“South Park” season 28 aired a Thanksgiving special on Wednesday that saw residents of a Colorado mountain town run their annual Turkey Trot while U.S. Secretary of the Army Pete Hegseth tries to free Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel from prison.
The episode begins with the South Park City Council debating who should sponsor the Thanksgiving 5K. Many of the townspeople have fallen on hard times in recent months, with local businesses and former sponsors unable to find funding. But there is one foreign company with deep pockets and eager to spend.
The show then cuts to a live-action commercial for the annual South Park Turkey Trot featuring 2025 sponsor Saudi Arabia. The ad sets this year’s top prize at a whopping $5,000, but also specifies that “derogatory comments about the Saudi Royal Family are strictly prohibited.”
Meanwhile, at the Park County Police Department, Sergeant Yates receives a surprise visit from Hegseth, who demands that Teal be released from custody.
Heges rappels from the roof to the station in spectacular fashion. Standing next to two National Guardsmen live-streaming on their cell phones, he tells viewers, “Hey, what’s going on? This is Pete Hegseth from the Department of the Army! We’re here to infiltrate this police station and extract POIs, because that’s our job!”
Despite his attempts to intimidate Sergeant Yates, he easily ejects Hegseth and refuses Thiel’s request for release.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone returned the show to more typical “South Park” antics this week, after focusing primarily on Donald Trump-centric storylines in previous episodes. Parker and Stone put the president in some pretty compromising positions throughout seasons 27 and 28, including spending time in bed with Satan and Vice President J.D. Vance. In the Season 27 premiere, they deepfaked Trump into a political PSA boasting about his “little” manhood.
While shows like “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” drew much enthusiasm from President Trump for far less money, “South Park” largely avoided the president’s crosshairs. In a recent appearance on The Daily Beast’s “Last Laugh” podcast, comedian Patton Oswald said that President Trump respects the success of “South Park” and that’s why he didn’t take the hammer down.
“‘South Park’ not only makes an insane amount of money, it also gets insane ratings,” Oswald said. “And Trump gets furious about that because even if Trump doesn’t respect him, ultimately what he respects is something where the numbers are crazy high and the money is crazy. He watches ‘South Park’ and realizes how great it is. You can’t look at a piece like John Oliver’s and understand if it’s just as great. All he can think is, look at this guy’s numbers, and that’s the only way he sees the world.”
