South Park Pandemic Special Review

Rating: 4/5 

Synopsis: South Park returns once again returns this time with a one-hour special (with a 47-minute runtime) showing how the titular American town is dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.

 

My Thoughts: If the year 2020 has shown us anything, it’s 20/20 vision on how dismally demented humans and their societies are with their kakistocratic governments, uneducated or downright ignoramus citizens, social upheaval, yadda yadda yadda. The insanity has even taken a toll on me as I’ve been dealing with family members who either believe in one of those ludicrous conspiracy theories to placate their fear of the unknown and mysterious or not the threat seriously, going about their lives as if nothing ever happened and I find myself sympathizing and even empathizing with both sides for all the errors in their thinking. Nevertheless, this article is not about my petty feelings so to cut to the chase, what I’m saying is this one-hour special might be just the respite I needed during this tumultuous year and an entertaining one at that.

    The episode begins with an upset Butters who isn’t allowed to visit Build-a-Bear Workshop and later Eric Cartman singing joyously about the wonders of social distancing and staying at home all day during the end of summer vacation and beginning of the school year. His excitement instantly dwindles upon learning classes will be moved from Zoom to brick-and-mortar classrooms. Since all the teachers are afraid of returning to classes due to safety concerns, the police force takes on their teaching duties to disastrous results. Meanwhile, Randy Marsh uses the general public’s psychological distress surrounding COVID-19 as an opportunity to sell his limited time Pandemic Special (hence the episode title) which works well to his advantage despite annoying the dickens out of his wife and kids who rightfully see him as a selfish douchebag. Randy’s pride doesn’t last long when he realizes he apparently caused the virus to spread oversees during his trip to China last season where he partook in various kinky escapades with Mickey Mouse, both of whom had sex with pangolins and bats *oh my*. Randy supposedly finds an antidote through his DNA (which is just a refined way of referring to a certain bodily fluid) which he inserts into his cannabis joints.

    This episode comments on several hot-button topic issues from this year that you would likely expect them to do such as police brutality, the president’s mishandling of the pandemic, anti-maskers, and more all with success. Some golden moments include the police dismissing any death/injury as COVID-related, the return of Death, and many of Randy’s outlandish antics. While last season, I found Randy’s flanderized idiocy and egocentrism pretty obnoxious after a few episodes and felt like it dragged on for too long, here it’s funny because his actions are motivated by his guilt and fear of other people (including his family) finding out what he did inadvertently, putting him in a challenging moral conundrum unlike in previous instances where his primary motive is self-gain. My only complaint with the episode is that intertwined too many plots at once and as a result, sometimes came across as messy in terms of narrative.

 

Final Thoughts: The Pandemic Special is a viral (pardon my punny predilections) premiere which puts South Park back on the map of relevancy that humorously lights up almost every cylinder from this year with some good old Tegrity. Whether it will remain relevant in the coming years is a question only time will tell.