Scene from “South Park” Season 27, Episode 5.
Comedy Central/Paramount+
South Park continued with its mockery of President Donald Trump in Episode 5 of Season 27 on Wednesday, titled Conflict of Interest.
The episode premiered on Comedy Central on Wednesday night before it began streaming on Paramount+ Thursday morning. Conflict of Interest once again skewers Trump and Satan, but also takes on prediction market apps as South Park Elementary students, including Cartman, get involved in the craze.
Note: The rest of this article includes major spoilers about “Conflict of Interest.”
As part of the prediction market apps storyline, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone wade into the debate over the Israel-Gaza War as students place bets on whether Kyle’s mother, who is Jewish, will launch a strike on Gaza. Angered over the antisemitic bet, Kyle tries reaching different government agencies to get it removed from the apps (and reaches special advisor Donald Trump Jr. each time). Eventually, Kyle gets Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr involved (more on that later).
Even though Trump has been the prime target of Parker and Stone since the new season kicked off on July 23, it still came as somewhat of a surprise that the president was lampooned again on Wednesday. After all, the airing of the episode — which was supposed to be released last week — comes while political tensions remain high in the country following the Sept. 10 assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Kirk was parodied in South Park’s second episode of the new season on Aug. 6, which the right-wing activist and podcaster took the ribbing in stride. Even so, Comedy Central removed the episode from its rerun line-up, though it remains on streaming on Paramount+.
Parker and Stone’s skewering of Trump in South Park Season 27, Episode 5 was essentially the continuation of a season-long joke about the president being in bed — sometimes literally — with Satan. The consequence of this led to an announcement by Satan at the end of Episode 4 on Sept. 3 that he was pregnant with Trump’s baby.
Two teaser images of Wednesday’s episode were posted on South Park’s X account earlier in the day. One photo (featured below) shows Jesus in a hallway of South Park Elementary with Kyle and other students, while the other (above) depicts Trump serving what turns out to be a poisoned bowl of soup to Satan in bed at the White House.
Trump and Satan, of course, are awaiting the birth of their baby — which is predicted to bring about the apocalypse — and concoction the president mixed up in the bowl is meant to put an end to the pregnancy. Trump’s plans emerge after Vice President JD Vance warns him that being a new parent will limit his nights of partying at Mar-a-lago, and the president wants none of that.
Image from “South Park” Season 27, Episode 5.
Comedy Central/Paramount+/South Park X Account
Is The Jimmy Kimmel Controversy Brought Up In ‘South Park’ Episode 5?
Also amping up the tension between Democrats and Republicans since the last new South Park episode on Sept. 3 was the suspension of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel on Sept. 17.
Kimmel’s ABC talk show was suspended indefinitely by network owner the Walt Disney Company after Kimmel said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
After a week, however, Kimmel returned to the air with Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday night, although the Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcasting Group are still preempting the show.
Many prominent high-profile Hollywood celebrities and even former Disney CEO Michael Eisner criticized Kimmel’s suspension with cries of censorship of the TV talker’s right of free speech, but Stone maintained South Park’s Episode 5 was postponed for a week simply because it was not ready to air.
“No one pulled the episode, no one censored us, and you know we’d say so if true,” Stone told The Denver Post on Sept. 19. “We just didn’t get it done. When you always cut it close, sometimes you mess up. That’s the price of being a procrastinator.”
While Kimmel isn’t mentioned specifically in the South Park Season 27, Episode 5, a prominent figure in middle of the controversy — FCC Chair Brendan Carr — is featured considerably as he stumbles into every pregnancy-ending trap Trump sets for Satan.
After falling down a slick set of stairs meant for Satan and drinking the poisoned soup (to which he has an explosive reaction), Carr is eventually hospitalized with toxoplasmosis after Trump accidentally infects him with used kitty litter. The doctor treating Carr warns that if the parasite gets to the FCC chair’s brain, it may rob him of his freedom of speech. After that, a power play by Vice President’s JD Vance is exposed, while Kyle’s mom lands in Israel to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an earful over Gaza.
It will be three weeks before South Park Season 27 returns with Episode 6, which is set for Wednesday, Oct. 15, on cable on Comedy Central, and Oct. 16 on streaming on Paramount+.
For viewers who don’t subscribe to the platform, Paramount+ offers two tiers. The ad-based Paramount+ Essential is $7.99 per month and the ad-free Paramount+ Premium is $12.99 per month.