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"South Park: Post Covid" | "South Park: Post COVID: The Return of COVID" | "South Park: The Streaming Wars" | 
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"South Park: Post COVID: The Return of COVID" is the second in a series of South Park television specials for the streaming service Paramount+ and premiered on December 16, 2021. It is a sequel to and continues the storyline of the previous special, "South Park: Post COVID". It is also the 311th episode of the series.
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
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Spoiler warning! Plot details follow. |
Stan Marsh flashes back to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when he and his classmates were sent home from school before they could blackmail fellow student Heather Wiliams for VIP access to a Denver Nuggets game; and the events leading to him burning down Tegridy Farms and inadvertently killing his sister Shelley, leading to their mother Sharon's suicide.
Presently, South Park remains under quarantine due to the new COVID-19 variant. On the run and guarding his last sprout of marijuana, Randy Marsh is cornered by Shady Acres nurses when Tolkien Black defeats them and takes Randy to Kenny McCormick's laboratory. At the lab, Stan, alongside Kyle Broflovski and a group of their friends, cannot get past the firewall without a voice command from either Kenny or his institutionalized associate, Victor Chouce. They realize that the experiment will need aluminum foil, all supplies of which are in grounded cargo ships. Stan and Kyle head out to retrieve Chouce while Tweek Tweak and Craig Tucker search for the foil.
At the asylum, Stan and Kyle find that "Chouce" is actually "Chaos". They enter Chaos' cell to discover that he is actually Butters Stotch, who went insane after his parents abandoned him. In his isolation, Chaos began dealing in NFTs, for which he was institutionalized. Stan and Kyle are removed from Chaos' cell, but Chaos later escapes. Meanwhile, Randy cultivates his marijuana as the others explain Kenny's plans to prevent the pandemic. Randy refuses to cooperate and reveals that all possible timelines involve his sex acts with the pangolin. Their plans are further complicated by Clyde Donovan's refusal to be vaccinated.
The Cartman family take refuge at the church building. Eric Cartman forms the Foundation Against Time Travel, intent on preventing Kenny's plan. Tweek and Craig arrive at the church and inadvertently inform Cartman of their purpose, resulting in their capture. Cartman convinces Clyde to join his cause; he later recruits Chaos, who brainwashes Stan and Kyle's group into investing in NFTs while Cartman and his group steal the time travel equipment. At the church, Cartman reveals his plan to have Kyle killed in the past, while Kyle and Stan undo Chaos' brainwashing upon their return. Wendy Testaburger reveals that Kenny's plan was not to prevent the pandemic, but to salvage the boys' friendship and improve the future; Token states that "Tegridy Weed" served as a reminder to take some marijuana with him. A depressed Randy forgives Stan for his actions and gives him his last seed of marijuana.
Cartman prepares for Clyde to travel back in time when Stan and Kyle arrive and use their Amazon Alexas to neutralize Chaos. Cartman and Kyle begin fighting until Yentl, Cartman's wife, convinces him to allow Kyle and Stan to implement their plan. However, Cartman’s infant son activates the machine, sending Clyde back in time. Arriving to retrieve his father's gun, Clyde convinces his past self not to be vaccinated. Adult Clyde approaches the boys with the intent to kill young Kyle when Stan, Kyle, and Cartman arrive, having traveled through time to intervene. Before Clyde can fire, Cartman shoots him dead.
Realizing that they cannot prevent the pandemic, Stan, Kyle, and Cartman instead decide to change their reaction. They approach Heather Williams and blackmail her to get their younger selves courtside tickets to the Nuggets game, where the boys forgive each other. Randy receives the marijuana strain from the future and cultivates it for mass distribution. Under its influence, the townspeople forgive each other for their behavior during the pandemic, changing the future. Almost everyone's lives have changed for the better in the revised future. Stan has become part of the United States Space Force and continues his romance with Wendy, while Kyle has become a father of two kids, and Jimmy remains a raunchy stand-up comedian. Sharon, Shelley, and Kenny are alive and Butters never went insane, while Cartman has become a homeless and bitter alcoholic.
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. Cartman references that he has "been doing this his whole life".
- Red and Kevin can be seen talking to each other in class, indicating that they have made up (and likely got back together) after Season Twenty's Gender War.
- 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.
References
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COVID-19 • Victor Chaos • Heather Williams • "Happy Birthday to You" • "We Are Living in the Future" • "I Forgive You" • "The Star-Spangled Banner" | ||||
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