All Four South Park COVID Specials Reviewed

(Comedy Central)

[CONTAINS SPOILERS]

South Park...ah, South Park...

Always staying current with the times, staying relevant while there with us all, going through the thick & thin of this human experience that all living share together on a daily basis that we call life.

With this being the case, it's even more impressive that series creators Trey Parker & Matt Stone have continuously found ways throughout the years to not only successfully parody pop culture to perfection in outstandingly hilarious ways, including fearless takes on whatever's at the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist at the time but also in the way they've evolved the show's humor with the times while somehow successfully staying relevant. This is especially impressive considering they've managed to stay fearless, even poking fun at some aspects of the political correct culture from time to time as seen throughout these first four of fourteen South Park specials to stream exclusively on Paramount+.

With the rise of COVID-19/the Coronavirus in our real world I couldn't help but wonder what South Park's take on the pandemic would eventually be. However, with the protests & extremely insane political events (Capitol Attack) happening there was a time during the quarantine when I wondered if the team working on the show would potentially cover any of the goings-on in the world, especially considering what could maybe occur upon a possible re-election of the then President.

(Comedy Central)

My worrying waned to curiosity upon the leveling out of said goings-on & upon the viewing of the first part of four 45-60 minute specials, titled The Pandemic Special, which premiered on HBO Max on September 30th, 2020 as Season 24, Episode 1. I was relieved to see the show prove it can take on anything this world throws at it & always have a very funny, extremely unique take on whatever that may be. 

These days I'm no longer forced to attend high school classes, although I can easily imagine what it would be like having to use video-learning/Zoom for school as assumingly millions of students across the world have had to do throughout the pandemic. I wondered how many of them have handled this the way Eric Cartman does by enjoying social distancing, tricking his teacher into thinking his internet isn't working & generally enjoying the changes. In real life, as seen in the show, I think this may seem ideal for many of the individuals going through this but that learning in person is probably the most effective way to learn, for what I personally feel are obvious reasons.

The integration of the Tegridy Weed that Stan Marsh's father Randy Marsh has been growing on his Tegridy Farms since Season 22 fits great into this story with an added Pandemic Special secret ingredient that Randy has to make himself & that only South Park can (or at least seemingly does) continue to get away with & he soon realizes it may be the cure everyone's been looking for! An appearance from the oft-not seen enough character Uncle Jimbo was a pleasant surprise & had some good laughs to go with it. Some of the "they went there" moments are present in the form of Randy's behavior around Jimbo & the boy's classmate Token Black being the only child targeted & shot by the police (due to his race) whilst by-standing a fight between Kyle Broflovski & Cartman in the classroom. The episode ends with one of the funniest sight gags in recent memory I've seen on the show in the form of a Stan-Marsh-style-mustache growing on the upper lip of every character that indulged in Tegridy Farms' Pandemic Special marijuana for its COVID curing properties, which turns out to be just about every character in South Park.

(Comedy Central)

The second special named the  South ParQ Vaccination Special is listed as Season 24, Episode 2 on the official Comedy Central series webpage & can be streamed there for free by clicking HERE, as well as on HBO Max. The boy's bro-ship is strained as Kyle McCormick & Cartman's prank on their teacher causes her to call it quits, bringing on the return of the previously in power Tyrant-of-a-President of the USA, Mr. Garrison to teach the class, as well as shenanigans including vaccinated gloating senior citizens, Q-Anon, a militant secret cabal of patriot anti-vax children named Lil' Qties & the beginning of the end of the boy's bro-ship forever. The eventual breaking of the fourth wall was the highlight of this episode as I love when that happens in almost anything, especially when it's done right & this was super awesome to see done right. Eventually South Park does what it does best by somehow miraculously having a positive underlying message, which are usually spoken forwardly to the viewer through a character monologuing near the end of an episode to that recognizable iconic background music.

(Paramount+)

In the third & first to be exclusively streaming on Paramount+ special: South Park: Post COVID gives major changes to every character unlike the series has ever seen before in the form of a Time-Skip to the future. In the sucky future that we hear sucks really, really bad many, many times we find ourselves first with Stan & what appears to be his wife or girlfriend (or a robot wife named Alexa from Amazon) followed by a call from Kyle, whom Stan hasn't talked to in over 30 years. Kyle's calling to let Stan know that Kenny has passed away before also letting their friend, Jimmy Valmer, the disabled comedian character seen fittingly as a late night talk show host, about the passing of their old pal Kenny, whom at the time of his passing known as "beloved scientist & humanitarian Dr. Kenny McCormick."

