In a typically audacious move, the latest episode of South Park, titled 'Sora Not Sorry', has plunged headfirst into the unsettling world of AI-generated content, delivering one of the most graphically disturbing storylines in the show's long history.
An Elementary School Deepfake War
The episode's chaos begins not in the halls of power, but in the schoolyard. Butters, seeking revenge after being manipulated by his crush Red, creates an AI-generated video using the Sora 2 OpenAI tool. The clip depicts Santa Claus urinating on a fourth-grade girl. Red retaliates in kind, producing her own deepfake of Butters molesting the beloved Studio Ghibli character, Totoro.
This sparks a full-scale technological war among the students of South Park Elementary, who use the AI software to fabricate videos of each other in a series of sexual and scatological scenarios with cartoon icons like Popeye, Bluey, and Droopy Dog. The town's baffled police force, unable to distinguish reality from fabrication, mistakenly believes they have uncovered a vast child sexual abuse ring.
Political Scandals and Demonic Plots
Meanwhile, the narrative intertwines with the season's ongoing arc. Eric Cartman, still in the clutches of billionaire Peter Thiel, is the subject of deceptive AI videos sent to his mother to throw her off the trail. In Washington D.C., a political bombshell erupts.
President Donald Trump confronts his deputy, JD Vance, over a murky plot involving Thiel and a plan to kill Trump's forthcoming love child with Satan. In a startling turn, Vance seduces the President. The episode then shows Trump and Vance engaging in explicit sexual acts in the Lincoln Bedroom, with the use of the politicians' actual faces creating what may be the most viscerally shocking scene the series has ever produced.
Converging Threads and a Meta Mea Culpa
The plotlines collide when police trace one of the Cartman deepfakes to Thiel's hideout. His arrest leads to the discovery of illegal surveillance footage from the White House, capturing the Trump-Vance encounter. When the video is made public, Fox News initially panics before Trump successfully dismisses it as just another AI fake, even convincing a sceptical Satan.
The episode serves as a pointed commentary from creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who have a personal stake in the technology through their deepfake studio, Deep Voodoo LLC. It condemns AI for devaluing human artistry, highlighted by a Studio Ghibli representative who angrily states their work is done with 'pencil and paint, not by typing a sentence on a stupid Sora app'.
Ultimately, 'Sora Not Sorry' sounds a stark alarm about how evolving technology can be weaponised to make people believe lies and deny the truth, leaving viewers to wonder if the creators will practice what they preach.
