South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid

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"South Park: Post Covid"

"South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid"

"South Park: The Streaming Wars"

South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid
Directed by	Trey Parker
Written by	Trey Parker
Starring	Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Distributed by	South Park Studios, MTV Entertainment Studios
Network(s)	Paramount Plus/ViacomCBS
Release Date	December 16, 2021
Running Time	1 hour
Movie Chronology
Previous	South Park: Post Covid
Next	South Park: The Streaming Wars

South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid is the second short-form movie released on streaming service Paramount Plus. It debuted on December 16, 2021.

Synopsis

If Stan, Kyle and Cartman could just work together, they could go back in time to make sure Covid never happened and save Kenny's life. In SOUTH PARK: POST COVID: THE RETURN OF COVID, traveling back to the past seems to be the easy answer until they meet Victor Chaos.

Plot

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

Stan Marsh dreams back to the beginning of the pandemic forty years earlier: at South Park Elementary, he and Kyle are playing football, when Cartman and Kenny approach and explain that Heather Williams farted during PE class and they photographed it, and that, using her mother's occupation at the Coors, the second biggest sponsor of the Pepsi Center, they can blackmail her into getting them courtside seats at a Denver Nuggets game. When returning to class, Mrs. Nelson explains that school will be closed for about two weeks because of a "little virus going around". He then reminisces about watching coronavirus reports, his parents' marriage breaking down in quarantine, a birthday in quarantine, seeing his friends and Grandpa from long distances through windows, breaking up with his friends, lighting Tegridy Farms on fire, and Shelley's funeral.

Back in the future, a news report explains that "Kenny McCormickron" is the name of the coronavirus and that South Park will be under quarantine for a further 30 years as a result. Randy Marsh is hiding from Shady Acres authorities and enters the Denny's Applebee's Max and explains that he has the last sprout of tegridy weed that needs to take it outside town so it could be replicated and bred. When two nurses from Shady Acres locate him, he tries to get the attention of others and is saved by Tolkien who uses martial arts to defeat them both. Randy is taken back to Kenny's laboratory to help them find out when he had sex with the pangolin. Randy focuses on replicating the weed and helping grow more and insists preventing him from having sex with the pangolin is stupid and that they cannot change the past, only how people think. Wendy Testaburger makes contact via radio with an outside source and requests power assistance, but they will only provide help if everyone is vaccinated. Clyde is still unvaccinated and keeps refusing the shot, saying an expert once told him that the vaccine would make him grow titties on his head.

Wendy explains that all of the transformers in the lab have been blown since Kenny's attempt, and the codes to operate the machines are behind a firewall that requires an in-person vocal scan by Kenny or Victor Chaos. The negative ions from time travel can only be balanced by aluminum foil, which is not available. Tweek and Craig are volunteered to find the foil, while Stan and Kyle take the lead on locating Chaos. They are warned by the Mental Asylum Warden that Chaos is dangerous and he explains that lives have been destroyed by Chaos' behavior since he was left grounded in his room for sixteen years when his parents never returned home from a movie. They realize it is Butters Stotch before being allowed in to speak with him, and Butters, identifying as "Vic", says he can help them make money and that he has done so before for many others, including investing in Kenny's wild experiments by lending him capital, before delivering a sales pitch for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) after being handed a piece of paper. Stan and Kyle are escorted out of the facility, but Vic uses the paper to escape by convincing a guard to make investments in an NFT.

At the South Park Church, Father Scott Malkinson is praying for guidance through the quarantine when Cartman returns there with his family, desperate to stop time travel and asking Scott to help keep his family safe, promising to stop Kyle. He begins the Foundation Against Time Travel, but only attracts a few followers, including Kevin Stoley, who mistakenly thought this was a Doctor Who convention. While his family hides in the Church attic, Tweek and Craig arrive looking for aluminum foil. Scott spoils Cartman's plan at first, but Cartman then takes control and lures them in with an impression before knocking both of them out and hanging them from the ceiling. Cartman approaches Clyde for help, assuring him that they have a right to ask questions and be individuals, building solidarity with him in their opposition to science until Clyde reveals the others are looking for Vic, who is continuing to cause violence and chaos throughout the town.

Ike Broflovski is waiting for a flight to South Park to celebrate Boxing Day with his family, and a Canadian translator explains to him that because of the pandemic, there were no flights. Back home, Cartman confronts Vic while he pitches at Shady Acres and convinces him to do what he can to help and threatens to hurt him if he does not cooperate. Kyle and Stan stop at Skeeter's Wine Bar Plus, having given up on finding Vic, when they receive a call from Wendy, who mentions that Vic has arrived and has been helping out thanks to Cartman, who asks to speak to Kyle and ignores his warnings about Vic, and Cartman then authorizes him to begin advertising. Stan and Kyle are slowed down going back home as their two Alexas have been talking and Stan must walk Kyle through how to calm his down. When they return to the laboratory, they find the equipment gone, and everyone from the lab has invested in NFTs and is convinced they are a good investment, including Randy; whose equipment and weed have been taken as well. Wendy reveals that Kenny was not going back to the beginning of the pandemic because, in all of his calculations of every possible timeline, Randy had sex with the pangolin, only stealing Randy's weed because it was available, but that Kenny intended to return to the first day of vaccine availability. Stan talks to Randy, who gives him a small last bit of weed and tells him they cannot change the future.

