The creators of South Park aren’t ones to run from polarizing characters, so when season 20 arrives this fall, we may see a familiar mustached face. Trey Parker and Matt Stone recently revealed in an interview with Mashable that they are considering bringing back the controversial Reality character, who was killed off in season 19.
Reality’s memorable appearance came in episode 5, Safe Space. The character crashed an anti-shaming fundraiser and was only around briefly before being killed in a public hanging. Viewers’ reaction to him, though, may give him new life.
“People were like, ‘Fuck that character,'” said Parker. “If we get feedback that people are going, ‘Fuck that character,’ our first instinct is like, ‘We’re gonna do a lot with that character.'”
The duo haven’t necessarily decided to go in that direction, but it is a distinct possibility. They seem to have given the idea a lot of thought, in any case. While Stone indicated that they would do something with the character, Parker made the decision seem less certain.
“We are going to do something with Reality this season that will blow people’s minds — unless we decide not to do it,” said Parker.
Reality was involved in a rare arc on the series. The show has long been comprised of unconnected or only loosely connected episodes, but season 19 was more serialized. According to the creators, it wasn’t planned, but they found that they liked doing it.
“That idea of doing ‘serialization light,’ it did give us, like, a new instrument,” said Stone. “We could paint on a bigger canvas.”
There are plenty of possibilities for the upcoming season, so it will be interesting to see where they go with it. We may get a “Reality” check or we may not.
