The 2025 ‘South Africa S*** Show': the all-stars season

Dear December reader,

I trust this email finds you kak gesuip.

Celebrate with me then: raise your papsaks and Savannas to the African sky, for we have officially entered the golden age of African filmmaking.

What a groundbreaking year this has been for the South Africa S*** Show (Sass). The character development has been nothing short of phenomenal, and the biggest stars took centre stage to remind us why they get the big bucks. It has truly been an all-stars season.

Admittedly, lesser film critics would be easily distracted by the big story beats: the arme Afrikaner exiles who narrowly escaped being genocided at the bottom of the darkest continent; daddy’s Dudu, who has allegedly turned to human-trafficking her fellow countrymen and family members to the Russians; the Mkhwanazi exposés and the Madlanga Commission. And, of course, the usual corruption storylines: the Malakas, Mashawanas, Mapisa-Nqakulas, Tolashes, et al.

Ja, sure, we’ve seen all this in previous seasons. Commissions are so passé. Whenever the show writers are in doubt, they just throw in an inconsequential commission. Even Shamila was like, “Stahhp bothering us with this kak.” Sure, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was cute and engaging in those early seasons, but then the writers just kept on repeating this plotline season after season: the Ngoepe Commission, the Jali Commission, the Hefer Commission, the Marikana Commission, the PIC Commission, the Zondo Commission, and so on and so on. It’s like bloody Oprah is ghostwriting the storylines and “eeeeverybody gets a commissiiiiiooooon!”

As for daddy’s Dudu Sambudla, that one always comes back for tragicomic relief – nothing to see here. And certain fringe elements have been fantasising about their impending genocide ever since Nelson Mandela said “never again”. Sure, it’s great writing all round, because the South African mind is brilliant at synthesising trauma into life-extending nutritional supplements, but enough rehashing already.

Thank goodness for the greatest method actors of our time

However, even with all that, the character development in this season still managed to make it the best season ever in my eyes. Take, for example, the near biblical desertion of Julius. For years, this character has embodied rizz with level 10,000 aura. But the horrible betrayal and tormenting loneliness imposed upon this character in this season has been so heart-wrenching that, even as viewers, we couldn’t even enjoy a spot of schadenfreude at his misfortunes.

By October, he was being declared guilty by the East London magistrates’ court for illegal firearm possession. How humiliating to be the one politician found guilty of something in the Eastern Cape, the fictional country’s special economic zone for corrupt politicians, where everybody gets away with everything.

So nuanced was the writing, so dedicated was the actor who managed to lose a mealie-meal sack’s worth of weight to bring this tragedy to life that we couldn’t help but empathise as even Floyd, his very bestest best friend, turned on him.

Speaking of the shiv in Julius’s back, as angry as I was with Floyd the seemingly Futureless, a snake of the Judas order, for turning on a comrade, his unfolding story arc won me over. It lifted his character from possibly lightly corrupted revolutionary looter to a nuanced portrayal of man’s search for place and self in the universe.

I spent many nights awake reflecting on this storyline. What is revolutionary in 2025? What is a friend? When you’ve made common cause with VBS Mutual Bank looters who steal from the poorest of the poor and seemingly got away with it, how do you top that?

#OscarsSoWhite for a reason

But I must confess, if Sass were a movie and I were responsible for handing out Oscars in recognition of truly great performances and character development, I’d have to give this one to the white guy. No other character has moved me and surprised me more than John. Once a filler role to remind the viewer just how much more engaging and well written the Zille character is, this year John truly came into being, really filled up, literally. Just like Julius, the actor behind this role took on amazing body transformation work to really sell this story.

He kicked off the season back in January by putting his foot down and threatening Ramafoza that he would cancel the GNU year because the president had signed some or other expropriation thing. By May, he was playing poster boy for the GNU during his cameo on the America S*** Show, where he stuck it to the Afrikaner exiles. There Johnnie sat, on top of the world, all eyes on him, even as South Africa’s CEO, one very snitchy Mr Rupert, tried to embarrass him: “Mr Steenhuisen won’t admit that he runs the Western Cape where I live, and the biggest murder rate is in the Cape Flats.” I felt that. My heart broke into tiny little pieces.

By November, our dear John, a character once defined by legendary beigeness, was revealed to be living the high life far beyond his multimillion-rand-a-year salary. Courts were passing default judgments against him, the party he leads would no longer let him anywhere near the credit card, and he was supposedly on a firing spree to get rid of those who stood between him and the shopping.

I am so excited to see him fully develop in 2026. I think there might even be a villain origin story in the making here. Beige no more as we enter the Johnnie Darko era.

The final boss

No all-stars season would be complete without the sassiest of Sass characters, the one and only Zille. In recent seasons, it seemed the writers were banishing her to far-right lands, a literary portrayal of recent political trends.

But this season, they introduced a setup for a twist that all but guarantees an exciting season for 2026. Never could I have imagined that her journey to the aforementioned far-right lands would lead to a campaign to become executive mayor of the African continent’s wealthiest and most economically influential city! Only the South African mind could think up this plotline and manage to get us to suspend disbelief. Amazing!

Congratulations to the Sass writing team once again for an amazing year.

If I had one minor criticism, it’s that Ramafoza fellow. I see what the writers are trying to do with the story, but we need to see more development here. Maybe we can flesh out that Phala Phala thing from a couple of seasons ago, or dig deeper into last year’s Simelane. I don’t know, anything to liven him up. Does he also keep his rizz stowed away in a couch somewhere? One commission I’d be in support of is a commission of inquiry into his acting qualifications. DM

Malibongwe Tyilo is a creative lead at Maverick Studios.

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.