The second episode of South Park’s unexpected 28th season was originally scheduled to air this past Wednesday. However, it was pushed back to Friday, ultimately benefiting the show. This particular episode, titled The Woman in the Hat, serves as a Halloween special, fitting perfectly with the spooky season.
Following the closure of Tegridy Farms, the Marsh family finds themselves in a precarious situation, living out of motels. Patriarch Randy Marsh is particularly troubled, as he cannot return to his previous job as a government geologist due to the ongoing federal government shutdown. In a desperate move, Randy relocates his family to a retirement home where he has stashed away his elderly father.
This drastic change leads to a frustrated Stan Marsh, who laments, “South Park sucks now … and it’s because of this political shit.” In an attempt to reconnect with his friends, Stan teams up with Kyle and Kenny, along with Kyle’s stereotypical New York relative, Cousin Kyle, to launch a new meme coin. Cousin Kyle employs his unique brand of “savvy Jew-jitsu” to manipulate others and “screw a lot of people out of their money.”
Meanwhile, in Washington DC, President Trump is seen overseeing the destruction of the White House’s East Wing. Although he promises his lover Satan that the renovations are for a nursery for their unborn child, his true intention is to create yet another lavish party space. Trump’s plans take a chaotic turn when he learns from his inner circle, including a brown-nosed Pam Bondi and a ghoulish Stephen Miller, that there are unknown forces conspiring to harm his and Satan’s baby.
As paranoia sets in, Trump is haunted by the ghostly figure of his wife Melania, appearing as a spectral entity reminiscent of characters from J-horror films like The Ring and The Grudge. The plot thickens as the true mastermind behind the chaos, JD Vance, collaborates with co-conspirator Peter Thiel, who is keeping a demonically possessed Eric Cartman out of sight.
The various storylines converge when Cousin Kyle seeks White House approval for the boys’ cryptocurrency venture. This leads him into an impromptu séance alongside Trump, Bondi, Miller, Vance, Don Jr., Kristi Noem, and FCC head Brendan Carr, who is still recovering from previous injuries. During this chaotic gathering, a ghostly wrath threatens to expose both Trump’s connections to Epstein and Vance’s power grab.
Overwhelmed by guilt, Cousin Kyle admits that “crypto’s just a money-laundering scheme for the rich to get richer!” This shocking revelation leads to a screeching Fox News alert, announcing that Bondi, still covered in feces, has indicted Cousin Kyle for crypto fraud, sentencing him to ten years in prison. Bondi vows to “indict anyone who says bad stuff about our amazing president.”
Back in South Park, a defeated Stan realizes that “there’s just no really going back to the way things used to be.” Although Kyle tries to console him by suggesting that normalcy will eventually return, the episode closes on a dark, Shining-esque note that casts doubt on this hope. "The Woman in the Hat" stands as a solid building block in what promises to be South Park’s most ambitious season yet.
While the series has always tackled current events, it has never integrated them into its long-term storytelling as effectively as in this season. Creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker acknowledge that their intense political satire may alienate some longtime fans who feel the show has strayed too far from its roots. The self-satire within this episode may not appease those critics, but it clearly highlights Stone and Parker’s perspective: as the world evolves, so too does South Park. In the words of Kyle, there’s no point in trying to return to simpler times; all anyone can do is “make the most of where we are.”
