Original air date: 12/7/2016
As TROLLTRACE goes live, Sheila logs on to see Gerald's online activity. At Space "X", Cartman tries to convince the scientists that going to Mars is a bad idea. And defying their mom, Kyle and Ike get all the kids together to try to save the world from certain destruction...
The End of Serialization As We Know It contains examples of:
- Aesop Amnesia: Despite having his trolling history finally catch up with him and landing him in hot water, Gerald still sees everything he does as funny and gets away completely scot-free, most likely to continue trolling online again on the new internet.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Though Lennart Bedrager gets killed and the damage he did reversed, every other villain ends the season in a better position than they were in at the beginning: Gerald is safe from being exposed as skankhunt42 (meaning the boys and girls reconciling never properly concluded), the Member Berries are still active and have Mr. Garrison and most of the residents of South Park under their control, and even Cartman gets to stay with Heidi, who will now never know what he really thinks of women.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- In his speech to Bedrager, at first it looks like Gerald has reached a Heel Realization, but it turns out he was just lowering Bedrager's guard before killing him. He still thinks everything he did was hilarious.
- During the credits, a reporter is shown interviewing an old man for being the first person to socialize on the new internet. When asking what he did, the old man initially answers that he sent a photo and a message to his good friend, making it seem like people really will be using the internet as originally intended. Then the man reveals that it was a picture of his dick and that he called his best friend a faggot.
- Big "NO!": Lennart Bedrager as he gets pushed off a railing by Gerald.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- Cartman has returned to this, sabotaging Heidi and Elon Musk's efforts to colonise Mars out of paranoia towards women.
- Gerald continues to play the nice, loving father once he gets back home, winking to Kyle and Ike about how he got away with all his offensive villainy scot-free.
- Bookends: The first and final episodes of this season both end with something being rebooted. In "Member Berries", it was the National Anthem, while here, it was the internet.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Once he realizes that Heidi might be too smart, Cartman stops idolising Heidi and quietly resents her (assuming Cartman's attitude towards women wasn't all a farce)
- Craig's mother is emotionally destroyed once she finds out her husband is a porn addict with several online mistresses.
- By the end of the season, any respect Kyle and Ike may have had for their father is well and truly gone.
- The Cameo: Marvin Marsh, Stan's grandfather, and Sparky, the Marsh family pet, can be seen at the ending before the focus shifts to the TV.
- Crocodile Tears: Gerald feigns innocence in order to trick Bedrager into letting his guard down so he can get close enough to finish him off.
- Death Glare: Both Kyle and Ike give one to Gerald after he comes home from Denmark and acts like everything is okay.
- Demoted to Extra:
- Kenny finally speaks in this season and makes an appearance, but he only has one brief line and has no appearance outside of Kyle video chatting his friends for advice on how to troll.
- The Member Berries only appear briefly in the White House and don't have any speaking roles. (See Sequel Hook.)
- Disney Villain Death: Lennart Bedrager gets kicked in the balls and pushed off of a railing to his doom.
- Enemy Mine: Garrison actually helps Kyle with overloading the Internet, even though he's still being controlled by the Member Berries. This may also count for the Member Berries, who likely see TrollTrace as undesirable even for them.
- Evil Versus Evil: Gerald takes on Bedrager in a final battle over the TrollTrace system.
- Face–Heel Turn: After failing to prove that women are funny to himself, Cartman undergoes a downplayed version, seeing women as villains who will enslave males thanks to Butters.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Played for Laughs of course. All the Internet trolls are still naked for some reason while readying up their attack against TrollTrace.
- Genius Ditz: Heidi can figure out the formula to go to Mars, yet she can't see through Cartman's bullshit. May be a case of Love Makes You Dumb.
- Grounded Forever: After being locked in the pantry, Sheila angrily declares that she'll lock Kyle and Ike in their rooms forever. Later, when she's able to get out and confronts them, she says that they're grounded from the computer forever.
- The Hero: Kyle is the main hero of this episode, being the one to play the biggest role in taking down TrollTrace.
