South Park Season 28 Episodes, Ranked Worst To Best

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It’s been a really odd year as a South Park fan, honestly. After a few years of just the occasional special on streaming, I was so excited to hear they were bringing back a full 10-episode season for 2025! They even dropped a teaser trailer, but it was all fake – completely made-up scenes! It showed stuff like Butters becoming an air traffic controller and Randy… well, let’s just say he was using ketamine with the intention of causing trouble for the government. It was wild, and definitely got everyone talking!

Internal issues at Paramount, stemming from changes in leadership, caused the new season to premiere later than planned, moving the date from July 9th to July 23rd. When the season finally launched, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone immediately used the show to sharply satirize Paramount itself.

The first episode of the new season revived a classic joke from the show – a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Satan – but this time with Donald Trump taking the place of Hussein, while keeping the same voice and appearance. This surprisingly pointed satire quickly became a talking point online and in the news, briefly making South Park as popular and talked-about as it was during its breakout success in the late 1990s.

As the season progressed, Parker and Stone found that episodes taking twice as long to produce were often noticeably worse than those made under stricter deadlines. Considering they once completely reworked and re-animated an episode the day after a presidential election, a two-week turnaround for an episode about Sora 2 seems unnecessarily long.

After a quick start to its 28th season, South Park has released ten episodes in the last six months. The show unexpectedly ended its 27th season after just five episodes and immediately began season 28, a move that playfully referenced the popular 6-7 meme. While the first five episodes of season 27 were released, the subsequent five forming season 28 were a bit uneven in quality, similar to the first half.

5. Sora Not Sorry

Sora seemed like ideal material for a South Park episode, but “Sora Not Sorry” didn’t quite live up to expectations. The satire wasn’t as sharp or insightful as usual. Instead of making fun of artificial intelligence, the show simply used it as a part of the story. Typically, South Park explores topics from all angles, but this episode didn’t go far enough in its examination.

This new technology poses a serious danger to both the entertainment world and creative expression. However, South Park‘s recent take on the issue felt surprisingly weak. Because people are already using AI to make their own South Park episodes, the show had a perfect opportunity to comment on this in a clever, self-aware way, but it didn’t quite deliver. Their episode about ChatGPT was much more effective.

4. The Crap Out

The 28th season of South Park didn’t end with a dramatic climax, but rather a disappointing conclusion. The finale, “The Crap Out,” felt rushed, as if the creators simply wanted to tie up loose ends and move on from storylines that had become repetitive and stale.

Okay, so when the new episodes dropped, I was honestly surprised – and kind of delighted – by how boldly they went after Trump, presenting him as, well, Satan’s boyfriend. It felt like a really sharp, no-holds-barred satire of the administration. But that initial shock value quickly faded. The joke, while initially funny, just kept getting repeated, and by the fifth or sixth time someone bluntly stated, “Donald Trump is the devil,” it lost all impact. It felt like they had one idea and just beat it to death.

The episode “The Crap Out” feels less like a typical South Park finale and more like a season-ending episode of a Marvel show on Disney+. It throws a lot of different storylines into one episode, hoping everything will somehow come together in a big, chaotic conclusion.

“The Crap Out” revisits the creepy woodland creatures from what many consider South Park‘s most unsettling Christmas episode. While those creatures previously engaged in a shockingly violent celebration surrounding the Antichrist’s birth, this time they simply annoy Stan.

The storyline involving Trump and Satan’s child didn’t have a satisfying conclusion in South Park, but it was particularly sad to see Satan destroying the nursery. That emotional scene, shown right after Trump was happily dancing in his new ballroom, perfectly captured the season’s message about politics. While the ending was depressing, it felt realistic and reflected the feelings of many viewers.

3. Twisted Christian

The latest season of South Park got off to a somewhat uneven start. The storyline involving Peter Thiel and the strange cult was genuinely funny, building on the show’s ongoing satire of current anxieties about Satanism. It was also enjoyable to see that plotline develop into a parody of The Exorcist. However, it was disappointing to watch Jesus compromise his beliefs and succumb to PC Principal’s distorted version of Christianity.

2. The Woman In The Hat

Halloween episodes are often highlights of the animated series South Park. Past spooky installments have included memorable adventures like “Korn’s Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery” and “A Nightmare on FaceTime.” While the most recent Halloween episode, “The Woman in the Hat” from Season 28, might not become a classic, it was still a strong and funny episode in the show’s current style.

The show cleverly uses classic horror elements to satirize Trump’s cabinet. For example, Stephen Miller is depicted as a creepy, hunchbacked caretaker, and Pam Bondi is shown with an actual brown nose to emphasize her eagerness to please. The backdrop of a crumbling White House, mirroring the turmoil within the real administration at the time, was both humorous and sadly resonant.

The funniest part of the episode is the running joke about Melania Trump appearing as a ghostly figure, like the character from The Woman in Black, wandering the White House. And I was really happy to see Kyle’s cousin, Kyle Schwartz, return in “The Woman in the Hat.”

1. Turkey Trot

For much of this season, South Park felt different than usual. The show spent more time parodying members of Trump’s administration than focusing on its core characters. However, the episode “Turkey Trot” returned to the show’s classic style, telling a story centered around the four boys in their town, while still offering clever commentary on current events.

Okay, so this episode centers around South Park’s annual Thanksgiving walkathon, but they’re broke this year because of all these new tariffs. They end up getting a sponsorship from Saudi Arabia, and the whole town has to grapple with whether or not it’s okay to take their money. As a viewer, it felt like a really clever way to talk about what happened with the Riyadh Comedy Festival – you know, the controversy around comedians performing in Saudi Arabia – but using the usual wacky South Park setting. It was a really smart way to tackle a current political issue.

As usual for this time of year, the “Turkey Trot” episode features a parody of someone from Trump’s administration, and this one is particularly well done. It’s Pete Hegseth, dressed in military gear and covered in fake medals, pretending to teach actual soldiers about bravery – that’s classic South Park. And the parody of the “Danger Zone” song is a perfect addition.

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2025-12-16 06:00