The US Government Ruins Thanksgiving: It’s a Holiday Special in South Park | South Park

TNight’s South Park is a break in the most story-driven season (or seasons, as it turns out) ever. There’s some progress on the main plot of Donald Trump trying to kill the unborn child of his lover, Satan, before he can unleash a prophesied apocalypse — a plot that involves master manipulator (and Trump’s new sexual partner) J.D. Vance and billionaire/self-proclaimed expert on the Antichrist Peter Thiel (who was recently imprisoned by South Park’s best for kidnapping Eric Cartman). But tonight’s episode, Türkiye Trot, focuses more on the events taking place in the titular city than on Washington, D.C.

As Thanksgiving approaches, South Park finds its annual holiday marathon in jeopardy. None of his regular patrons – Stan Marsh’s Tigridy Weed Farms, which recently closed, and City Asian Popup Store, which suffers from high tariffs – can afford them. Desperate to find a solution, the city reaches out to the only entity with a lot of money to spend in America: Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis are so happy to sponsor the foot race, they went so far as to offer a $5,000 prize to the first-place team. Their only warning is that “defamatory statements about 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 the “race flag.” Apparently his plan is to have the only African-American boy in their class, Tolkien Black, join the team, convinced that “[his] “Race always wins races.” But Cartman’s plan fails when Tolkien quits in protest after learning of the Saudis’ involvement. Much of the rest of this plot involves Cartman referring to the much-criticized Riyadh Comedy Festival held in Saudi Arabia while trying to convince Tolkien that it was a good idea to let Saudi Arabia spend money on American sporting events. Otherwise they would “go back to what they were doing… hacking journalists and inviting Pete Davidson to come do comedy.”

This is far from South Park’s most invasive takedown of a powerful and dangerous force, with neither the Saudi royal family nor the government personally attending any dispatches. That’s more than can be said for members of the American regime, as the episode’s other story focuses on idiot Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attempts to break Thiel out of his imaginary prison. Hegseth acts like a macho commando, but he’s too interested in posting content on social media — including videos of himself pathetically trying to make his attempt, as seen in the real-life video in which he appears alongside Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — to carry out his mission.

(Trump, in one scene tonight, chides Hegseth: “Don’t just make a bunch of content. Like, go do something!”)

Hegseth is outmaneuvered at every turn by the city’s usually clownish Det Harris, who has no patience for his antics (Hegseth gets his own song about being a dick, set to the tune of Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone”) and constantly kicks him in the ass. Humiliated, Hegseth rallies his forces in the town square and, with the unwanted help of Kristi Noem’s ICE agents, wages war on the Turkish trotters, shooting racers with tear gas and dropping them from Black Hawk helicopters. This attack ends up earning Cartman and Tolkien, who find themselves in the middle of the brawl, victory and the grand prize, but Hegseth is unable to carry out his own mission. Harris, having gotten everything he could from Hegseth, kicked his ass in the same prison cell as Thiel. The episode ends with Hegseth angrily declaring: “South Park is going to pay for this! They’re all going to pay!”

Initially, this season of South Park was expected to last for 10 episodes. While the decision to split the season into two parts changed the length of each, the next episode, scheduled to air on December 10, is expected to serve as the grand finale. The pieces are certainly in place for an epic showdown, as the forces of darkness – Trump and the Antichrist – are set to descend upon the city.

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 opt to keep Trump and his cronies the main focus of next season and beyond, having signed their new deal with Paramount earlier this year for 50 new episodes. But considering how newsworthy this South Park series has proven, with high ratings and more national attention than it’s seen in years, you can bet it’s going to be pretty wild and likely pretty offensive.