An internet troll has been harassing the South Park Elementary girls online and Cartman seemingly wants to ease the growing tensions that could lead to gender warfare. Meanwhile, J.J. Abrams is called upon to reboot the national anthem and Mr. Garrison tries to sabotage his campaign after he realizes that he may actually win.
Member Berries includes examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Cartman pretends to look progressive by saying girls are funny, and tries to get the girls to say something funny. All of them are understandably annoyed and say nothing funny, until one girl insults Cartman, at which point Butters cracks up.
- Aesop Amnesia: The last season ended with PC Principal coming to understand that there are bad people who will hijack political correctness to achieve their own ends. However in this episode, he refuses to investigate Cartman for trolling the girls online on the basis that the latter has done a lot of work for the PC movement recently so it can't possibly be him. Though it turns out he's right, you would think he still would've investigated it. What makes it even weirder is that in his first episode, PC Principal even acknowledged Cartman having pretended to support transgender rights for his own benefit. Then again, lack of investigation here means giving Cartman the benefit of the doubt when he says he wasn't behind it, and since he only has hearsay as evidence, that's actually a reasonable response.
- And Then What?: With his presidential campaign going extremely well, Garrison starts panicking when he realizes that he has no plans for if he actually wins the election.
- Cassandra Truth: It was extremely hard to believe Cartman wasn't skankhunt42.
- Call-Back: Candidate Garrison's campaign is reviewed, and it is built on nothing but promises to fuck people to death.
- Color Motif: Garrison's face gradually becomes more and more orange throughout the episode symbolizing him becoming more like Donald Trump.
- Continuity Nod: Zigzagged. Girls' volleyball is shown to be almost completely empty like in "Cock Magic", but the Cock Magic is no longer shown being played there.
- Played straight with the Giant Douche & Turd Sandwich.
- Stan's cynicism gets brought up by Randy during the family dinner.
- Cartman once again tries to convince people that Kyle is gay.
- This is the second time one of Cartman's plans failed because he thought girls have balls.
- Garrison is seen partying with the New Jersey folk from It's a Jersey Thing during his campaign recap.
- Didn't Think This Through: Garrison enters the presidential race on a whim and with no political knowledge, and he has absolutely no idea on what to do if he wins.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In terms of this season, this is the only episode to feature a plotline that's introduced and wrapped up in a single episode (I.E. the National Anthem plotline), as the rest of the season deals with Four Lines, All Waiting.
- Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: The Member Berries.
- Gilligan Cut: Hillary Clinton thinks Garrison isn't making a big deal about being ahead in the polls. Cue Garrison and Caitlyn Jenner, celebrating as if they already won
- Good All Along: Cartman... relatively speaking, anyway.
- Hypocrite: Cartman is shown wearing a shirt saying "Token's Life Matters" despite the fact that he's actually tried to shoot and kill Token before. Though knowing Cartman, it's very likely it was just to improve his public image.
- Insane Troll Logic: Even though the boys are just as out for skankhunt42 as they are, the girls say that because he is trolling anonymously, skankhunt42 speaks for all the boys in school.
- Irony: Randy vehemently defended Turd Sandwich despite in Douche vs. Turd he vehemently supported the giant douche.
- Kyle, South Park's resident Jew, feels guilt by association due to being male while misogynistic things affect his school - and specifically compares it to Germans who weren't involved with the Nazi party feeling guilty about the Nazis.
- Just Here for Godzilla: In-Universe. Nearly the entire crowd is at the volleyball match just to see which girls are going to sit out the national anthem, after which they promptly leave.
- Missing Trailer Scene: A preview depicts a scene where a crowd sings a version of the Star-Spangled Banner which praises Colin Kaepernick and calls cops pigs, then gets its stuff stolen and regrets what it said about Kaepernick and cops, only to continue praising Kaepernick and calling cops pigs once its stuff is returned.
- Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be: The Member Berries initially only talk about how great pop culture from the past decades was but then they start talking about how great things like "marriage only being between a man and woman" was.
