After a lengthy wait following its controversial premiere, South Park season 27 episode 2 aired on Comedy Central on August 6, and boy did it go for the jugular. A deepfake of Donald Trump was joined by a miniature J.D. Vance, Krypto the superdog was shot out of the sky by US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk was… well, made fun of. Just a regular day in the sitcom, right? Wrong.
For starters, the Krypto reference was a parody of Noem disclosing in her 2024 memoir that she once shot and killed her dog on a family farm. She responded to the scene during an interview on the Glenn Beck Program podcast, slamming her character’s appearance: “It’s so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look. If they wanted to criticize my job, go ahead and do that. But clearly they can’t – they just pick something petty like that.” Much like the official White House account, Noem also used a screenshot of her South Park character to try and recruit users to join ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
