South Park Serves Steaming Pile of Beef Satire With GTA VI Sneak Peek

Beef prices drive the plot

The episode opens with Eric Cartman waiting for a Sloppy Joe at the newly renamed South America Elementary. Record-high domestic beef prices have led the school to remove the meal from its menu.

The boys set out to reclaim the town’s beef. Their effort turns into a grotesque satire of patriotism and expensive food: people who eat the beef suffer extreme digestive effects, including exploding in restaurants.

Randy, now reduced to a child’s size after taking youth-enhancing creams in the previous episode, joins the group in place of Kenny. Stan is annoyed to have his father among his peers, but gets to boss him around.

A game preview arrives

About two-thirds into the episode, the boys visit a cattle ranch and meet Ruth Chris, a fictional character resembling Ruth Fertel, founder of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. She previews what she says is “coming in November.” The footage shows Grand Theft Auto VI character Jason Duval fighting a man on Vice Beach. It also features a bag of dog waste, which the episode uses as a possible stand-in for partisan politics.

The game is scheduled for release on Nov. 18. Trey Parker and Matt Stone use that date as a metaphor for the upcoming midterm elections.

Satire loses momentum

The episode also includes Gary Glitter’s “Rock & Roll Part 2” and interviews with piles of feces. The repeated scenes of people exploding provide gross-out humor, but the review says the gag becomes predictable.

The episode struggles to bring its ideas together into a cohesive satire, according to the review. It finds the strongest payoff in the setup for the November preview, rather than in the episode’s ending.