This week’s South Park initially presents itself as a standalone story, only tangentially related to the rest of the season. After Red suckered Butters into buying her a Labubu a few episodes ago (or last season, depending on how you want to look at it), Butters makes an elementary school version of AI-generated revenge porn, using Sora AI (a real AI platform) to make a video of Red farting and then being peed on by Santa. This escalates into Red making her own AI video, of Butters having intercourse with Totoro, which she plays in front of the whole school, hijacking a jingoistic assembly put on by Power Christian Principal.
Meanwhile, Cartman’s mom is increasingly worried her missing son, despite receiving AI-generated videos of Cartman at various tourist destinations. The videos are clearly made by Peter Thiel, who is buying time for JD Vance in Washington DC, but it’s also a jab at the rise of South Park AI videos made by platforms like Sora, which feature Cartman saying his old catchphrases in a dry, unaffecting tone.
Elsewhere, in Washington DC, President Trump interrogates JD Vance about his plan to get Satan to abort his butt-baby. Trump also wants to get rid of the baby, so he enters into an uneasy alliance with Vance, who says he “knows a guy” in Colorado who can take care of it. Presumably, he’s talking about Peter Thiel, but maybe he’s talking about someone else.
The episode cleverly weaves AI into all of its storylines and even uses it itself. The clueless cops of South Park believe the AI content is real and try to arrest the likes of Popeye, Totoro, and Bluey, who they believe are part of some kind of pedophile ring. They think the Studio Ghibli representatives protesting IP infringement are Totoro’s lawyers, and can’t or won’t understand their exaggerated Japanese accents. The cops are so dumb, they even enact a master plan to disguise themselves as Rocky and Bullwinkle to win Red’s trust and blow the whole thing wide open.
The show-stopper of this plotline is a courtroom confession from Butters, but not before Bluey is pressured on the stand. I don’t watch Bluey, but I’m pretty sure they’re using an AI-generated voice to produce Bluey’s dialogue. It’s funny, but I don’t love AI-generated voiceover in any case, even if it is satirical. Anyway, Butters mentions the AI-generated videos of Cartman, which the cops trace back to Peter Thiel’s hotel, and they arrest him.
…But that’s not what people are talking about with this episode. They’re talking about the sex scene between JD Vance and Donald Trump, set to Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Fox News doesn’t know what to think of it when the video is released by the cops who raided Peter Thiel’s hotel room, but when Trump says the security video is AI-generated, the Fox News anchors willingly accept his obvious lie, because if the average adult can’t tell the difference between AI and reality, why should they bother to try?
The episode ends with Trump and JD Vance promising to follow through on their plans to get rid of Satan’s baby, the antichrist, and sharing a kiss as the credits roll.
Zak’s Thoughts (I’m Zak)
South Park is no stranger to doing “fair use” parodies of popular IP (Imaginationland, anyone?), and this episode makes a strong case for how what they do is clearly different from people who use Sora or other AI platforms to “create content.”
Is this the first time the South Park cops have actually done something useful? Sure, they kinda stumbled into it, but still, they ‘got their man’ in the end. I wonder if it would have worked out better if they brought back Officer Barbrady to actually solve the case, since he’s the only cop in town who’s remotely capable of fighting crime, despite his… Ya know.
Of course JD Vance wears a thong.
I’ve made it a point to avoid any kind of AI slop and I firmly believe my life is better for it. From what I understand, Sora AI was flooded by crummy South Park “parodies,” if that’s even the right word. In the episode, the AI videos of Cartman are clearly a knock on that trend, with Cartman himself pointing out that the catchphrases are things he hasn’t actually said in many years.
This episode was overall a solid entry that felt like a diversion from the rest of the season. I always appreciate an episode that takes a break to have some fun. I almost wish this one didn’t have any connective tissue to the ongoing story, but I guess that had to get Peter Thiel arrested and JD Vance and Trump needed to be on the same page to facilitate whatever’s going to happen in the next episodes.
I count two potential Miami Vice homages. The first is the sex scene set to “I Want to Know What Love Is,” which echoes a scene from Season 1’s “Rites of Passage.” Further, the scene in the car with the cops discussing how they don’t understand the world anymore feels very reminiscent of the conversations Crockett and Tubbs would have about the world being upside down. Maybe it’s all a coincidence, or maybe Trey and Matt love Miami Vice as much as I do!
Related: Last Week’s South Park Recap
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