- Not Helping Your Case: Cartman was doing a pretty terrible job at convincing everyone he's not skankhunt42 to say the least.
- Not Me This Time: Cartman claims that the Internet troll isn't him but no one believes him. It turns out it's actually Kyle's dad.
- Once for Yes, Twice for No: J.J. Abrams is depicted as a recluse due to him being the go-to guy for reboots, and to answer their requests to reboot the national anthem, he either has to turn on one light to agree, or two lights to disagree. He chooses to agree.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Cartman's comment, "Girls rule, women are funny. Get over it.", was a reference to film critic Manohla Dargis's positive review of
Ghostbusters in The New York Times. - Ripped from the Headlines: The national anthem plot is taken from the controversy of Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand during the national anthem during the NFL season.
- Self-Deprecation: Randy complains that "everything's getting a reboot now" right before he opens the door to a pollster asking if he prefers Douche or Turd for the Presidential election, which was taken from the 2004 election episode.
- Sequel Episode: To "Where My Country Gone?" and, to a lesser extent, "Douche and Turd".
- Shout-Out: Cartman's claims of being attacked by the girls is similar to Morton Downey Jr.'s inconsistent claims that he was attacked by neo-Nazis in 1989.
- The boys destroying Cartman's electronics after taking him on a walk in the woods is a send-up to the murder of Bunny Corcoran in The Secret History.
- The 42 in skankhunt42 references the answer to everything The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A lot of online usernames have 42 at the end in reference to the answer even if their user hasn't read the book since 42 being the answer to everything is a pretty famous meme.
- Something Only They Would Say: Kyle was able to see through Cartman's ruse because only he would be stupid enough to think that girls have testicles.
- Springtime for Hitler: Mr. Garrison has a hard time sabotaging his own campaign because Hillary Clinton is so much worse.
- Take That!: Several.
- Towards nostalgia, the ending reminds us that while there was a lot of good in the past, it often overrides remembering what was bad before.
- The hypocrisy of the PC movement, with PC Principal praising the girls on standing up for gender equality by sitting during the national anthem (despite the lack of correlation), then throwing a serious issue under the rug just because the person they're accusing is pretending to be PC himself.
- The ridiculous number of recent reboots.
- Colin Kaepernick for trying to protest the national anthem as a way to get attention.
- Mr. Garrison not having a plan and seemingly trying to lose on purpose is one towards Donald Trump. And Hillary Clinton gets it for being such a poor candidate that someone like Garrison/Trump could actually win the election.
- J.J. Abrams' reboot of the national anthem is exactly the same as the original, with the only difference being people aren't required to stand, a reference to complaints that The Force Awakens is too similar to A New Hope.
- Cartman's demonstration in the school where he claims that female comedy consists of talking about being fat, having sex with guys and saying 'my vagina' a lot is either a sincere one of these towards modern female comedians, or a send-up of the complaints about them. Given that Cartman is shown to not be the bad guy this time, it's hard to say definitively.
- The girls holding all boys accountable for the actions of skankhunt42 despite the boys openly being against him may be this towards online social justice extremists who try to blame all males for the actions of a few. The unsympathetic way they are portrayed also implies this.
- Twist Ending: Gerald Broflovski was skankhunt42.
- The Unreveal: The troll posts are said to have been provoking and misogynistic, but exactly what they said is not revealed.
- Wham Line: Throughout the episode the Member Berries spouted nothing but "membering" pop culture references which made everyone feel good. But Randy (who was one of the victims at first) starts to snap out of it when the Member Berries said:Member Berry 1: Hey, Hey, Hey! 'Member when there weren't so many Mexicans?
Member Berry 2: AW! I 'member!
Randy: (dozily) Wait, what...?
Member Berry 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah! 'Member when marriage was just between a man and a woman?
All the other members: Yeah, I 'member!
Randy: Yeah, I remember that... (does a Double Take) Wait! - Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Cartman claims he was attacked by the girls and they drew a vagina on him in retaliation for what skankhunt42 did online. Kyle sees right through this because the drawn vagina has balls on it, since Cartman doesn't know that girls don't have them.
