South Park: Post Covid

"South Park: Post Covid"
South Park episode
File:SouthParkPostCovid.jpg Official release poster
Directed by	Trey Parker
Written by	Trey Parker
Produced by	Eric Stough Bruce Howell Adrien Beard Vernon Chatman
Featured music	Jamie Dunlap Trey Parker Bruce Howell
Original air date	November 25, 2021 (2021-11-25)
Running time	59 minutes

South Park: Post Covid (also stylized South Park: Post COVID) is an American adult animated comedy television movie written and directed by Trey Parker. It is the first in a series of South Park television movies for the streaming service Paramount+ and premiered on November 25, 2021.

Plot

In 2061, 40 years after the events of "South ParQ Vaccination Special", Stan Marsh has moved away from South Park to the city, where he is an online whiskey consultant. He lives with an Amazon Alexa that projects itself as a nagging wife. Just as the news that COVID-19 is finally almost over breaks, Stan receives a call from Kyle Broflovski, now the guidance counselor at South Park Elementary, informing him that Kenny McCormick has died.

Stan returns to South Park to pay his respects to Kenny, who had become a rich and famous physicist. Kenny claimed that in the event of his death, his closest friends would know where to find his missing data about the origins of COVID if they just think like kids again. Eric Cartman has become a rabbi with a loving wife and three children, much to Kyle's annoyance, as he believes Cartman is feigning his newfound beliefs in order to antagonize him. Stan does not want to remain in South Park long and refuses to get involved when Kyle suggests that they track down Kenny's missing data. At the wake, many former classmates of the boys are also in attendance: Tweek Tweak and Craig Tucker, still together; Wendy Testaburger, now married to an outsider; Jimmy Valmer, now a late-night talk show host telling bland jokes to avoid offending anyone; Token Black, now a law enforcement officer, and Clyde Donovan. Stan leaves the wake early and watches a report on Kenny, where he spots the name "Tegridy Weed" in Kenny's notes.

At the funeral, where Scott Malkinson is the attending priest, Stan becomes angry at the uplifting message, as he believes Kyle set it up to coerce him to visit his father Randy Marsh. Stan leaves the funeral in a huff, planning on leaving town, but a scientist confirms Kenny's cause of death to be a new COVID variant, causing a panic. The military arrives to quarantine the town, as there is one person in the town who is not vaccinated and is thus at risk. Trapped in South Park and forced to live in the emergency shelter at South Park Elementary under PC Principal's authority, Stan finally has no choice but to visit his father. Cartman and his family plead with Kyle to stay in his house due to the shelter being full, where Cartman frequently uses religious Jewish figures in exclamation while having sex with his wife.

Stan goes to Shady Acres to visit his father. It is revealed that years ago, Sharon Marsh wanted a divorce from Randy but owned half the farm, leading them into an argument, Stan, sick of it the farm in general, burned it down, not knowing that his sister Shelly Marsh was locked in the barn by Randy. Grief-stricken over the loss of their daughter, Sharon killed herself, and Randy and Stan blamed each other and became estranged. They escape the nursing home to Tegridy Farms, where Randy confesses that he was the one who started COVID forty years ago. Randy blames the whole situation on China grabbing power and Space Jam: A New Legacy, but in his rant, he mentions that he sneaked marijuana seeds up his rectum in the nursing home. Stan realizes where Kenny hid his data: up his rectum.

Token, Craig, Tweek, Wendy, Jimmy, and Clyde try tracking down Kenny's data themselves. They discover that Clyde is the one person in South Park who is not vaccinated (and is thus the reason for their imprisonment). They attempt to get information from the only surviving colleague of Kenny's, Dr. "Victor Chouse", but discover he has been institutionalized, and since Clyde is not vaccinated, they are unable to visit him at the mental hospital. The group discovers Kenny's secret lab in the elementary school, covered in blood. They learn that Kenny was not just trying to find the origin of COVID; he was trying to perfect time travel to go back and prevent it from ever happening.

At the hospital, Stan gets himself, Kyle, and Cartman into the morgue. They retrieve Kenny's flash drive out of his rectum and bring it to the lab at school, reuniting with Token, Craig, Tweek, Wendy, Jimmy, and Clyde. Everyone watches Kenny's final video, where he is attempting to time travel. In the video, his colleague reveals that Kenny identified the source of the dystopian future: Stan, Kyle, and Cartman, specifically, them letting the pandemic drive their friendship apart. Kenny subsequently devoted his life to figuring out time travel to save their friendship. Because Kenny fails to wear his face mask during the experiment, a malfunction occurs which kills all the scientists, while Kenny simultaneously disappears as he travels through time. He reappears shortly after the accident, apparently infected with a COVID variant from the past.

The knowledge that Kenny blamed them for the bad future in which they now live causes Stan, Kyle, and Cartman to reflect on their happy childhood and how they let the pandemic ruin their friendship. Stan and Kyle vow to finish Kenny's work and perfect time travel so they can fix the future and their friendship. Cartman also agrees to help but slips out of the lab to his family, where he admits he does not want the future fixed and flees with them. Randy, in the burned fields of Tegridy Farms, finds a marijuana plant growing, and vows to protect the last bit of tegridy that remains.

Elsewhere, in the mental hospital, it is revealed that Victor Chouse is just a mispronunciation of Victor Chaos, suggesting him to be Professor Chaos, Butters Stotch's alter ego.

Cast

• Trey Parker as Stan Marsh, Randy Marsh, Eric Cartman, Jimmy Valmer, Clyde Donovan, Darwin, PC Principal, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Mackey, Moisha Cartman, and Hackelm Cartman
• Matt Stone as Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, Tweek Tweak, Craig Tucker, and Scott Malkinson
• April Stewart as Wendy Testaburger, Sharon Marsh, and Shelly Marsh
• Mona Marshall as Yentl Cartman
• Kimberly Brooks as Interviewer
• Adrien Beard as Token Black
• Delilah Kujala as Amazon Alexa
• Betty Boogie Parker as Menorah Cartman

Production

Development

On August 5, 2021, Comedy Central announced that Parker and Stone signed a $900 million deal for extending the series to 30 seasons through 2027 and 14 feature films, exclusive to the Paramount+ streaming platform owned and operated by Comedy Central's parent company, ViacomCBS. Two films were confirmed to be released at the end of 2021, with their titles unknown at the time. The second film is this film's direct sequel, South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid, and will release on December 16, 2021.

Working process

South Park Studios, the production company for the series, closed when the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States began in March 2020, forcing the crew to work remotely. Stone stated that the film is a made-for-TV film, and was not on a theatrical budget, an experiment he explained the production sought to continue, because "We're at where a lot of people are at, which is the future kind of sucks. We would like to get back to where each week we can do something totally different."

References to popular culture

The dystopian universe in the future which is overrun by consumerism, geisha video billboards, and flying cars is a reference to Blade Runner. The movie also has references to The Godfather Part II and Beverly Hills Cop.

Reception

Liam Hoofe of Flickering Myth says about the film "In the end, South Park: Post Covid feels like it is setting the table for a more interesting feature a little later down the road. The movie/TV special spends most of its runtime introducing us to the new world that the group now inhabits. It has some really nice satirical touches and a lot of the Covid-related jokes land well." Rotten Tomatoes gave it an audience rating of 71%.

External links

• Official website
• South Park: Post Covid on IMDB