!['South Park: Post Covid' Ending Explained — [Spoiler] Is Dead](https://tvline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/andy_final.jpg?w=250&h=250&crop=1)
You think you’ve aged a lot during the pandemic? You’ve got nothing on the boys — sorry, make that men — of South Park, who reunite under tragic circumstances in the new Post COVID special, now streaming on Paramount+.
!['South Park: Post Covid' Ending Explained — [Spoiler] Is Dead](https://tvline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/south-park-michael-jackson.png?w=622&h=420&crop=1)
The hourlong event picks up far into the future, decades after the show’s core four have stopped speaking to one another. Stan, now an online whiskey consultant in a relationship with a holographic Alexa, is stunned to receive a phone call from Kyle, who informs his elementary school pal that Kenny McCormick… is dead. Like, for real this time.
News of Kenny’s death affects everyone who knew him, including Jimmy, who’s now a late-night talk show host — as comedians named Jimmy are wont to do. The newly crowned “king of woke comedy” is so distraught by the news, he cancels on his scheduled guest, none other than “First Lady Tom Kardashian.” (Am I the only one disappointed that we didn’t get to meet Tom?)
All of the usual suspects descend upon South Park for Kenny’s funeral, including Cartman, whose apparent conversion to Judaism doesn’t sit well with Kyle. And can you blame him? He’s likely traumatized from all those years of antisemitic bullying at Cartman’s mitten-covered hands. (Speaking of Cartman’s iconic look, turning his hat into a yarmulke was a stroke of genius.)
But the more everyone talks about Kenny, who apparently grew up to become a celebrated millionaire scientist, the more it starts to look like his death was no accident. The gang concludes that Kenny must have been killed while investigating the origin of the coronavirus, a mystery which deepens when Stan discovers that his research leads back to Tegridy Farms.
Kenny’s on-record cause of death is a new strain of the coronavirus called COVID Delta+ Rewards variant, and since one citizen in South Park is revealed to be unvaccinated (way to go, Clyde!), everyone is forced to quarantine within the town limits. There’s a pretty amazing moment where Clyde explains that he doesn’t want to get vaccinated because he’s allergic to shellfish, so if someone who makes the vaccines happened to have recently eaten shellfish, it would be bad. “It’s a general sense of shellfish-ness,” he says. (Get it?)
Stan confronts Randy at the Shady Acres Retirement Community, but his dad isn’t exactly thrilled to see him, as he blames Stan for both Sharon and Shelly’s death. Apparently Stan’s parents wanted a divorce after the pandemic, and because the farm was a major source of their conflict, Stan decided to burn it down… unaware that Shelly was in the barn. As for Sharon, she couldn’t handle her daughter’s death, so she shot herself.
Randy later comes clean to Stan about the origins of the coronavirus — complete with his back-alley pangolin sex, which I had finally purged from my brain — but he attempts to spin it into being China’s fault, all part of their plan to rob America of its tegridy. (“Space Jam 2 came out, and we all just kind of… gave up. We lost our tegridy, and it was all by design. They needed us to lose it.”)
Stan meets up with everyone else at the hospital, where they deduce that Kenny has hidden a flash drive with vital information up his butt, which they reluctantly retrieve. A video on the flash drive reveals that not only was Kenny attempting to travel back in time to prevent the pandemic from happening, but he also blames the collapse of society on his “three d–khead friends, Stan, Kyle and Cartman.” He claims they “ruined everything when they let COVID break up their friendship and become argumentative, combative, pessimistic a–holes.”
“Let’s face it, guys, we killed Kenny,” they deduce after reflecting on how they lost their sense of fun and sense of humor. The pandemic was a test, and they failed.
The episode ends with a return to South Park Mental Asylum Plus, where Kenny’s right-hand man “Victor Chaws” is being held. But it isn’t until we see the name tag on his door that we realize it isn’t Victor “Chaws.” It’s Victor Chaos. (You know, I was wondering where Butters has been!)
Your thoughts on this time-bending South Park special — the first of many? Grade it below, then drop a comment with your full review.
This was so good, really good to see comedy that doesn’t hold back this days!
right///////???! thats what i said, and idk but that looks like a future we can have which is scary, i can almost see comedians having to do those kinds of jokes so they dont get “cancelled” ….
Loved it so much that I actually wouldn’t mind if they kept them as adults for a while.
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I actually like adult Stan more then I like regular child Stan.
The ending was kind of vague does this means there’s gonna be a part two ?
Or a series something … you can’t leave us hanging
The next special is next month. That will almost surely continue the story unless they do some kind of Terrance and Phillip trolling.
There’s a part two. They already announced ages ago that this was a multi-part movie.
