt like an afterthought, this week's South Park served up a clever commentary on gentrification -- most notably the SoDoSoPa ads. Granted, the main joke of renovating Kenny's house only had so much mileage in it, but it was still humorous enough for one episode at least."