It has been nearly 30 years since the very first episode of South Park premiered on American television, and much has changed in that time. We’ve had technological advances and new fashion trends. Our politics became unrecognizable. So I’m fairly certain that if I were to time travel back to 1997 and mention the words TikTok and Labubu, as well as a chyron reading “TRUMP CONFIRMED FATHER OF SATAN BUTT BABY,” to twentysomething creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, I might make their heads explode. (If that chyron didn’t serve as enough of a content warning for this article, consider this your final notice.)
While five different men have served as president of the United States over the course of the show’s lengthy run, they’ve all been the target of its often obscene satire at one point or another. Still, it’s our current leader who has come in for the most extreme and surprising depiction. In the latest episode of South Park’s 27th season that aired Wednesday night, the Comedy Central show continued its headline-grabbing attacks on Donald Trump and the ecosystem that feeds him. This fourth episode, titled “Wok Is Dead,” once again has Trump wreaking havoc as he continues a sexual relationship with Satan. As always, the series remains shockingly fast with its parody. At one point, we even see Satan sulking in the barren, paved space that was formerly the White House Rose Garden. But this time, it’s Fox News who receives the fiercest criticism thanks to an incredibly juvenile joke that is repeated across the episode, but is likely too crude for Fox News to actually quote. It’s ingenious, really.
As the episode opens, the girls at South Park Elementary are warring over Labubus, the plush collectible gremlins that have taken the world by storm. The viral craze is confusing the school’s new counselor, Jesus Christ, who, if you’ll recall, took over from Mr. Mackey, when he was fired and forced to join ICE and round up Latino angels in heaven. (Seriously, what are these words coming out of my keyboard right now?) When the hapless Butters is conned by one seemingly flirtatious girl, Red, into attending her birthday, he’s convinced that if he’s going to stand a chance with her, he will need to secure the one thing on her wish list: an exceedingly rare Labubu. So he heads to the one place in town selling them: the local Asian pop-up store. Longtime viewers of the show will instantly recognize that this shop has “popped up”—like a Spirit Halloween selling even cheaper crap—in the old City Wok restaurant first introduced back in 2002. “The whole country changed,” owner Tuong Lu Kim tells Butters. “Didn’t you hear the news? Wok is dead.”
Bringing back one of the series’ most racist caricatures feels like a deliberate attempt from Stone and Parker to thumb their noses at the show’s newly engaged liberal fanbase—a defiant reminder of the frat-boy show South Park has always been and always will be. It’s as if they’re saying, “Don’t get too comfortable here, MSNBC Wine Moms.” As ever, Lu Kim speaks in a ridiculously exaggerated Chinese accent that causes him to constantly pronounce “city” as “shitty,” so he’s inadvertently honest with Butters about the quality of the keychains, cellphone charms, and anime sculptures for sale. He’s also price-gouging on Labubus by selling them for $85 (they typically sell for around $30) and claiming the reason for the mark-up is Trump’s tariffs, which he’s obliged to pass on to consumers. “You think I pay tariffs? No, no, no. You pay tariffs,” he tells Butters (quite correctly!). “I don’t get fucked by tariffs. You get fucked by tariffs.”
Perhaps in a nod to the religious groups who once condemned South Park, the series adopts a bit of the recent “Satanic panic” among some Christians surrounding Labubus. Jesus is shocked to learn that girls at South Park Elementary are unboxing their rare dolls in TikTok videos, then immediately using them in blood-fueled rituals to summon demons. And while this isn’t the first time South Park has featured demonic rituals—one 2004 episode saw Stan inadvertently assist a group of woodland critters to host a blood orgy that helps spawn the Antichrist—it is the first time they’ve tied dark magic to the White House. “No shit, they’re cursed,” Lu Kim tells Jesus about the Labubus. “It’s called tariffs. You pass it along. I get the curse. I put the curse on you. It’s like AIDS.” (Again, Stone and Parker are effectively telling Bluesky users that they are free to leave this show whenever they like.)
If the tariffs are causing Labubu inflation (Lu Kim later raises his price to $120), Trump doesn’t seem to care. He’s busy continuing his feverish sexcapades with his lover, Satan, who is no longer interested in Trump, but forced to stick around for one secret reason. By now, the openness with which Trump is carrying on his affair with the Prince of Darkness can’t be ignored, even by the fawning Fox News anchors. (At one point, Trump is shown stripping naked and in flagrante on a golf course.) But instead of condemning Trump, they treat the scandal like another incredible feat—albeit one in which South Park is clever (or just immature) enough to use “fucking” as both a present participle and a modifier. Is Trump actually fucking Satan? Or is he fucking Satan? “I think the president is fucking Satan,” one Fox & Friends anchor says. “And I love it!”
When Butters secures Red her coveted Labubu, allowing her to complete the demonic ritual at her birthday party, she successfully summons—who else?—Trump and Satan. Jesus confronts the pair in a “biblical showdown,” wherein Satan reveals he is “bound” to Trump because he’s carrying the president’s child—in his butt, naturally—so he’s forced to stay with him for a few more years. “He’s pregnant,” one Fox News anchor says with shock, perhaps simply because that’s the first time that pronoun and adjective have ever been uttered together on that network. Still, the conservative network treats the revelation like a good thing—but, again, it depends on what you take it to mean. “Fox News can confirm Donald Trump has been fucking Satan this whole time!” an excited Sean Hannity tells viewers, prompting network staff to cheer and open Champagne.
Yes, this episode is as juvenile as the three that have preceded it this season. Yes, it’s going to likely (again) upset the administration and conservative media, who will decry it with good reason as puerile. But amid the stupidity and crassness, the show is actually posing a real question: Who are the real evildoers? The little girls summoning demonic forces through Labubu rituals? Or those in media and culture who have not only made way for the forces of hate, destruction, and torment that have enveloped our politics, but have openly reveled in doing so? Whether for ratings, corporate greed, or plain old culture-war antagonism, a far-right media apparatus has shamelessly supported and brazenly engineered some very real darkness among us. They’ve celebrated cruelty with the zeal of giddy tweens, and mocked the righteous indignation of those with any shred of humanity left. Donald Trump may be “fucking Satan,” but as we hear from the set of South Park’s Fox & Friends, “This is a great day for Fox News.”
