Original air date: 10/30/2019
Randy learns that Shelly is against marijuana and wishes it was banned. With Halloween coming up, Randy and Towelie prepare a special promotion, which Shelly attempts to sabotage. Meanwhile, Butters visits the museum and awakens a mummy, who gives him a "love curse" akin to an abusive relationship.
Tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: One of the rare episodes where Shelly has a prominent role.
- Berserk Button:
- Butters refusing a gift sets the mummy off.
- During an assembly, PC Principal makes it very clear he doesn't want to see any kids wearing costumes depicting ethnic stereotypes, as well as skimpy Moana costumes.
- Black Comedy Rape: Randy is maybe raped by Harvey Weinstein while high out of his mind.
- Child Mage: Shelly shows to be one when she's concocting a witch's brew on a portable stove in retribution towards Randy.
- Curse of the Pharaoh: Butters visits a museum and collects stamps for his sticker book. He comes across a mummy in a sarcophagus, with a museum employee warning Butters not to put its sticker in his book or a "love curse" will befall him. Butters ignores the warning and does it anyway, causing the mummy to awaken and rampage through South Park and pin the blame on him.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- The mummy goes on a rampage all because Butters wouldn't accept a gift from it.
- Shelly saying she hates weed and wishes it was still illegal gets her father to convince the police to put her in jail to scare her straight.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The divorce allegory with Butters and the mummy is unsubtly a metaphor for series co-creator Trey Parker’s failed second marriage, which ended in an acrimonious divorce earlier this year.
- Double-Meaning Title: The "Halloween Special" normally refers to the episode being a Halloween special episode, but in the actual episode, it refers to both Randy's promotional Halloween party and his new brand of weed, Halloween Special.
- Foreshadowing: The fact that things looked normal when the police arrive at Tegridy Farms is a big hint that all the horrific stuff going on at there (with the possible exception of Harvey Weinstein raping Randy) were all hallucinations that Randy and Towelie while under the influence of the Halloween Special.
- Gaslighting: The mummy's entire modus operandi is to cause as much ruckus as possible and make everyone believe Butters is at fault. At one point, Butters says that the mummy has gone so much inside his head he thinks he's going crazy.
- Karma Houdini: After all the damage the mummy did to the town and Butters, he simply breaks up with Butters, claiming "he can't fix it" and casually leaves the area.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At the end of the episode Randy mentions that he doesn't care if his family enjoyed the Halloween special because he's his own target audience. This is likely a reference to the fact that Matt Stone and Trey Parker enjoy Randy-centered episodes despite the fact that the kids adventures are more popular with the majority of the shows fans.
- My God, What Have I Done?: A downplayed example. Randy hallucinates an undead Winnie-the-Pooh and the cows he killed in the season so far, implying he has felt guilty over his deeds.
- Never My Fault: The mummy blames all of its numerous rampages on Butters, and everyone else actually sides with the mummy.
- Only Sane Man: Kyle and Stan are the only ones who side with Butters instead of the mummy, and suggest that Butters just cut the mummy out of his life.
- Or Was It a Dream?: After listing the things he saw while high and asleep for days, Randy expresses relief that he didn't have sex with Harvey Weinstein. Then he finds a used condom on the floor.
- Playing the Victim Card: Randy and the Mummy do this to Shelly and Butters respectively with the latter calling Butters a passive-aggressive abusive narcissist.
- Police Are Useless: When the mummy goes on a rampage and kills five people, the police write Butters a ticket for the damages and don't try to do anything about the mummy.
- Rhyming Wizardry: Shelly gets into this when brewing her solution to destroy Randy's marijuana.Furniture polish, paint thinner and bleach,
Ammonia and antifreeze, one tablespoon each.
I hate everybody. I just like to read.
Everyone's stupid. They smoke too much weed.
So, with this eldritch potion, and these ancient words,
I mark my revenge upon all the turds. - Self-Deprecation: When it's all over, Randy asks the family if they enjoyed Halloween. Sharon says no and that only he had fun, which Randy says is fine because he's his own target audience.
- Serious Business: Randy treats Shelly's disdain for marijuana with the same gravitas as a teenager who has become addicted to drugs.
- Shout-Out:
- Some of the music in the episode was taken from Creepshow.
- Butters' subplot with the mummy's "curse" is weirdly similar to the early Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Love Mummy".
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Much to the annoyance of Butters, everyone treats the mummy as a mundane relationship problem that he needs to deal with.
- Yandere: The mummy is shown to be very obsessed with Butters. This obsession leads to the mummy to stalk Butters, send selfies of himself to Butters, and go berserk when Butters didn't accept his gift.
- You Are Grounded!: Surprisingly averted. Despite everything, Butters' parents never ground him, likely due to how much they Took a Level in Kindness the past few years.
