*WARNING*THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE NEW SOUTH PARK VACCINATION SPECIAL. IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED IT YET, I URGE YOU TO DO SO. IF YOU ALREADY WATCHED IT OR DON’T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT SPOILERS, ENJOY THE BLOG…
What a crazy week, am I right? Our US president held a conference yesterday to urge people to get the Covid-19 vaccine, the J&J vaccine is being distrubuted on a grander scale, but most importanly South Park has successfully entertained us again with their “Vaccination Special”. I can honestly say that I found this special to be much more entertaining than last year’s “Pandemic Special”, but just like the last special, the “Vaccination Special” is racking up a lot of publicity, just not the publicity I was entirely expecting.
In a nutshell, the new special centered around people struggling to get a vaccine, much like how it is currently. The only people in South Park that are successfully getting the vaccine are the senior citizens, essential workers, and people with underlying health issues(but mostly the senior citizens). Due to the negligence and the limited amount of vaccinations, this has left all of the adults very unhappy, especially the teachers, and the main teacher, Mrs. Nelson, reached her breaking point when Cartman and Kenny pranked her. This caused her to storm out of the building, and refuse to continue teaching. The school was left with the task of hiring a new teacher, who ended up being the former US president, Mr. Garrison. This caused Cartman, Kenny, Stan, and Kyle to become the most hated kids in their school, and the only way they could remedy the situation was to steal vaccines and give them to the teachers. Stealing the vaccines was easy, but getting it to the teachers was tough since news of them stealing the vaccine was leaked to the public, which caused a riot to get the vaccines. Of course there were people in the episode that were against the vaccine, but everything was solved when Garrison made a deal with some powerful people, and he was able to bring enough vaccines for everyone in South Park to use. The episode ended on the note that things might start to revert back to normal, but the ambiguous ending made that unlikely.
The powerful people that Garrison made a deal with, and the people who were against taking the vaccine were all a part of one conspiracy theory that sounds batshit crazy(and I’ve read my fair share of crazy conspiracies). The reason for the show being promoted as “South ParQ” was all due to the rapidly growing group known as “QAnon”, an American far-right conspiracy group who believe the whole world is under the control of a secret cabal(the powerful people Garrison made a deal with) that consists of Satanic pedophiles, who also like to drink the blood of children……
Yeah, it’s fucking nuts that people buy into that crap, and this coming from me! Some wacky merc with a mouth that has traversed through the treacherous seas of 4chan and the Reddit underbelly! Now this sounds crazy already, but there’s more. The some of the supposed members of this “cabal” include; Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres, and Oprah Winfrey. Fucking Oprah!
This whole definition was from the South Park special, so I thought there may have been some over exaggeration, but dear God was I wrong. If you look up “QAnon” on Google(or any browser), you’ll find the exact same definition on news sites and Wikipedia. So basically, South Park has proven once again that it has evolved from a satire cartoon to a borderline documentary on modern society, let that sink in for a moment.
Surprisingly enough, the actual QAnon group loved the shit out of this episode, and they believe that this is the key to “waking people up to the truth”. I honestly thought they would have gone on a huge rant on Twitter(aka “Cancel Culture” Central), boy was I wrong. So far the only people that seem upset by the special are the democrats, and I can see why they would be upset since South Park animated Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama offering children as satanic sacrifices, and also showing them drink human blood with bendy shows. I wonder what’s more upsetting though, democratic politicians drinking the blood of children, or the fact that they were drinking them through plastic straws instead of the eco friendly paper straws? The world may never know, but all jokes aside, let’s get into the nitty gritty of Garrison’s contribution to the episode.
The erratic behavior of the QAnon group was the product of Garrison returning to South Park after losing the election, similar to how the group is becoming more erratic ever since Donald Trump lost the election. This does make sense when you remember that President Garrison was South Park’s version of President Trump. When Garrison returned to South Park, everyone hated him because he almost ruined the entire country, and ofcourse Garrison was too ignorant to see why people hated him. He then met members of the QAnon group, and he believed that this “cabal” was behind all the hate he was getting. Garrison was willing to help QAnon stop this “cabal”, but he quickly changed his mind when he saw how powerful the “cabal” was(which was displayed as the animators just messing with the character models during the episode), and he instead struck a deal with them, which was to get his old life as a teacher back This involved the return of the infamous Mr. Hat (Garrison’s hand puppet) and Garrison bringing enough vaccines for everyone in South Park. Everyone was grateful for Garrison providing the vaccines, and Garrison(now a pawn for the “cabal”) was happy to have everything go back to normal.
Normal….Normalcy….
The episode explored many emotional topics that pretty much all of us have some experience with. The biggest one being the question of “Will things ever go back to normal”? I have already come to terms that things will never be the same after this pandemic. Society as a whole has changed, the business world has evolved to compensate for quarantine, and friendships and relationships have been either strained or even destroyed. The idea of people struggling to return everything back to “normal” was shown through the special’s subplot of the four main characters struggling to find the magic of the friendship, or “brolationship” as Cartman called it. Throughout the whole episode, Cartman, Stan, and Kyle tried to remain friends for the emotional sake of Kenny, who has said that he feels sad over the fact their friendship is dying. From the boys pranking their teacher to them stealing vaccines, that was their attempt to recapturing that magic, but it was a loss cause. The three of them had to come to terms that they are completely different people now, and them pretending to still be friends isn’t healthy for them or Kenny. The comediac aspect of how they tried to protect Kenny’s feelings is similar to how parents in a failing marriage try to make the relationship work for their kid/kids. The special ultimately ends with the three of them renouncing their friendship, and now sharing “friendship custody” of Kenny.
As a diehard fan of South Park, it’s painful knowing that the boys aren’t friends anymore, but I think I understand what the creators are trying to tell the fans. The world is slowly conquering the pandemic, and things are slowly returning to some sense of normalcy, but it won’t be the same type of normal from before the pandemic. We all have to come to terms that things have changed, and that there’s no way for us to go back to that “normal”. Now I’m not saying that all relationships and friendships that we had before the pandemic didn’t survive the pandemic, but the people in those relationships and friendships have changed. Everybody went through their own hardships throughout 2020, and maybe those hardships made us grow as individuals, or maybe they didn’t.
The point is that 2020 was a shit show and society will never be the same, but we all made it. We came into 2021 with hopes of things getting better, and those hopes are slowly becoming a reality. We probably won’t retain our original normal, but we might get pretty damn close to it.
Thank you for reading my thoughts, and remember to wash your hands, wear a mask, social distance, and do hugs not drugs(or is it “do hugs and drugs”? I can never remember).
This is your friendly neighborhood LegendPool signing off.
Hall of Mercs 