Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s South Park brutally takes aim at AI-generated deepfake videos in its new episode, involving everyone from Cartman, Kyle and Butters to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
South Park Season 28, Episode 3 debuted on Comedy Central on Wednesday night before landing on streaming on Paramount+ early Thursday morning.
On Tuesday, Comedy Central promoted the episode with a short video teaser and a description of Sora Not Sorry that reads, “Butters’ Al revenge plan backfires, igniting an epidemic of fake videos at school that leaves Detective Harris struggling to tell fantasy from reality.”
The title of South Park’s new episode — Sora Not Sorry — of course refers to OpenAI’s Sora 2 app that is being used to create AI videos. The app isn’t specially named until later in the episode, and at one point, in a particularly scathing manner.
Note: Major spoilers are discussed throughout the rest of this recap about the new “South Park” episode “Sora Not Sorry.”
South Park dropped big hints about the episode in Tuesday’s promotional video, where Kyle warns Butters, “You shouldn’t use AI to make revenge porn, Butters! That’s going to totally backfire!” Butters then replies, “Eh, what’s gonna happen?”
Not surprisingly, a lot happens in the deepfake-themed episode, involving everyone from Butters and his friends all the way to the White House. It all begins in South Park Elementary, though, where Butters is laughing it up over creating deepfake videos of Red — which are too disgusting to mention here — because she used him to buy a Labubu doll in an episode from Season 27.
In turn, Red crafts a disgusting deepfake video of Butters and Totoro (the animated fantasy creature from the 1988 Japanese anime film classic My Neighbor Totoro) that is seen by the entirety of South Park Elementary at a school assembly. Kyle then utters, “I told him.”
Meanwhile, Mrs. Cartman is at the South Park Police Department, reporting to Detective Harris that Eric has gone missing. Harris leaves, though, when he hears of the Butters and Totoro video, which he believes is real. He vows to hunt down “that forest-dwelling piece of s—.” Then, Harris is called by his fellow detectives about another alarming video, where a student is allegedly being sexually assaulted by the animated character Popeye (the student turns out to be Kenny).
‘South Park’ Goes There With Trump And Vance
Keeping up with the political angle of this year’s episodes, the scene then shifts to the White House, where President Donald Trump is admonishing Vice President JD Vance for trying to manipulate him into getting rid of the baby he is expecting with Satan. Trump admits to Vance that he does indeed want to get rid of the baby and the VP says he has a solution to prevent the birth of the Antichrist in Colorado, alluding to the possessed Cartman.
Back at the South Park PD, Butters — while being questioned by Harris about the Totoro video — is confronted by enraged representatives from Studio Ghibli, which produced My Neighbor Totoro. Enraged with the video, the reps present him with a cease and desist order, yelling, “You cannot just do whatever you want with someone else’s IP!” The threats to Butters, however, land the reps in jail.
The deepfake-themed South Park episode continues after that with Mrs. Cartman, who is convinced that Eric is safe and sound after seeing him in videos while touring Washington, D.C. In reality Eric in a South Park motel with Peter Thiel as they prepare to travel to the White House to prevent the birth of the Antichrist.
When the story shifts back to Trump and Vance, the two are shown in a hot tub together at the White House. While Vance is telling Trump how stopping the birth of the Antichrist will be beneficial to him, Satan walks in and is suspicious of what’s going on. After Satan leaves in a huff, angry that he has to go see the pediatrician alone — again — Trump complains to Vance about how he’s being treated. As such, the VP kisses up to the president and sparks begin to fly between the two.
Returning to South Park Elementary, Red creates another deepfake video, this time with a disgusting scenario involving Kyle and the cartoon character Droopy Dog. This ramps up the investigation by Detective Harris as the number of videos continues to rise. Harris is baffled at the lack of cooperation from any of the victims in the videos, not realizing that they are all deepfakes.
Back at the White House, Vance calls Thiel, telling him that they have approval from the president to enact their plan with Cartman to stop the birth of the Antichrist. After he hangs up the phone, Vance and the president are shown in bed together in the Lincoln Bedroom and act on their urges to the strains of Foreigner’s classic tune “I Want to Know What Love Is.”
In South Park, meanwhile, Harris and his fellow detective, Mitch, go undercover dressed as cartoon favorites Rocky and Bullwinkle and run into Red, who spills the beans about the video. The action then shifts to the South Park Courthouse, where Butters eventually confesses that the deepfake video craze started because Red broke his heart.
The revelation eventually leads Harris and Mitch to the South Park motel, where Thiel is holding Cartman captive, and Thiel is arrested. The police then look at Thiels’ laptop, where he was creating fake Cartman videos. They are shocked to discover that the billionaire tech investor had video surveillance throughout the White House. One of the cameras was in the Lincoln Bedroom, where video is captured of Trump and Vance’s tryst.
The video, in turn, is leaked to Fox News and a dejected reporter questions “why the president would do this to Satan with a baby on the way.” The report is interrupted by the show Fox & Friends, where one of the hosts asks the president about the security footage of him and Vance.
The president replies, ‘No, that’s fake! That’s all — it’s all Sora 2!” In turn, the Fox News crew rejoices and issues a “Fox News Fake News Alert.” After Trump convinces Satan that the video is fake, he goes into a side room in the White House and learns from Vance that Thiel has been arrested. After assuring Trump that the plan to stop the birth of the Antichrist will work out, Vance and the president embrace and kiss.
South Park will return to Comedy Central on Nov. 26 with Season 28 Episode 4, which will stream on Paramount+ on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27.