Aside from a few chuckles at the future appearance of a fit Token & every business having MAX or a + symbol at the end of their names my first major laugh was when we finally see future Cartman. I'm not sure what I was expecting but this was not it & it caught me by surprise on his appearance alone only to quickly realize he had converted to Judaism, becoming a Rabbi & laughing harder whilst imagining the lengths he must've gone just to get under his Jewish friend Kyle's skin. It's also revealed shortly thereafter that Cartman is married to a Jewish woman, whom he has three children with. All of his kids take after their father in the spirit of hating "Uncle Kyle" & the funny burns they throw his way are used sparingly, in perfect conjunction throughout this & the next special, not too often or too little & with great timing hitting at just the right moments for a good laugh.

When we come across the old man version of Randy Marsh, as with Kyle, he hasn't spoken to his son in over 30 years because of something horrible Stan's done. We soon find out that long ago in a fit of rage Stan had accidentally killed his sister Shelly by burning down his father's weed farm, thus idirectly driving his mother Sharon to commit suicide afterwards. It's a pretty dark area to go even by South Park standards but Stan didn't mean to hurt anyone, he truly only meant to stop his father from profiting off the pandemic through his marijuana business so it's all mostly glossed over overall.

Things start heating up towards the end of the episode as Stan & Kyle are joined by some of their now grown up classmates: Token, Wendy Testaburger & Clyde Donovan as they try to figure out what the brilliant Dr. Kenny McCormick was working on involving the virus shortly before his death. Things quickly turn to time travel as the installment begins to wrap up but not until after Stan breaks his father Randy out of a retirement home to come help solve the scenario & both gain some closure on the loss of their family members.

(Paramount+)

As with the aforementioned Tegridy Farms tie-ins from previous seasons to these four specials there are similar tie-ins to some of the other escapades of recent seasons involving Mickey Mouse, China & Randy Marsh on a drunken-drug induced black-out binger that ultimately culminated in the the pair having sexual intercourse with a bat (or pangolin), something that isn't revealed until the fourth special; in which this heinous act creates the return of COVID in the form of a new variant strain of the virus named the KENNY MCCORMICRON variant an entire 38 years after the start of the pandemic in Post COVID: The Return of COVID the fourth & final special.

This is where it all comes to a head. We get an eerie flashback to the beginning of the pandemic when most people thought it would all be over in about two weeks when we see Butters exclaiming "2 weeks? Yippie!" right before it skips back to the future, in which even I was having trouble not falling for Cartman's inevitable rouse, knowing he was up to something but still not knowing what that something was going to be.

(Paramount+)

The South Park Mental Asylum is where we first see Victor Choas, better known as Victor Chaos, Vic Chaos or simply, Butters. Butters is locked away in a maximum security wing of the asylum due to his superpower-like-skill of convincing other people to waste their money by purchasing NFT's. After a visit from Kyle & Stan they mistakenly leave a piece of paper in the cell with which Vic Chaos quickly folds into a paper cup, using it as a way to amplify his voice to be able to talk to a guard through the cell wall & trick him into spending his life savings on an NFT of a little green panda bear on a skateboard before escaping.

Cartman's evil plan to keep things how they are is revealed as he heads up the Foundation Against Time Travel or F.A.T.T., planning to use time travel to go back in time to stop time travel. It's is an alright plot-twist, being aided by the help of the traitorous anti-vaxxer Clyde & chaotic Vic Chaos but Cartman's eventual switching sides to align with Stan & Kyle at the end of the episode wasn't the most surprising turn of events to be honest, although this end up mattering little to none.

(Paramount+)

Seeing Token do some crazy Kung Fu, hearing Kyle's baby brother Ike talk, Butters singing Loo-Loo-Loo as he used the urinal with his signature pants around the ankles, the Alexa robots attacking Stan & Kyle & the Terminator references were some of the cool & funny moments I really enjoyed seeing. The only semi-complaints would involve the sub-par fart joke & overkill of a character towards the end (8 shots to the body, 1 to the dome's a bit much) but those sort of things seem to come with the territory of this type of animated adult humor.

Everything's mostly peachy in the end with Butters having actual money with an actual job instead of being involved with what the show has deemed worthless NFT's, Stan as a Space Force Veteran, together with Wendy, Kenny alive & well, having recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for combining dark matter & breast implants, Kyle with two healthy appearing children & Cartman as an extremely gross, disgusting looking person without a home living on the sidewalk yelling obscenities & profanity at the others before the ending of the special suddenly takes a left turn by transforming into a now classic Tegridy Weed advertisement completely out of nowhere.

Overall, I'd say these specials were a pretty great start for the MEGA-deal the creators have signed with Paramount+ to create 14 specials through 2027 exclusively for the streaming service. Four down, 10 to go & after seeing everyone in the future my mind is now running wild imagining what they have in store for us in our own future. The series will also be returning to Comedy Central with a new season in 2022. Will they revisit anything pertaining to past episodes? Will there ever be more characters like Chef? I don't really see either of those things actually happening but count me in as along for the ride!

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Jordan Bushert

Entertainment Journalist

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