{"id":363636,"date":"2025-11-08T03:18:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T03:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/363636\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T03:18:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T03:18:16","slug":"south-park-season-28s-story-brings-back-its-biggest-earliest-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/363636\/","title":{"rendered":"South Park Season 28’s Story Brings Back Its Biggest (& Earliest) Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

While South Park<\/strong><\/a> has been through many different iterations over the decades, the show\u2019s latest outing brings back its earliest obsessions, along with all the controversy they entailed. Even though The Simpsons is the longest-running scripted primetime American TV show in history, South Park is not that far behind.<\/p>\n

Now in its 28th season, the satirical series has been around since before Family Guy and reached the big screen before The Simpsons, with South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut arriving in cinemas in 1999. That said, South Park\u2019s life on screen has been a lot messier and more controversial than the comparatively family-friendly tenure of The Simpsons.<\/p>\n

The many banned episodes of South Park<\/a> serve as evidence of the show\u2019s sharp, unsparing satirical edge, as well as its tendency to rub censors up the wrong way. As recently as August 2025, episodes of South Park season 27 engendered an outraged response from President Donald Trump when the show depicted him literally in bed with Satan himself.<\/p>\n

South Park Season 28 Focuses On Religion and Horror<\/p>\n

\"Cartman
\n Image courtesy of Paramount<\/p>\n

Although South Park season 27 ended abruptly<\/a> and the second half of season 27 was revealed to now be a shorter, five-episode season 28, this plot line still proved that the show is returning to its familiar roots. As surprising as it may sound, South Park season 28\u2019s reliance on parodying horror movies and satirizing religion harkens back to its beginning.<\/p>\n

So far, the first two episodes of season 28 have focused on Satan and Donald Trump\u2019s relationship, Cartman and Peter Thiel trying to stop the Antichrist, and Trump\u2019s haunting in the White House. As this list implies, South Park\u2019s recent outings have chaotically bounced between serialized storytelling and standalone plots.<\/p>\n

For some years, from season 14 to season 20, South Park focused entirely on serialized, season-long narrative arcs. Abandoning the chaotic, scattershot approach of seasons 4 to 14, which parodied current events as they unfolded, seasons 14 to 20 attempted to offer a more cohesive view on cultural, social, and political stories.<\/p>\n

South Park season 20\u2019s overarching story was disastrously derailed when the show\u2019s creators admitted that they expected a Clinton victory in the 2016 election. Donald Trump\u2019s surprise victory led to a last-second rewrite of season 20\u2019s ending, and season 21 saw the show return to a less serialized style as a result.<\/p>\n

In a daring departure, season 28 has blended both approaches. Episode 1, \u201cTwisted Christian,\u201d introduced the show\u2019s version of Peter Thiel and established a bizarre plot involving the Antichrist, but episode 2, \u201cThe Woman in the Hat,\u201d shelved some elements of this plot while keeping others alive for the sake of continuity.<\/p>\n

South Park\u2019s Religion and Horror Parodies Were Its First Major Controversies <\/p>\n

\"Kyle
\n Kyle arguing with other students while Jesus stands in the background in South Park season 27 episode 5<\/p>\n

This storyline\u2019s focus on horror tropes and parodies of religion will sound familiar to longtime fans of South Park, since both were among the show\u2019s first focal points of controversy. Way back in 1997\u2019s season 1, \u201cPinkeye” turned the town of South Park into grotesque zombies, and \u201cDamien\u201d featured a boxing match between Jesus and Satan arranged by his son.<\/p>\n

Like South Park season 27\u2019s episodes<\/a>, these storylines seemed tailor-made to upset conservative cultural commentators. Their glib view of religion, including a parodic depiction of Jesus, was blended with gory, gross-out comedy horror to create a scatological, wilfuly offensive comedy series that was as gruesome as it was shocking.<\/p>\n

South Park originally used horror tropes and parodies of religion to shock and offend as broad an audience as possible while still mocking the political establishment. It\u2019s fair to say that, after the 9-year Tegridy Farms plot<\/a> came to an end early in South Park season 27, the show\u2019s creators finally returned to this original focus.<\/p>\n

This couldn\u2019t come at a better time for the show, which had been suffering something of an identity crisis in the last few years. On the one hand, some of South Park\u2019s recent standalone specials have earned the series critical acclaim thanks to their precision-focused satire. In particular, May 2024\u2019s The End of Obesity was a clever, inventive special.<\/p>\n

South Park Season 28\u2019s Religious Horror Story Returns To Its Roots<\/p>\n

\"Satan
\n Satan reading in bed while Trump brings him food in South Park season 27 episode 5<\/p>\n

That outing took on the American healthcare system, the Ozempic craze, body positivity, and ultra-processed food and managed to find a fresh, funny approach to each of these potentially tired subjects. That said, South Park\u2019s Not Suitable for Children was a thrown-together flop that never convincingly married its OnlyFans spoof with its parody of the Prime energy drink craze.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the series took two years to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza, but season 27, episode 5, \u201cConflict of Interest,\u201d saw South Park effectively skewer Israel\u2019s mass killing of Palestinians. Clearly, the show\u2019s creators are interested in regaining the satirical strength of their early years, but this means bringing back the old style of the series in the process.<\/p>\n

As such, perhaps it should come as no surprise that South Park season 28 is so focused on parodying horror movies and mocking religious figures. After all, it was these same recurring obsessions that made South Park<\/strong> iconic in the first place almost 30 years ago, and hammering on these satirical buttons still seems to get viewers as riled up as ever.<\/p>\n

\"03109994_poster_w780.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\n

\n Release Date<\/strong>\n <\/dt>\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAugust 13, 1997<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n

\n Showrunner<\/strong>\n <\/dt>\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTrey Parker<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

    \n
  • \n \"Headshot<\/p>\n

    Trey Parker<\/p>\n

    \n Eric Cartman \/ Stan Marsh (voice)\n <\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n \"Headshot<\/p>\n

    Matt Stone<\/p>\n

    \n Kyle Broflovski \/ Kenny McCormick (voice)\n <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While South Park has been through many different iterations over the decades, the show\u2019s latest outing brings back…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":363637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-363636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115511920086536237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}