Review: South Park Is Somehow Still Good in the Age of Hyperpoliticization

"It's not that South Park suddenly quote got political. It's that politics became pop," co-creator Trey Parker said in a recent interview.

The animated TV comedy South Park continues to do the impossible: stay punchy and relevant after decades on the air. The latest five-episode season, streaming on Paramount+, once again follows the fourth-graders of South Park Elementary as they navigate a world increasingly obsessed with technology and everything political.

While shows like The Simpsons have suffered greatly from leaning into "ripped from the headlines" storytelling, South Park excels at focusing on the topical. For whatever reason, putting the people of South Park into the middle of ICE raids, right-wing podcaster wars, and controversies over whether Donald Trump is "fucking Satan" just works better. The show is definitely more explicitly political than earlier seasons. But then again, so is life. "It's not that South Park suddenly quote got political. It's that politics became pop," co-creator Trey Parker recently told Rolling Stone. If you don't want to cry about that reality, you might as well laugh at it.

Comments

[MasterThief]

It has always been topical and political. The reason people are saying it has fallen off is because they have gotten exceptionally lazy and turned most of the episodes into an excuse to insult Trump. They have skipped out on lampooning the left for a while and outright neglected to do anything about Biden and Harris.
Even before the last 2 seasons they moved away from the boys and overdid the Tegridy farms and Garrison-Trump stuff. They're lazily recycling old gags and spending too much time expressing their hatred.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

I tuned out after episode 2 because it's the same jokes from the 2000s.

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

They peaked with their episodes on the Mohammed cartoons.

[Doug Heffernan]

Those episodes were banned online before banning became pop.

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

They should have broke with Comedy Central over that.

[Doug Heffernan]

How could they when considering what they get paid for doing this?

[Dillinger]

>>The latest five-episode season

I've never missed a South Park this "season" lacked funny

[Doug Heffernan]

They did 10 episodes in total for 2025. The "season" categorization is a legacy term from the peak basic cable days. The creators are quite old now, they need more rest.

[Incunabulum]

> But then again, so is life.

Is life really more political?

And the only reason you're glazing SP this week is because this season has gone all-in on Trump hate. Otherwise you'd not have cared.

[MasterThief]

This. If you're obsessed with hating Trump and aren't annoyed by repetition then it was a good season. Otherwise, it was lazy and obnoxious.

[SMP0328]

The latest five-episode season

The seasons on streaming services are getting ever shorter while the time between seasons get ever longer. Numerous streamed shows have no more than 10 episodes while having around two years between seasons. The creators and the streaming services are too lazy to put out content anywhere near the speed and volume of traditional TV. Screw them.

[Zeb]

Sort of like the British model for TV seasons. Usually 6 or 12 episodes. Which I'm fine with if it means better and more coherent writing and production values.

[SMP0328]

I like seasons of approximately 20 episodes. My main problem is with the absurd amount of time between seasons. I would have no complaint with yearly 10-episode seasons.

[damikesc]

I miss the old 26 episode seasons with 1 rerun of each episode before the new season.

Television becoming "great" via HBO's bullshit offerings has ruined TV beyond repair. And the massive increase in "content" has not helped.

[Incunabulum]

The British model works for some series but is very limiting. You have a core story and you can't deviate much from it.

OTOH the old American model (22+ episodes - to get to syndication) leaves a lot of airtime to fill and that comes with the 'filler episode' trope.

B5 works well as a large-episode format show. There's a core story playing out, but there's room for character development across a large ensemble cast and time for a few diversions to manage pacing. Or a show like Friends which is basically built around filler episodes as its mostly a 'slice-of-life' type show with only a thin metaplotline through the seasons.

Neither model is good for all types of shows. Some don't need filler, some could benefit greatly for room to breath.

[Bubba Jones]

The ICE episode was fucking hilarious if your first watch was after all the stories of ICE recruitment came out.

Watching it after reading the "I was accidentally offered an ICE job", I couldn't believe how accurate it was. I could imagine how a MAGA would think it was completely unhinged. I would too if I hadn't followed the subsequent ICE news.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/01/ice-recruitment-minneapolis-shooting.html

[mad.casual]

When and where I grew up, the inability to distinguish cartoon parody from reality on an individual level was a bad thing. So absurd that only histrionic morons like Tipper Gore and Hillary Clinton worried that kids would shoot each other in the face like Daffy Duck or rip each others spines out like Mortal Kombatants. Doubly so if you struggled with cause and effect, chronological sequences of events, and post hoc fallacies.

Most normal people, even today, lament reality emulating the cartoonish parody that proceeded it rather than, as adults, celebrating the cartoonish parody that attempts to mock it after the fact.

[Longtobefree]

"It's not that South Park suddenly quote got political. It's that politics became pop . . . "

Probable typo - - -
It should read:
It's not that South Park suddenly quote got political. It's that politics became poop . . .

[See.More]

Hellooo Mr. Hankey!

[damikesc]

I cannot think of the last good season of SP. It's been a long while.

[DesigNate]

The season before PC Principal showed up, though there were a lot of good episodes that season as well.

They really didn’t expect Trump to win in 2016 and it shows in the Garrison foil’s story arc.

After that, it’s been hit or miss on individual episodes. And while there were some laugh out loud moments this last 5 episode arc (at least for me), overall it was less than meh.

[Carlos Inconvenience]

South Park was over when they spent an entire episode apologizing to Al Gore for ManBearPig.