Comicbook has reported that this year’s Thanksgiving special of South Park brought back another character to solve a plot hole from the past couple of years. South Park kicked off the 2025 holiday season with a return to a Thanksgiving-focused episode for the first time in twelve years. The series continues to change its established lore, but first, it needed to answer some questions.

According to Comicbook, South Park is known for retconning previous character deaths, perhaps adding to the wacky satirical nature of the show. The latest revival in the series was Ned Gerblanski, who had last been seen at the forefront in season 22. This episode answers fans’ questions about his background appearances and confirms that he is still injured.

Comicbook has reported in this episode that Saudi Arabia funds South Park’s annual turkey trot, and many town inhabitants enter the race in an attempt to win some prize money. Ned and Jimbo are two of the contestants, although Ned is still recovering from an attack by a global warming stand, which left him in a wheelchair.

According to Comicbook, Ned had been spotted among the townsfolk fully healed in the episode “South ParQ Vaccination Special”and more obviously healthy in Season 26 episode “Japanese Toilet”. With this recent appearance, that is confirmed to not be the case.

Comicbook has reported that South Park has always valued biting satire over continuity. Retconning is not unfamiliar territory for the show, and with undergoing major changes, particularly with Randy Marsh, some rewriting of history was to be expected. Fans have always loved that the show has remained flexible, always valuing a joke over maintaining the canon. The show has never cared about covering its tracks; what was likely an editing error can simply be ignored in order to find the funniest plotline for the next episode.