South Park Season 27 Wages Hilarious War On Two Very Different 2025 Menaces

This episode contains spoilers for "South Park" season 27, episode 4, "Wok is Dead." 

"South Park" season 27 is firing on all cylinders. After a few years away, the adult cartoon is back with one of its best seasons yet, and it's so far managed to capture a combination of relatively wholesome childhood fun, raunchy and vulgar humor, and biting satire all at the same time. Indeed, the new episodes of "South Park" continue to deliver some very timely commentary by going relentlessly after the twice-impeached convicted felon Donald Trump and his entire presidential administration. The show's latest episode, "Wok is Dead," even has Trump impregnating the Prince of Darkness himself, Satan, with a hellspawn.

The rest of the episode is equally as biting and hilarious, as "South Park" reveals the sources of some of 2025's greatest evils. The first is the rise of the Labubu, a line of collectible plush little toy monsters with sharp teeth and large ears, as sold by Chinese retailer Pop Mart in mystery boxes. Just like the Labubu phenomena has taken over the real world, with the little creatures selling out everywhere (drawing huge crowds and creating a big reselling market with overinflated prices), it has also taken over the town of South Park with a fury. "Wok is Dead" is, in many ways, reminiscent of "Chinpokomon" from way back in the show's third season, an episode that similarly parodied a massive cultural happening in the form of the "Pokémon" franchise (even if that episode completely underestimated how long Pokémania would actually last).

The difference, however, is that this particular cultural phenomenon is also bringing violence to South Park, from fights between kids arguing about whether their Labubus are fake to children performing satanic rituals with their little critters and passing around curses like they're in a J-horror film. Yes, Labubus are literally evil, according to the episode, because they are all afflicted with a curse — namely, Trump's tariffs, which are passed from the government to the seller and then from the seller to the buyer.

Yes, that's right. Labubus are possessed by the curse that are tariffs, one of the most ridiculous evils of 2025 — which is saying something, considering "South Park" has already done a parody this season involving ICE kidnapping Dora the Explorer in the middle of a live show. Of course, the kid who learns about the tariffs first-hand is none other than Butters (Matt Stone), the boy with a heart full of magic who can laugh at a storm cloud and turn a frown into a smile for free. The poor little guy is duped into buying an ultra-rare Labubu for the person of his affection, Red (Mona Marshall), as a birthday present, only to soon realize that the little monsters are $85 now due to tariffs. Except, the tariffs aren't only an economic absurdity, they're also quite literally a curse, as explained by Mr. Kim (Trey Parker) from City Wok (which has now been turned into an Asian pop-up store because, as Mr. Kim puts it, "wok is dead").

Sure enough, "Wok is Dead" ends with Red carrying out a satanic ritual (complete with chicken blood) to bring her new ultra-rare Labubu to life by summoning a demon — and accidentally summoning Trump and Satan to her birthday party instead. The sight of a bunch of young girls running away from Trump is fantastic, but even more so because most of the episode involves a bunch of Trump sycophants debating whether he's "f***ing" Satan" in the best bit of double entendre "South Park" has done in years.

What makes the episode so effective is how it captures the kids-being-kids tone of early "South Park," as Butters is just trying to impress a girl before inadvertently entering a world of tariffs, "wokeness," and satanic rituals. Its portrayal of the Labubus as possessed sources of evil similarly brings to mind how the Chinpokomon were revealed to be part of a secret plot by the Japanese government to brainwash kids in the U.S. into becoming soldiers for an upcoming attack on Pearl Harbor. The whole thing is equal parts absurd and hilarious.

"South Park" is currently streaming on Paramount+.