While South Park is hardly known for its consistent canon or continuity, the show’s upcoming season 29 will still need to address at least a handful of dangling plot threads from its controversial 2025 outing. Compared to its long-running competitor The Simpsons, South Park has one of the strangest release schedules in TV history. The Simpsons courted controversy among longtime fans by reducing its season length from 22 episodes to only 15-18, including Disney+ exclusives, in recent years.
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In contrast, the ever-controversial South Park hasn’t produced a single full season with more than 14 episodes since 2004, and hasn’t produced one with more than 10 episodes since 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, South Park’s creators replaced the show’s usual 10-episode seasons with fewer, feature-length specials, and the show has never returned to its usual release schedule since. South Park seasons 27 and 28 were both released back to back in 2025, and each consisted of only five episodes apiece.
Satan and Donald Trump’s Romantic “Relationship”
Bizarrely, even though South Park generally avoided serialized storytelling since season 20’s disastrous election storyline in 2016, seasons 27 and 28 wholeheartedly embraced season-long story arcs. A sprawling, surreal, and utterly obscene comedic odyssey, seasons 27 and 28’s shared story followed current President of the United States Donald Trump’s secret sexual relationships with Satan and his Vice President, JD Vance. This unholy union resulted in Satan’s pregnancy with the Antichrist, a plot that was suddenly ended in South Park’s season 28 finale when the Antichrist seemingly took its own life while still in utero.
In what was clearly intended to be a surreal parody of the hotly contested “Suicide” of New York financier, human trafficker, and high-profile Trump associate Jeffrey Epstein, the unborn demonic entity was revealed to have died offscreen moments before the season ended. However, this still leaves the messy relationship between Trump, Vance, and Satan at a standstill coming into season 29. Satan finally seemed to be done with his abusive lover in the outing’s ending, but only season 29 will prove whether this is the case or not.
Peter Thiel and ICE’s Attempted South Park Takeovers
While Jesus saved the day in season 28’s finale and mercifully brought an overdue end to South Park’s long-running Tegridy Farms storyline, the show never brought Peter Thiel and ICE’s invasions of the town of South Park to a meaningful end. The controversial billionaire and the violent American immigration enforcement entity both attempted to take over South Park for their own ends in season 28 and both were driven out, but there is no reason to think this will be the last of either villains in the series.
Cartman’s Shifting Personality
More than anything, season 29’s story will need to tackle the shifting personality of South Park’s most iconic character Cartman. Cartman wasn’t even present during the chaotic action of the season 28 finale “Crap Out,” as the crammed storyline barely had any screen time left over for him, Kenny, and Kyle thanks to Stan’s central role in the love triangle between Satan, Trump, and Vance.
However, at other points earlier in seasons 27 and 28, Cartman was a surprisingly sympathetic figure, whether he was receiving an exorcism or being abducted by Thiel. Cartman even came face to face with his own character changes when Thiel used the AI app Sora to create videos that convinced his mother he was okay with a handful of tired, long-outdated catchphrases from the show’s early seasons.
For years now, ever since the series first flirted with a serialised storyline back in season 14, South Park has toyed with the idea of turning Cartman into more of a traditional antihero. After he spent a surprisingly large portion of seasons 27 and 28 as a genuine victim of circumstance, as opposed to his usual villainous self, South Park season 29 now has an opportunity to change up this iconic character’s role in the long-running show.
