This episode contains spoilers for “South Park” season 28, episode 1, “Twisted Christian.”
Last night’s “South Park” was weird for a few reasons. True to Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s commitment to parodying the trends of the times, “Twisted Christian” sees the mysterious 6-7 meme picked up among almost every kid in school. This is where I show my age by admitting that I still don’t know exactly what the term Gen Alpha means. meansbut in the episode itself, it’s both an inside joke and a source of concern among the other parties. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel (Stone) soon becomes a pawn of Lil Vance and his plans to stop the Antichrist, otherwise known as the ass baby of President Donald J. Trump (Stone) and Satan (Parker). The episode ends with an “Exorcist”-style showdown between Thiel and Eric Cartman (Parker), who can’t help but vomit every time someone indulges in bit 6-7. There’s even a subplot involving Jesus (Stone) and the PC director (Parker) arguing about what it means to be a real Christian, and yet none of that is the weirdest thing in last night’s episode.
Hours before “Twisted Christian” aired on Comedy Central, The Wrap reported that the episode would not be the sixth episode of Season 27, but the premiere of Season 28. It was assumed that Season 27 would consist of 10 episodes throughout 2025. The trade added that while we may be on a new season, the remaining four episodes that Stone and Parker are under contract for this year will be released over the coming months. So what happened? The “South Park” co-creators, as well as Paramount, have yet to comment on the sudden change, which leaves everything open to interpretation at this point.
Read more: The 15 Most Controversial South Park Episodes of All Time
South Park strangely launched its 28th season under the radar
Peter Thiel conversing with bedridden Eric Cartman in South Park – South Park Studios
The sneaky premiere of “Twisted Christian” at the start of a brand new season was a surprise to almost everyone. For one thing, the 15-second promo that South Park Studios posted on its YouTube channel yesterday billed it as “a brand new episode.” When “Conflict of Interest” aired on September 24, 2025, it was not billed as a season finale, nor billed as such. In fact, this week’s episode plays out as a natural continuation of the baby butt thing. But Paramount+, in addition to the cable listings, actually referred to last night’s series of jokes about Trump having a tiny penis as the TRUE start of season 28. This understandably caused confusion among viewers and the media, as they went back and forth on how to cover it.
Stone and Parker were engaged in a rigorous negotiation process for the future of “South Park” that continued until just hours before season 27’s scheduled release on Comedy Central. The deal resulted in a staggering $1.5 billion payday that contractually obligates the couple to produce 50 episodes for Comedy Central over the next five years, so we’re getting them all anyway (via The Hollywood Reporter). Since the Paramount deal didn’t specifically mention how many seasons Stone and Parker were to deliver, having a bunch of short seasons isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility. But the decision to cut season 27 very short in the middle of the cartoonish Trump administration thread, with no indicator as to when one season will end and another begin, is truly odd.
The first surprise of the season makes the 27th season of South Park the shortest since season 24.
Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny wearing masks in South Park – South Park Studios
With “Twisted Christian” being considered the start of a new season, that would technically make season 27 the second shortest of the entire series. Seasons 25 and 26 each consisted of six episodes, while “Conflict of Interest” marks the fifth and final episode of its season. The shortest “season” is technically the 24th, which includes 2020’s “Pandemic Special” and 2021’s “South ParQ Vaccination Special.” These two episodes are different from the rest of the other double-episode episodes Stone and Parker had made for Paramount+, like “Post COVID” and “The Streaming Wars,” because those were part of a previous deal with Paramount and were billed as “events.” exclusive”. Television business deals can sometimes be very confusing.
Needless to say, season 27 was certainly one of the show’s most eventful in some time, as its first episode, “Sermon on the Mount,” took merciless jabs at Trump and Paramount for bending the knee to his current administration. The next episode (“Got A Nut”) went even further, delivering hilarious jabs at the targeted ICE raids carried out by current Trump Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Not helping matters, the series took some heat when right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk was murdered five weeks after his parody of him being a “master debater,” although Kirk was flattered by the whole thing (via The Hollywood Reporter). God only knows how the rest of this season will pan out, especially since “Twisted Christian” is the show’s weakest episode since its new deal with Paramount. At the very least, it certainly makes for an interesting entry point for a battle between Cartman and the new Antichrist.
Every episode of “South Park” is currently streaming on Paramount+.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
