https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/The_Big_Fix
Maybe someone who is more hip and with-it can explain it for me, if there is a joke at all. In the episode it is revealed that Token's name was always Tolkien because his dad liked Tolkien's books. Apparently everyone but Stan knew that.
Stan feels bad for being "racist" so he tries to help Token/Tolkien by making LotR required reading at school. The reveal is that Token/Tolkien hates the nerdy Tolkien stuff. This is obviously a dig at SJWs for misguided activism but at the same time forgives them for being "sincere".
There is a Dr character directly lecturing the viewers that if they thought the name was Token that they are horrible racists, that may be the writers apologizing for the original joke?
The meta joke, imo, is that with the reveal Token's name is being changed everywhere, including the wiki article I linked, 1984 Ministry of Truth style. And that is funny in a nihilistic, laugh at the burning world, kind of way.
The B plot of Randy needing a black business partner to show "equity" so he takes on Token's dad as a literal black token is more straightforward.
Was it South Park that went off the rails or has clown world reality manifested itself to be more ridiculous than fiction?
They moved from self contained episodes, or miniarcs, to season long dramas with an actual required watch order to understand them. All so they could make jokes about Trump and internet trolls.
That's entirely on them.
I think in the worst timeline, they countinued doing the same sort of establishment-mocking one-off episodes they'd always done, but they didn't have any idea where to go when Trump won -- they couldn't keep mocking the "powerless" left without implicitly supporting Trump, and there wasn't enough about Trump to mock in a funny way, so they became unfunny by default.
I think they ran out of shit to do. I think they should have quit a long time ago.