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It's unquestionably difficult to rank the most intelligent episodes of South Park. Firstly, the entire show that Matt Stone and Trey Parker have created is a social satire on America and the world at large. In short, the very design of the show itself is intelligent. While TV networks may not have originally liked South Park, they've discovered at these boys from Colorado were WAY ahead of their time and have had their fingers on the pulse of society no matter how it shifted and changed.
Then there's the fact that later seasons of South Park have not been episodic but have instead been exploring multiple storylines over the course of numerous episodes. Given the fact that set-ups, builds, and pay-offs of these newer storylines aren't confined to 30 minutes, how could you possibly pinpoint what the smartest episodes actually are? Of course, there's also the feature-length movie and the multiple specials to contend with. But this list will be focused on singular episodes, even when their astute satirical observations branch out over more than one show.
12 Season 16, Episode 2: "Cash For Gold"
Matt and Trey love to expose the dark underbelly of societal norms. But instead of just focusing on how home shopping networks take advantage of the elderly the South Park boys found a circle of corruption. One that includes Asian jewelry stores, cash for gold businesses, and child labor in India.
11 Season 19, Episode 1: "Stunning And Brave"
This was the introduction of PC Principal and overt political correctness overcoming South Park (and our own society). While the character has been the gateway to discussing a lot of controversial and complicated issues such as finding love in the workplace and transgender athletes competing against cisgender ones, this first episode brilliantly showed just how toxic a place PC land can be. In their eyes, they are just a bunch of virtue-signaling frat boys who love to bully as much as those they're rebelling against. Their message is that PC culture is just a "paint job" over the same discriminatory practices it's been created to confront.
10 Season 19, Episode 5: "Safe Space"
Keeping in line with the anti-PC theme, Matt and Trey explore the dichotomous nature of victimhood and victimization. They do this by assigning Butters to sift through all of Cartman's social media comments and only presenting him with the positive ones, making Butters miserable and tired in the process. Additionally, we see Randy getting shamed at Whole Foods for not donating to charities every time he shops there. The commentary of corporations co-opting important social causes for their own financial gain is also apt.
9 Season 8, Episode 7: "Goobacks"
Immigration is a complicated issue and South Park has managed to do it justice on a few occasions. But none better than this one about poverty-stricken time-travelers who come back to South Park looking for a better life yet inadvertently making things harder for the existing working class. It accurately exposes the truth about both sides of this debate.
8 Season 23, Episode 2: "Banned In China"
While South Park has no problem discussing the dangers of Neoliberalism run amok, they also love exposing the dangers of Communism. But they did both at the same time while discussing how American businesses will do just about anything to make money in China despite their rampant censorship, the presence of slave-labor camps, and other human rights abuses. The episode's theme is brilliantly summed up in this line: "You have to lower your ideas of freedom if you wanna suck on the warm t*t of China".
7 Season 20, Episode 1: "Member Berries"
The Member Berries storyline stretched out over the entirety of the season and ultimately became the root of America's political problems. But the cute little creatures were introduced in this episode and were Matt and Trey's way of hilariously warning the public of the dangers of nostalgia. At best, the Member Berries lull anyone who eats them to blissfully abandon what's happening in the present. At worst, they turn them into racist monsters. This episode, as well as the entire season, brilliantly set up the results of the 2016 American election.
6 Season 8, Episode 3: "The Passion Of The Jew"
South Park has made a lot of incredible predictions of the future including the fact that Mel Gibson would be outed as an antisemite, among other things. More importantly, this episode exposed the true anti-Jewish nature of Mel's outlandishly successful movie, The Passion Of The Christ. It also dissected how the film propagated more hatred toward Jewish people.
5 Season 9, Episode 12: "Trapped In The Closet"
Otherwise known as the "Mom, Tom Cruise and John Travolta are in the closet and they won't come out" episode, this half-hour has gone down as one of the most beloved of all time. Of course, Tom Cruise was one of the celebrities who absolutely hated being parodied on the show. But The Church Of Scientology hated it even more because many believe Matt and Trey accurately exposed them for their crooked dealings.
4 Season 10, Episode 12: "Go God Go"
Matt and Trey are equal opportunity offenders and love to sit in the middle of the vast majority of debates. This includes the argument between the religious and the non-religious. Specifically, those who are certain about the validity of organized religion and the existence of God and those who are certain about the idiocy of organized religion and the non-existence of God. This episode smartly skewers the thinking of both.
3 Season 22, Episode 9: "Unfulfilled"
Most of Season 22 deals with the poor working conditions at mega-corporations such as Amazon as well as how society has become a consumer culture that only cares about convenience. But this episode is the best while tackling the issue and making Jeff Bezos into a Brainiac-esque supervillain.
2 Season 10's "Cartoon Wars Part 1 And 2" And Season 14's "200" And "201"
Without a doubt, these were seen as the most controversial episodes of South Park due to their continued depiction of the Prophet Muhammed. But Matt and Trey had no interest in bowing to the demands of those who threatened their lives showed him. According to fans on Reddit, each of these episodes' commentary on the dangers of censorship and radical religious thinking. It's summed up so beautifully in Kyle's final speech, "You see, I learned something today. Throughout this whole ordeal, we’ve all wanted to show things that we weren’t allowed to show, but it wasn’t because of some magic goo. It was because of the magical power of threatening people with violence. That’s obviously the only true power. If there’s anything we’ve all learned, it’s that terrorizing people works."
1 Season 22, Episode 6 And 7: "Time To Get Cereal" And "Nobody Got Cereal?"
The allegory for climate change first appeared in Season 10 and was written off as Al Gore just trying to get attention. But over time, and with more information, the South Park boys realized that they had made a mistake. Al Gore was right about climate change... AKA Man Bear Pig. Therefore, Matt and Trey wrote the monster back into the show as a way to admit they were wrong, warn their audience, as well as criticize those who claim they are going to do something about it. The choice to have Stan's grandpa be responsible for delaying the inevitable arrival of Man Bear Pig for another generation to deal with was a brilliant observation. But their choice to have Stan do the same thing was even more intelligent, albeit tragically accurate.