There’s Already Lots of Drama Surrounding the Latest ‘South Park’ Episode
After months of behind-the-scenes drama, involving legal threats, delays and social media F-bombs, South Park is finally back and — wait, it’s delayed again?!?!
A trailer just dropped for Season 27’s second episode, featuring the return of Trump and a Charlie Kirk-coded Cartman. But fans (and also some of us here at Cracked) were confused by the episode’s release date: August 6th. Which is in no way this week.
Prior to the promo, we would have expected that the follow-up to last week’s season premiere, “Sermon on the ‘Mount,” would air on the following Wednesday, which is July 30th. According to The Daily Beast, an anonymous source “close to the show” claimed that the two-week break was “pre-planned,” although the site skeptically pointed out that the hiatus “does not appear to have been communicated in any of the show’s promotional materials.”
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The Hollywood Reporter noted that “South Park has been known to skip weeks as a new season rolls out week over week.” Although, from what I can tell, the only time that a season premiere was followed by an episode that aired after more than a week was way back in 1998, when the “Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus” episode kicked off the second season, ahead of the resolution of Season One’s cliffhanger, which, frustratingly, aired three weeks later.
Even though no official source will confirm that this is a delay, a number of fans don’t seem to believe that it was “pre-planned.” One social media user even suggested that the Paramount+ app changed the show’s description from “NEW EPISODES THURSDAYS” to “NEW SEASON NOW STREAMING,” which is either an astute observation or paranoia run rampant.
There are plenty of reasons for fans to feel as though they’re being gaslit right now. Outlets such as USA Today, Decider and Forbes all reported that Episode Two of South Park’s 27th season would be released on July 30th. And at last week’s San Diego Comic-Con, Trey Parker told the audience at Hall H, "I don't know what the episode is next week," while discussing the show’s hectic production process.
Is it possible that Parker and Matt Stone simply haven’t been able to finish this week’s episode? Did their famous “six days to air” strategy fail them, forcing yet another delay? It’s also entirely possible that the break in episodes was always part of the plan, but it wasn’t properly communicated to the public by Paramount — which, to be fair, would be the least of the company’s transgressions this year.
