Margaritaville

"Margaritaville"
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Episode no.	Season 13 Episode 3
Production no.	1303
Original airdate	March 25, 2009
Episode chronology Previous Next "The Coon" "Eat, Pray, Queef"
List of all South Park episodes

Margaritaville is the third episode of Season Thirteen, also known as episode 1303 and the 184th overall episode of South Park.

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

Plot

The story opens with Stan and Randy are at a local bank, because Randy thinks its important for Stan to learn to save his money. He gives the teller the $100 savings bond from his grandmother. The teller explains how instead of simply putting it into the bank like he should that he will invest it in several different ways only to reply a split second later "its gone", meaning that the money is lost. Stan is angry, and the teller asks him to stand aside for customers that actually have money. The teller does this to two more people, whose money also instantly vanishes. At dinner, Randy explains to Stan why the economy is struggling, blaming it on people who spend their money on foolish things while not having enough to actually pay for it, which he explains to Stan while making himself a margarita in an automatic-margarita-making-machine called a "Margaritaville". The machine is so loud that you can't hear his explanation (which is obviously very expensive and is ironically representative of a stupid purchase Randy himself had purchased with money he didn't have since he put it on credit).

People in South Park are struggling with the recent economic downturn, and many people on the street are preaching who they should blame. A wall street executive suggests the irresponsible homeowners are at fault, while a regular citizen blames the problems on Wall Street, while Cartman blames it on the Jews, and Randy continues to teach his philosophy to the rest of the city, while at the same time defending his own stupid purchases, saying the bare essential's people should buy include Margaritas. Randy's ideas become the most popular and he starts to get a following, telling people they have angered the economy with their reckless spending and encourages people not to spend money in order to propitiate the economy's anger. People start to wear togas made of bedsheets so they don't have to wash clothes as much and try to spend as little as possible to try and earn the economy's favor like it's some sort of God.

Kyle, getting annoyed with everybody's idiocy, starts to get his own following when he preaches that the economy isn't actually angry with them since it's not a living being, and that if they want the economy to get better then they need to spend money. Word gets back to Randy and his friends (representative of the Sanhedrin Council) and they eventually decide that they need to kill "the Jew". Kyle continues to preach to people that the economy doesn't really exist except in people's mind, and that if they want the economy to be strong, they must have faith in it. He shows how easy it is to get money by showing a no-limit American Express Platinum Card that he applied for just a few days ago (to which the people shudder at the sight of it). This all happens in a setting that parodies older paintings of Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount. Cartman, in his desire to obtain a copy of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, says that he will deliver Kyle to Randy and his friends in exchange for the game and a Nintendo DS.

Kyle and his friends go out for pizza, in an obvious parody of the last supper, and laments that he feels they won't get to get together like this anymore because people can't afford luxuries like pizza. He says he worries that one of his friends will betray him. All of them act shocked while Cartman stands up and says that whoever betrays Kyle "is a dick" and "it's not cool!" Kyle admits to his friends (while glaring accusingly at Cartman) that he knows what he has to do to save everyone.

The next day, it shows everybody in the town lining up to a table with Kyle and a credit card machine, where he is "paying everybody's debts" with the no-limit American Express Platinum Card, (Jesus paying for people's sins). Kyle's mother asks him not to do it because he will be paying it off for the rest of his life. Kyle agrees, but feels he must do it to help everybody in the town. After paying the last person's debt, a $17,000 bill from Randy, Kyle passes out (Jesus dying on the cross). The episode ends with a news report about how the economy almost didn't survive in South Park, if it wasn't for the efforts of one very brave person, Barack Obama. It ends with Kyle being upset at the news.

In a side story, Stan spends most of the episode trying to return a "Margaritaville" margarita mixer. The store won't accept the return because it was bought on credit. He keeps trying to find out who he can return it to, with each person saying the debt has been sold to someone else. Eventually he goes all the way to the US Treasury, who "consults the charts" and tells him the mixer is worth $90 trillion. A man approaches to tell the treasury workers that another bank is failing and asks what they should do. They say they have to "consult the charts" again. Trying to find out what the charts are, Stan follows the men inside. He sees a round board, where the men cut off a chicken's head and let the chicken run for a minute until it falls over dead. The chicken falls on the "bailout" spot, so that's what the men do. In anger at the ridiculousness of the system, Stan throws the mixer on the platform by the chicken and walks off. The next day Randy gets the newer model 'Margaritaville', which is the same as the old one but has a pointless salsa dispenser built into it. The mixer is representative of people's mortgage.

Trivia

Cultural References

• The entire episode is a parody of the mythologies of Moses (played as Randy) and Jesus Christ (played as Kyle). The final part where Kyle payed everyone's debts represented the Christian idea that Jesus died on the cross to pay for people's sins. It also had Kyle sleeping for three days afterwards which mirrored Jesus being dead for three days in the tomb before he was resurrected. When all of the boys (except for Stan) meet at Whistling Willy's they eat pizza and mention that this may be the last time they can do this. Kyle says that he feels that someone might betray him. Cartman serves as Judas, he betrays Kyle for "Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars".
• The scene at Whistlin' Willy's is a reference to the "Last Supper."
• The name of the episode is taken from Jimmy Buffet's most famous song "Margaritaville". This is also the name of the appliance that features heavily in Stan's plot.
• The scene in which Cartman offers to 'catch' Kyle features a reference to a similar scene from the films "Jaws", where an older fisherman makes a similar offer to catch the titular shark. Specifically, the close-up of his hand as he rakes his nails across a chalkboard is a shot taken directly from the movie.
• This episode is both a commentary and parody on the economic state of the United States in early 2009.
• When Stan goes to the DC Treasury the music cue is similar to the music used in the 1997 film Independance Day.

Continuity Errors

• The Park County Community Center is seen named as the "South Park Community Center" in this episode.

Notes

• Darryl Weathers returned from the episode, "Goobacks," as did his catchphrase. It seems he works at an automotive plant.
• It's the first time the Marsh mentioned Stan's Grandmother.
• The sections on the Treasury chart are: "Try Again" in the centre, "Let Fail", "Nationalize!!!" "Coup D'Etat", "Socialize" and "Bailout!" in the inner ring, "Cut Education", "Press Conference", "Print Money", "$90 Trillion", "Go to Congress", "Go to War", "$1 Billion" and "Raise Fed" in the middle ring, and "Bad Bank", "Indian Casinos", "Buy Mortgages!", "$10 Trillion", "Sell to China!", "Lower Gas Prices", "Run to the Hills", "Call JP Morgan", "Telethon" and "Tax the Rich" in the outer ring.

"[[The Coon]]"

"Margaritaville"

"[[Eat, Pray, Queef]]"