South Park Season 28, Episode 2: “The Woman in the Hat” Review

Warning: This review contains full spoilers for South Park Season 28, Episode 2!

It was probably bound to happen sooner or later. South Park has generated a strong sense of momentum and narrative coherency in this Season 27/28 era, but inevitably, there were going to be bumps in the road. It’s tough to focus this much energy on being reactive and improvisational and not occasionally lose the thread. Bearing all that in mind, it’s still disappointing to see the series stumble in its eagerly anticipated Halloween episode.

“The Woman in the Hat” is one of those episodes that tries to tell two stories at once and winds up executing neither particularly well. On one hand, the Halloween angle comes into play as the ongoing renovation at the White House seemingly unleashes “a wrath” and causes the Trump Administration to become haunted by the mysterious “Woman in the Hat.” On the other hand, Stan, understandably miffed at having to live in his grandfather’s retirement home, concocts a new plan to get politics out of South Park. Even in the climax, these two threads never really tie together in a satisfying way.

There’s certainly some amusement to be had in watching the various people in Trump’s orbit stumble about as they’re haunted by a malevolent ghost. It’s one way of working the First Lady into the equation. This episode gets plenty of mileage out of mocking Attorney General Pam Bondi in particular, painting her as a literal brown-noser plagued by “rectoplasm” and all too happy to sue anyone who criticizes her beloved boss. It’s also funny to see the series continue to unload on FCC head Brendan Carr, who has indeed lost his freedom of speech and is now trapped in a permanent Nazi salute.

This is also where Trump advisor Stephen Miller enters the picture. Frankly, Miller seems to get off a little too easily compared to the rest of the group, with the episode focusing solely on portraying him as a creepy, shambling mash-up of Renfield and Riff Raff. It definitely seems like the show could have gone deeper there.

The larger issue with this half, though, is that the Halloween subplot feels more like a silly detour than a necessary new chapter of the season’s ongoing Trump storyline. We only get one brief scene of Peter Thiel and the captive Cartman. The seance never really pushes anything forward, nor does it have a particularly memorable payoff. The whole thing feels a little underbaked, despite how entertaining the Halloween trappings are.

That said, it’s not nearly as underbaked as the Stan subplot. This is where “The Woman in the Hat” really stumbles. It starts out promisingly enough, with Stan struggling with the idea of being unhoused and lamenting the sorry direction South Park is headed. Here, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are happily shattering the fourth wall and throwing a bone to every fan who feels the show has gotten too caught up in political humor (though it’s hardly like this is a new phenomenon for the series). I definitely chuckled when Stan complained that he hadn’t heard Kenny speak for four months.

Sadly, this episode completely fails to build from there. Stan’s crusade against politics almost immediately and inexplicably devolves into an attempt to hitch his wagon to the current crypto meme coin craze. Why, exactly? Not that crypto scams aren’t a fitting target for the series, but the way this episode goes about it just feels hamfisted and not particularly insightful. As nice as it is to see Cousin Kyle make a guest appearance, there just isn’t much humor or insight to be found in Stan’s story this week.

It was probably the right choice to acknowledge the ongoing criticism about the lack of focus on the classic South Park kids in these new seasons. It’s a criticism that has merit, as much as the show’s political storylines have mostly been dead-on. But making Stan the center of a half-baked, Cartman-style scam isn’t the way to address things. The problem here is that Season 27 had the right angle by focusing on Cartman’s disillusionment over this post-election climate, but the show has now pivoted in a completely different direction in Season 28. Now Stan is being called upon to shoulder the burden, and it’s not working. Hopefully, this is something the writers can hash out over the remainder of Season 28.