At the Church, Cartman has reassembled the equipment so that they can send Clyde back in time, justifying that he needs to have Clyde kill Kyle to preserve the timeline, blaming Kyle for the efforts at time travel. Kevin points out that their acronym is FATT, and he suggests changing their name to the Foundation to Intercede Time Travel, which is FITT instead. As they prepare Clyde for the time travel process and Cartman thanks his supporters, Stan and Kyle arrive and he sends Vic to stop them, who in turn send both of their Alexas at Vic to sign him up for Amazon Prime membership. Cartman refuses to let Kyle stop him from going back in time, questioning what a 'real Jewish person' would do for his family, pointing out Kyle does not have one. They engage in a fistfight which only stops when Yentl expresses her disbelief, declaring that she refuses to hide and that seeing him beat up Kyle is not the Cartman she has known and loved for the last eighteen years, who is "thoughtful and kind", explaining he has changed since seeing his friends again, and urging him to leave things up to chance, explaining that they need to trust in God, and expresses faith God will see his family through the crisis and agrees to support Kyle. Hackelm, however, finds his way to the lever that initiates the sequence, and sends Clyde to the past nonetheless.

In March 2021, during the "South ParQ Vaccination Special", the future Clyde shows up and returns to the Donovan Residence, meeting his young self and asking if their dad still keeps the gun in his closet, and tells his younger self never to get vaccinated as it will make him grow titties on his head, identifying himself as an expert. At the moment the boys' friendship originally ended, Clyde appears armed with a gun, intending to kill Kyle, when the future Stan, Kyle, and Cartman intervene and threaten to vaccinate him, insisting that the plan has changed. The future versions of Stan and Kyle urge them to stay together, but the future Cartman shoots and kills Clyde. The three boys are frustrated that their effort to save Kyle has not changed the timeline. They realize that everyone broke apart in the pandemic and they all needed to learn to cut each other slack and have an epiphany. The future boys then visit Heather Williams in the past and blackmail her with the photo of her farting. A Coors-branded helicopter brings Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny together for a Denver Nuggets game, leading them to apologize to each other. Future Stan leaves the marijuana bud from the future as a gift to past Randy, who then mass produces it, apologizing and making up with Sharon. Both Randy and Sharon begin distributing the new "Post-Covid" special for free throughout the town, leading people to make up and forgive each other around the town, distributing it similarly to the vaccination, and averting the release of the film Space Jam 2.

In the new future timeline, Ike makes it to a Christmas party at Denny's Applebee's Max just as Stan returns from a tour on Mars with the Space Force, greeted by Kyle, Kyle's kids, as well as a still-living Sharon and Shelley. Kenny returns, alive and well, having won a Nobel Prize for combining dark matter and breast implants, and everyone enjoys watching Jimmy's politically incorrect comedy. Wendy returns from Harvard, promising to spend New Years with Stan again. Butters, who works at Applebee's, announces that he has just been promoted to a manager. Kyle, meanwhile, draws attention to Cartman, who is homeless across the street shouting obscenities, having never done anything with his life in this timeline. Butters cautions they cannot spend another holiday trying to help Cartman, claiming his path was impossible to change. Randy makes a final toast for everyone making it through the pandemic, joined by an adult Timmy Burch, who speaks clearly and no longer requires a wheelchair. A narrator explains that "weed can't solve all of your problems, but Tegridy can."

Continuity

• This movie continues with South Park: Post Covid and involves time-travel to "South ParQ Vaccination Special" and references to "The Pandemic Special".
• The time travel group refers to "the pangolin" about the events in "The Pandemic Special".
• Adult Butters retains most of his personality and traits:
  • Butters still pees at the urinal with his pants dropped to the floor like he did as a child.
  • He can be heard singing a brief portion of his song "I've Got Some Apples" as he goes to the restroom.
  • He uses some of his common catchphrases such as "Hey, fellas!" and "Oh, hamburgers..."
  • Despite being known in the asylum as someone who is a dangerous individual, Butters remains a positive and energetic person.
  • In the original timeline, he has adapted and altered the Professor Chaos moniker he used as a child, going by Victor Chaos.
• This is the fourth time in which Kevin Stoley annoys Cartman with his sci-fi obsession, the first two times being in "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers" and "Fatbeard", and the third time being in South Park: The Stick of Truth.
• The jokes that Adult Jimmy makes remain to be family-friendly and politically correct, at least until the end of the special where he makes an offensive joke.
• In the alternate future, adult Butters flips off adult Cartman and says "Fuck you, Eric!" like he did back in the Season Seven episode "Christian Rock Hard".
  • Tolkien attacking the Shady Oaks nurses is also a reference to the episode, with him attacking Cartman.
• Though a lot less frequent, the "it's the future" joke continues.
• This marks the second time Cartman has had his future messed up by time travel with the first being "My Future Self n' Me".
• Homeless Future Cartman has a box of Cheesy Poofs in his shopping cart.
• Heather Williams is watching Terrance and Phillip's "Buddhist Monk Sketch" from "Crack Baby Athletic Association" before she answers her door. The audio is directly reused from the said episode as one can hear Stan and Kyle laughing when listening closely.
• The man at City Phở says "Hello, City Pho, take your order please?" in a standard American accent, as opposed to Tuong Lu Kim who always said "Herro, Shitty Wok, take-a orda prease" in an exaggerated Asian accent; this is probably a reference to how second-generation Asian Americans speak English as a mother tongue and do not have strong accents like their parents.
• The scene with Kyle and Cartman fighting is common in their rivalry in the series.
• The two male nurses who attempted to take Randy back to the retirement home last appeared in "Hummels & Heroin". They do not have any significant changes in appearance despite being featured in two different timelines.