Yes. Another in December.
new one in december and i just think victor chaos is butters :()
I really enjoyed this special. Maybe they can make these specials annual events and continue with their adult versions on other misadventures.
“Butters was missing?” Couldn’t resist that Stan quote. I haven’t watched SP for a few years and saw an ad on Roku for it. I checked it out and assumed from the ending that it’s a series. Looking around the internet, apparently it’s a short movie. What’s up with that?
Matt and Trey made a HUGE half a billion dollar deal with Viacom; they’ll be producing the show til at least 2027 up to season 30 AND they’ve agreed to do 14 of these hour-long movies on Paramount+. I believe that this was the first, since the previous 2 pandemic specials were before this deal, so we should be getting a sequel to this Post COVID special and at least another 10-12 more, depending on whether the first 2 pandemic specials were included as part of that 14 movie deal.
Still! That’s a LOT of great South Park content to come and my family is super excited for it. It was great to get to come home after Thanksgiving dinner and watch this today 🤗 And now we’re very much looking forward to the next one!
The deal doesn’t include the previous specials. For one thing, the deal was made after those aired, and for another, that part of the deal was with Paramount+ for exclusive content. Those specials aired on Comedy Central, and were added to HBO Max (as well as their own website), not Paramount+. So we will be getting 12 more events after these two, which I’m absolutely thrilled about. Especially if this event is a sign of the quality the rest will have.
Personally I think they will be producing the series for as long as they feel like doing so. Many cable networks spend ridiculous amounts of cash on scripted content and get no where near South Parks demo ratings.
I guess they need the money to pay for re-opening Casa Bonita here in Denver!
Hi! This might be a typo: “News of Kenny’s death affects everyone who knew him, including Jimmy, who’s now a late-night talk show host — as comedians named Jimmy are wont to do.” I’m not sure what you mean by “are wont to do”
It means comedians named Jimmy usually end up being late night talk show hosts, like it’s their destiny. See Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.
Not a typo. You can google the usage.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wont
“Wont” means “accustomed or used to.”
Dw I had to Google it too
English is not my first language and even I know what wont means. Damn, y’all stupid af *facepalm*
Hey, be nice.
Marcos, there’s no need to be rude. Wont is a bit outdated and I am sure a lot of people don’t know what it means. It does look like a typo of the word won’t. So, I can see someone wondering if it was a typo. If nothing else, some people learned a new word today…in an article about South Park, of all things. I’m sure there are plenty of people in the comments here who know many words you do not know. There’s no need to be rude.
At first I wasn’t so sure about this one. I liked it well enough, and thought it was interesting to see how they handled the older versions of the characters, but it wasn’t until after the reunion with all the “kids,” and especially Cartman’s introduction where it really picked up.
I thought they did a great job with everyone’s characterizations here. I particularly loved those of the main group. Stan basically becoming another Randy was great, and sadly realistic. And the Cartman/Kyle story was my favorite part of the story. I especially loved Cartman’s kids and their attitude towards “Uncle Kyle.” And the dynamic with Kyle not believing Cartman’s change was great, with my favorite scene being when Cartman was having sex with his wife.
I can’t wait to see where they go with this in next month’s event, especially as they’ll be introducing Butters (my favorite character). Somehow the “Chaos” reveal flew over my head until I saw it pointed out online, but it still hit me that it was probably him.
I enjoyed the ode to Blade Runner. I miss the Bastards line though.
Before in the future…. Yeah we know!
My favorite parts were the funeral and retirement home scenes wherein many SP characters were shown in the background as having aged. Bebe!!!! My gosh, what a great sight gag. Nathan! Mrs. Cartman, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Mackey, the Mayor, Token’s parents… but where is Mr. Slave?
Mr. Slave can be see next to big gay Al in the retirement home on the far right side of the screen when Randy and Stan are in the middle of the crowd.
Thanks. I have replayed and frozen the scene several times but still cannot see Slave or Al. The person farthest to the right in what I can see is Mr. McCormack. Maybe Slave and Al are cut off from what my computer can show.
I hope part two shows what happened to Timmy! and Ike.
I’m curious if any one knows what’s up with the yarn ball hats some folks wear in the future. Any one know?
it’s bubble wrap, because everything is over-protected, etc
I believe the show is not going to remain as them being adults but because Kenny was trying to go back in time the group will succeed in going back in time before they ended their broship which shows how their futures were affected and they will not split up and remain friends
“Randy later comes clean to Stan about the origins of the coronavirus — complete with his back-alley pangolin sex”.
Randy had back-alley sex with a bat. The pangolin was in a hotel room.
‘back-alley’ also means anal sex.
Season 14 taught us Kenny / Mysterion is immortal. Am I the only one not fully convinced that Kenny is gone for good?
wtf is the motel guy wearing on his head?