‘South Park’ Serves Up a Steaming Pile of Beef Satire — and a ‘GTA VI’ Sneak Peek

South Park returned to Comedy Central on Wednesday with a fresh episode that was full of shit, quite literally, as the cost of inflation, elite food trends, and President Trump’s recent tariff pause on beef became the unexpected topics skewered by the Emmy-winning, long-running animated show. But maybe more importantly, the episode featured new footage from the year’s most anticipated release, Grand Theft Auto VI.

The reveal came as the boys from South America (née South Park) visited a cattle ranch, where Ruth Chris, a character introduced here who is not an actual person but looks an awful lot like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse founder Ruth Fertel, gives them a preview of “what’s coming in November.” (Recall that the release of GTA VI next month is the metaphor Trey Parker and Matt Stone are drawing for the upcoming midterm elections.) The footage shows main character Jason Duval fighting a man on Vice Beach and involves a bag of dog crap that here, perhaps, represents partisan politics.

“Look at that, the graphics are seriously next level. You see the world-building?” Ruth Chris tells the boys. “It’s a dog taking a poop. And people can pick up the dog poop. You can throw things at the person with dog poop, and if they choose to fight back, you can pick up the dog poop and actually attack them with the dog poop. That is what’s coming in November.”

That moment is sure to drive fans batty as they salivate over the Rockstar Games release on Nov. 18. It arrives about two-thirds of the way through the latest episode, which struggles to connect its various ideas into the cohesive, perfectly structured and executed satire we love, as the show often does.

Gary Glitter’s controversial stadium anthem “Rock & Roll Part 2” is heard as the episode opens with our own Eric Cartman climbing up the walls of the newly renamed South America Elementary, as he waits for his lunchtime, Sloppy Joe. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen because record-high domestic beef prices have led the local public school to nix the Joes.

This catalyst sets our four main boys — which now includes Stan’s dad, Randy, as a Kenny replacement after he shrank to kid size after taking youth-enhancing creams in the prior episode — on a journey to reclaim the tender, buttery beef that comes out of their town (of South America). They probably don’t want it back, though, as it’s been a bit rough lately on the digestive systems of those who can afford to dine on some. See, it gives them diarrhea so terrible that it literally makes them explode. Literally — Scanners-style, right there in the restaurant.

It’s a gross-out spectacle that is certainly ick-funny the first time a cartoon explodes into a pile of diarrhea, but it happens again and again. Of course, the South Park creators cleverly tie eating the so-called patriotic beef with being a true American patriot, so many a moron convince thenseld=vesro he episode weaves in Stan dealing with his tiny dad joining his social circle, much to his chagrin, and it’s nice to see Stan bossing Randy around.

But as the episode marches toward its non-conclusion, viewing it grows difficult; after so many animated men and women are seen exploding into piles of shit, it’s all you can really anticipate. Sure, they get some mileage out of the interviews conducted with piles of shit, who, it turns out, are still full of shit. But mostly, we have a mid-season episode that does its best work in further setting up what is sure to be a great reveal of what’s to come in November.