History Recap / SouthParkThePandemicSpecial

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** The South Park Police Department gets defunded by Mayor [=McDaniels=] for their unnecessary brutality.
** The boys break into Build-A-Bear only to find they can't work the equipment by themselves without any trained employees around.

* InstantlyProvenWrong: Stan's mom tries to comfort him by saying everyone is having a hard time during the pandemic. Cue his father coming in celebrating his well-running weed business.

* BigBadEnsemble: Randy Marsh, Mickey Mouse, Harrison Yates, and President Garrison all share the role of main villain for this episode. Randy is responsible for causing the COVID-19 pandemic by having sex with a pangolin and his attempts at creating a cure end up making this worse. But he had sex with the animal at the urging of Mickey Mouse, who is now trying to have Randy killed to hide his own role in the pandemic. Harrison Yates [[{{Profiling}} shoots Token Black]], leading to everyone in the school getting quarantined, and uses the children's attempt to escape as an excuse to shoot more of them. President Garrison intentionally destroys a potential cure for the COVID-19 virus because it suits his purposes to let it continue.

* BlatantLies: Yates convinces the townspeople that Token had been sent to the hospital 'due to COVID', when Token was shot by Yates for no reason. They are convinced.

* CabinFever: Token's shooting forces the police to put the entire school in quarantine, driving the students nuts (especially Butters and slowly Stan).

* DisproportionateRetribution: Cartman throws a tantrum when forced to go back to school. The police use the resulting fight (and [[MisplacedRetribution Token's subsequent 'COVID-related' hospitalization]]) as an excuse to quarantine all the children inside the school building.

* HateSink: Sergeant Yates and the rest of the South Park Police Department are at their most detestable here. While filling in as teachers for South Park Elementary School, they openly complain about not being allowed to cause any "unnecessary deaths", abuse the children under their care and force them into confinement, shoot Token for no reason when Kyle and Cartman start fighting, and upon being refunded, use their newly-gained firepower to terrorize and kill the escaped children, [[ForTheEvulz simply for their own amusement.]]

** The police tell the public that Token was taken to the hospital because of COVID. When Stan protests that it was actually because the police shot him, Yates responds that the officers wouldn't have been at the school if the outbreak hadn't sent all the teachers home, making Token's injuries "COVID-related".

** Yates [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain shooting Token]] and then [[LackOfEmpathy callously dismissing it]] when Stan calls him out on it.

** Yates shows no remorse for shooting Token. When Stan confronts him on it, he callously dismisses Token's injury as 'COVID-related'.

** Yates breaks up Kyle and Cartman's fight by shooting Token, the sole black kid in school.

** When Stan points out that Token was taken to the hospital because Officer Yates shot him, not because of COVID, Yates replies that, since the police were only at the school because the teachers had left due to COVID, the virus is ultimately to blame.

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Kyle gives one to Cartman when the latter tries to cough and spit on him.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Yates remorselessly shoots Token, the only minority in the classroom.

* ShutUpHannibal: Played with. When Yates claimed that Token was sent to the hospital "due to COVID", Stan stands up to him by saying Token was actually sent there because Yates shot him. Yates flat-out denies this and [[InsaneTrollLogic claims Token's gunshot wound was 'COVID-related']].

*** When Kyle and Cartman start fighting in class, the cops shoot Token Black, and only Token, who had nothing to do with it.

** Cartman going nuts in the classroom ends up triggering the police to shoot Token, leading to an even tighter lockdown.

** By the end of the episode, it’s unclear whether Jimbo and Token survived having coronavirus and having been shot, respectively. The next episode/special shows that both of them survived.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Randy's "cure" consists of [[ItMakesSenseInContext jacking off and making people consume his semen]].

* SeldomSeenSpecies: Patient Zero for COVID-19 was a pangolin instead of a bat.

** This is the first time any hidden visitors are seen since Season 15's "You're Getting Old."

** This is the first time the hidden visitors are seen since Season 15's "You're Getting Old."

* TheBusCameBack: Not counting cameos or video game appearances, this is Death's first appearance since [[Recap/SouthParkS1E6Death its eponymous episode]] all the way back in Season 1.