Tonight’s South Park is something of a breather in what has been their most story-driven season (or seasons, as it turned out) ever. There is some advancement to the overriding plot of Donald Trump attempting to kill the unborn baby he’s expecting with his lover, Satan, before it can unleash the prophesied apocalypse – a plot that involves master manipulator (and new Trump sex partner) JD Vance and billionaire/self-proclaimed antichrist expert Peter Thiel (recently incarcerated by South Park’s finest for kidnapping Eric Cartman). But tonight’s instalment, Turkey Trot, focuses more on the goings-on in the titular town than in Washington DC.
As Thanksgiving approaches, South Park finds its annual holiday marathon in jeopardy. None of its regular sponsors – Stan Marsh’s Tegridy Weed Farms, recently shuttered, and City Asian Popup Store, beset by high tariffs – can afford to pay for it. Desperate for a solution, the town reaches out to the one entity that has plenty of money to spend in America: the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis are only too happy to sponsor the foot race, going as far as to offer a $5k prize to the team of the first-place runner. Their one caveat: “Disparaging remarks towards the Saudi royal family are strictly prohibited.”
Everyone in South Park is desperate to win the prize money, but none more so than Cartman, who is convinced he can lead his team to victory using “race science”. An obvious double entendre, his plan is simply to get the one African American boy in their class, Tolkien Black, to join the team, convinced that “[his] race always wins races”. But Cartman’s plan goes to pot when Tolkien quits in protest after learning of the Saudis’ involvement. Much of the remainder of this plotline involves Cartman referencing the hugely criticised Riyadh comedy festival held in Saudi Arabia as he tries to persuade Tolkien that it’s a good idea to let Saudi Arabia spend money on American sporting events. Otherwise they would just “go back to what they were doing … hacking up reporters and inviting Pete Davidson to come do comedy”.
This is far from South Park’s most transgressive takedown of a powerful and dangerous force, with none of the Saudi royal family or government coming in for any personal sendups. That’s more than can be said for members of the American regime, as the episode’s other storyline focuses on idiotic defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s attempts to spring Thiel from his fictional lockup. Hegseth acts like a macho commando, but he’s too concerned with posting content on social media – including videos of him pitifully attempting to do chin-ups, as seen in the real-life video he appeared in alongside the health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr – to carry out his mission.
(Trump, in the one scene he appears in tonight, chides Hegseth: “Don’t just make a bunch of content. Like, actually go and do something!”)
Hegseth is outmatched at every turn by the town’s usually buffoonish Det Harris, who has zero patience for his douchebag antics (Hegseth gets his own theme song all about being a douchebag, set to the tune of Kenny Loggins’s Danger Zone) and continually kicks him in the ass. Humiliated, Hegseth assembles his forces in the town square and, with the unwanted help of Kristi Noem’s ICE agents, wages war on the Turkey Trot, shooting the runners with teargas and rappelling down on them from Black Hawk helicopters. This assault ends up earning Cartman and Tolkien, who have found themselves in the middle of the fracas, the victory and grand prize, but Hegseth is unable to carry out his own mission. Harris, having had all he can stomach of Hegseth, kicks his butt into the same prison cell as Thiel. The episode ends with Hegseth angrily proclaiming: “South Park is gonna pay for this! They’re all gonna pay!”
Initially, this season of South Park was expected to run for 10 episodes. While the decision to split the season in two changed the length of each, the forthcoming episode, set to air on 10 December, is expected to serve as the big finale. The pieces are certainly in place for an epic showdown, with the forces of darkness – both Trump and the antichrist – set to descend upon the town.
There’s no point in trying to predict how things will end, or even if they’ll end at all, as series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker may choose to keep Trump and his cronies a central focus of next season and beyond, having inked their new deal with Paramount earlier this year for 50 new episodes. But given how newsworthy this run of South Park has proven, with record high ratings and more national attention than they’ve seen in years, you can bet it’ll be plenty wild and likely very, very offensive.
