After a one-week hiatus, South Park is back with the thrilling episode titled “Conflict of Interest,” the fifth of Season 27, which airs after a delay that caught many by surprise. This episode was supposed to go live on September 17 on Comedy Central, but was shelved just before it was set to air. Co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone commented on the situation via Instagram, admitting, “Apparently, when you do everything at the last minute, sometimes you don’t get it done. This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done in time.”
The delay was pretty unusual for a series that’s known for cranking episodes out every week. Some chatter was that Comedy Central held back the episode due to the unfortunate assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk on September 10. Earlier, the network had pulled a rerun of an episode titled “Got a Nut,” which pokes fun at Kirk, although it’s still available to watch on Paramount+. Stone brushed aside censorship worries, clarifying, “No one pulled the episode, no one censored us, and you know we’d say so if it were true.”
In “Conflict of Interest,” the spotlight is on FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, particularly following his recent attempts to remove ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! from airing. The episode features Carr in a chaotic comedy of errors with none other than President Donald Trump, who’s depicted trying to terminate a child he’s supposedly having with Satan. The slapstick moments include Carr tripping down stairs, consuming a tainted meal, and ending up with toxoplasmosis—which the show humorously suggests could jeopardize his “freedom of speech.” A direct nod to Carr’s real warning to ABC is featured, where the character modeled after JD Vance quips, “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
Fans can expect South Park to settle into a regular schedule again, rolling out new episodes every other Wednesday from October 15 to December 10.
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