It’s been a strange year to be a South Park fan. After a few uneven years of occasional one-off special broadcasts, South Park eventually returned for a full 10-episode season in 2025. A trailer was released, consisting of entirely fabricated clips that would never actually air, promising exciting storylines like Butters becoming an air traffic controller and Randy taking ketamine to “fuck with the government.»
Some behind-the-scenes craziness with Paramount’s regime change delayed the start of the season from its original July 9 release date. Then, when these conflicts were resolved and South Park Season 27 finally premiered on July 23, with Trey Parker and Matt Stone coming out of the gate with a no-holds-barred satirical attack on their own parent company.
This first episode also brought back the old running gag of Saddam Hussein dating Satan, swapping Hussein for Donald Trump (but keeping the same voice and character model). This hilarious, unsubtle roast became a cultural phenomenon, and for a brief stint in the news cycle, South Park was as relevant as it was when it hit the airwaves in the late ’90s.
Then, as the season progressed, Parker and Stone took two-week breaks between episodes, and shows that took twice as long to make were often half as good as episodes produced on tighter deadlines. This is the show that rewrote and reanimated a presidential election episode in the aftermath of the presidential election; they shouldn’t need two weeks to come up with an episode on Sora 2.
After five episodes, the series abruptly ended season 27 and went straight into season 28 as a hilarious meta payoff for the 6-7 meme. South Park has delivered 10 episodes over the past six months. The first five made up Season 27, but the last five make up Season 28, and those five were just as random as the first.
5
Sora, not sorry
Sora was a perfect subject for South Park to address, but the Sora episode of the series, “Sora Not Sorry”, left a lot to be desired. It’s not as biting as Parker and Stone’s usual satire. Generative AI is only there as a plot device, not a comedy target. They usually push the envelope in both directions, but they don’t go far enough here.
This technology poses a serious threat to the entertainment industry and to human creativity in general. But South ParkThe view of it was disappointing and toothless. People are using AI to create their own South Park episodes; South Park himself could have gotten more meta with this. The ChatGPT episode was much better.
4
The shit
South Park season 28 ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. The finale, “The Crap Out,” was tasked with resolving all of these ongoing storylines, and the title seems to suggest that Parker and Stone were flushing out all of these plot threads that were beating the same dead horse, just to get it over with.
When this latest set of episodes premiered, its portrayal of President Trump as Satan’s boyfriend was a refreshing and brazen satire of the current administration. But as the weeks went by, it became clear that it was a joke idea that failed the fifth or sixth time someone said, “Donald Trump fucks Satan.»
“The Crap Out” feels more like one of Marvel’s season finales on Disney+ than a South Park season finale. It simply lumps all the different plot threads into the same episode, shuffles them all together, and hopes they can all tie into each other in a final showdown between everything and the kitchen sink.
‘The Crap Out’ brings back main characters from ‘Woodland Critter Christmas’ – South ParkThe most disturbing Christmas episode ever – but it doesn’t do anything exciting with them. The last time we saw these creatures, they had a Event Horizon-a bloody orgy to celebrate the birth of the Antichrist. Here, they’re just bothering Stan.
South Park I wasn’t sure how to end the Trump/Satan love story, but it’s heartbreaking to see Satan destroy the manger. This tragic human moment, contrasting with Trump’s dancing in his newly constructed ballroom, was a beautiful final statement on the season’s political satire. It was a pessimistic way to end the season, but perhaps that was the point; it reflects what many people are feeling right now.
3
Crooked Christian
South ParkThe season 28 premiere of was a mixed bag. All that stuff with Peter Thiel and the 6-7 Sect was really funny, playing into the series’ recent lampooning of modern-day Satanic Panic, and it was fun to see that storyline escalate into a Exorcist parody. But it was heartbreaking to see Jesus betray his values and give in to the PC director’s twisted idea of Christianity.
2
The woman with the hat
South ParkThe Halloween episodes are some of its best installments. In spooky seasons past, South Park gave us everything from “Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery” to “A Nightmare on FaceTime.” Season 28’s Halloween episode, “The Lady in the Hat,” won’t go down in the history books like those classics, but it was a solid modern film. South Park episode.
He uses horror tropes a lot to ridicule members of Trump’s cabinet. It portrays Stephen Miller as a deep-eyed crypt keeper with Igor-like intuition; it represents the brownnosing of Pam Bondi with a literally brown nose. Seeing the destruction of the White House in the backdrop of this episode, while the real White House was torn apart, was as funny as it was disheartening.
The best gag of the episode is the one alluded to in the title, describing Melania Trump as a Woman in black/Woman in the yard-a type specter haunting the White House. Plus, “The Lady in the Hat” brought back Kyle’s cousin, Kyle Schwartz, for whom I will be forever grateful.
1
Turkey trot
For much of this season, South Park I didn’t really feel South Park. The series has shifted its focus away from its own main characters to focus on caricatures of Trump’s cabinet. But “Turkey Trot” returned to the series’ roots with a story set in the town itself, centered around the four boys, with a sharp satire of current events built on top of that.
It’s an annual Thanksgiving marathon that South Park can’t afford to run because of all the prices. The city resorts to Saudi money, and everyone in the city must decide whether they feel comfortable with that money (an obvious parallel to the recent Riyadh Comedy Festival controversy). It was an excellent way to contextualize a timely political debate within the familiar framework of South Park.
In keeping with the season’s traditions, “Turkey Trot” features a caricature of someone in Trump’s cabinet, but it’s by far the best: Pete Hegseth, clad in military regalia, draped in unearned war medals, giving lessons in valor to real military men. South Park at its best. The “Danger Zone” parody is the icing on the cake.
