'South Park' Season 29 Episode 4 Sends the Boys After South America's Beef

By Elena Vasquez

The fourth episode of "South Park" Season 29, titled "Guinea Pig on a Stick," premiered in Halloween week without a single ghost — and instead sent Cartman, Stan, Kyle and a still-shrunken Randy into a national beef crisis.

The episode opens with Cartman arriving at South America Elementary expecting a sloppy joe for lunch. He learns instead that the government is seizing South American beef amid a national shortage. The cafeteria's replacement menu: various preparations of guinea pig.

What does the beef crisis turn on?

The boys and Randy refuse the rodent lunches. They reason that Kenny — who was blown up by an e-bike in the Season 29 premiere — would not have stood for it. Neither will they.

At the local ranch, they discover the suddenly premium product is nothing new. A ranch worker tells them the beef is "the same cows that have always been here." The difference is the clientele. "Now we have a much higher clientele, you know, and all the rich people in other states want a premium experience," he says.

The premium buyers include the Ruth's Chris Steak House chain. The demand persists even though everyone who eats the beef literally explodes with diarrhea. Randy explains the logic: the beef has become a symbol of "who's more patriotic," with politicians competing to prove they support local South American product.

How does it end?

Sizzler, another chain, ultimately swoops in and steals all the cows. That loss triggers Stan's epiphany: "They said nobody even really cares about our cows… So then, this rancher could inject anything with lard and butter, and people would be just as obsessed with it. That's it, dude. That's it. We can have all our cows back."

The plan works. The episode closes at Ruth's Chris Steak House, where a waiter serves diners their new "patriotic meals": flame-seared guinea pig on a stick.

Where is the Halloween episode?

There wasn't one. The episode aired days before Oct. 31, but creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone appear to be skipping the holiday entirely, despite the show's long history of Halloween specials.

Last year's episode, "The Woman in the Hat," was not advertised as a Halloween episode either, but it aired two days later than normal — timed to fall on Oct. 31 itself.

What has Season 29 covered so far?

The season has targeted a string of much-discussed subjects:

• e-bikes
• data centers
• billionaires
• anti-vaxxers

The third episode trapped the crew in Sephora's "backroom," a nod to the joke that tweens spend ages inside the beauty store. It also ran on internet-era "aura battles," with terms like "mogging," "maxxing" and "mewing" in heavy rotation.

Season 29 is also the first under the show's new name, "South America," announced earlier this month ahead of the premiere. That premiere drew 4.2 million viewers in three days, as previously reported by Variety, and featured an updated theme song plus a Donald Trump cameo.

Skipping Halloween for a satire of performative patriotism and premium dining marks a clear programming choice by Parker and Stone — one that suggests the rebramed series will keep aiming at consumer culture rather than holiday formats.