- Hollywood Law: Garrison is sitting in the Oval Office before being inaugurated.
- Karma Houdini:
- Gerald, in the biggest way possible. The Internet and all its history get destroyed at the exact moment Sheila looks up his history on Troll Trace, meaning she never finds out he is skankhunt, thus, most likely, preventing him from facing her wrath. Despite the fact that he caused multiple people to quit social media, started a gender war (which is still unresolved), drove a beloved Danish celebrity to commit suicide and gave the season's Big Bad the excuse he needed to get the Danish to build TrollTrace and start World War III, which very nearly happened. Instead, he gets a happy ending, with only Kyle and Ike being mad at him. Seriously, everyone who knew the truth, even the Danish, forgives him.
- For causing Cartman to turn against women, Butters also receives nothing. Then again, Butters is no worse than the girls who are distrustful of boys, and being pushed around one too many times has definitely caused him to snap.
- The Member Berries, and presumably their leader as well, are still occupying the White House after forging an alliance of some kind with President Garrison.
- Lady Land: Cartman's full vision of Mars is a colony with vagina-shaped buildings populated by women while the men are forced underground where they are milked for their semen and jokes.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Sheila is horrified at herself when TrollTrace reveals that Ike is innocent of trolling, meaning she was furious at her kids for the wrong reasons.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The only reason Bedrager meets his end is because he went back to the TrollTrace building to cut Gerald off. For that matter, if he had been smart enough to avoid including convenient shut-off levers for the TrollTrace breakers, his plan to start World War III would have succeeded.
- No Romantic Resolution: None of the couples who broke up in "Skank Hunt" have gotten back together, indicating that the gender war will still be a major plot thread in Season 21.
- Inverted with Cartman and Heidi who stay together despite the former clearly being back to his old self.
- Oh, Crap!: Kyle's reaction to Sheila breaking out of the pantry is "shit!"
- Once More, with Clarity: Cartman's visions of life on Mars from "Fort Collins" are revisited, but now it's shown to actually be a Crapsaccharine World.
- Sequel Hook: President Garrison sits in the Oval Office which is filled with Member Berries.
- Shout-Out: Fittingly, Bedrager dies in a similar way to Emperor Palpatine.
- The scene where Gerald and Bedrager have their final showdown is also similar to Han Solo and Kylo Ren's confrontation in The Force Awakens.
- Ike's search history indicates that he's a fan of Naruto, Undertale, Chinpokomon Sun and Moon, Gumball and surprisingly Yuri!!! on Ice. He's also into Markiplier and Game Grumps.
- Cartman's vision of Mars with men getting milked for their semen looks similar to Immortan Joe milking his "wives'" breast milk.
- Ike's Minecraft: Story Mode poster makes another background appearance.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Played for Laughs. After all the fuss about online trolling throughout the season, the first email sent on the new internet is a guy showing the recipient his dick and calling him a fag.
- Soap Punishment: Kyle says that after he's done saving the world Ike's mouth should be washed out due to his constant swearing (though he may not have meant it literally).
- Status Quo Is God: Subverted. Gerald returns home once his internet history is destroyed and Sheila is none the wiser, but some changes made in the season still remain. Kyle and Ike have lost all respect for their dad now that they know the truth, Mr. Garrison is still president, Cartman and Heidi are still together, the other boys and girls are still broken up, Butters still doesn't trust girls, and Craig's parents' relationship is strained after Laura saw Thomas's online activity. Many of the hanging plot threads can be chalked up to the need to severely re-write the second half of the season following Donald Trump's unexpected victory.
- Take That!:
- Garrison being given such a ridiculous amount of power when he hasn't even been inaugurated yet may be a joke on people who overestimate just how much power Trump has as president.
- A more nuanced on is Lennart Bedrager referring to his idea of trolling being a "post-funny era of satire," mocking the people who throw the prefixes "post" or "alternative" onto words which don't actually describe the thing they're talking about.
