Original air date: 11/27/2019
Kyle's mom looks so good after her fecal transplant that everyone wants to get their hands on her goods. Cartman and the boys jump into the quest for the best microbiome.
Tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: This episode really is "One for the Ladies" as the women of South Park are the main focus for the A-Plot, mostly the moms. Lampshaded by Sheila when she declares that the women of South Park should be treated the same as the men.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Sheila constantly brags to everyone about her fecal transplant, utterly embarrassing Kyle and Ike. When Sheila starts talking about her fecal transplant in the grocery store, Ike wails, "Oh, goddammit!", empties out a bag of potato chips and hides his face under it.
- Ascended Extra: Harriet Biggle has a much larger role here than in her previous appearances.
- Ass Shove: An entire episode of it. Mostly offscreen, but there is one shot of Wendy's mother getting a fecal transplant.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- It seems the other women caught an infection from Mrs. Broflovski, but it was actually caused by shoving an unwashed turkey baster up their anus.
- Mr. Mackey appears to be upset at Stan, Kenny, and Cartman for stealing Sheila's fecal matter at first, but then he reveals that he wants them to get a sample of Tom Brady's fecal matter in exchange for each of their own copy of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The show gave Sheila exactly what she said she wanted: For the women of South Park to be treated the exact same way as the men. The episode's main plot shows that the women of the town can be as disgusting, as horrible, as backstabbing, and as idiotic as the men are.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The 4 main "ladies" in this episode: Laura Tucker and Linda Stotch are the Blondes, Harriet Biggle is the Brunette, and Sheila Broflovski is the Redhead.
- Brown Bag Mask: Ike opens a bag of potato chips to cover his face when Sheila talks about her fecal transplant to the other mothers while grocery shopping.
- The Cameo: Heather Swanson from the previous episode can be seen at Sheila's meeting in the beginning.
- Country Matters: Harriet Biggle calls Sheila the c-word behind her back when they're having lunch at Café Monet with Linda Stotch and Laura Tucker, with all three of them distraught by Sheila refusing to share her feces for their own D.I.Y. fecal transplants so they can have the same health benefits as Sheila. Later on, Linda and Laura tell Sheila that Harriet called her that exact word that day, as they were jealous of Harriet's fecal transplant, much to Sheila's shock.
- Demonic Possession: Downplayed and Subverted. Kyle believes he's under this for the majority of the episode after being made aware of the concept of microbiomes note , thinking that it's unnatural. By the end of the episode, not only does he figure out it's not the case, but also comes to terms with it being another factor about what makes him human.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- The women shoving unwashed turkey basters up their rectums caused an infection to set in, as they're only used once a year during Thanksgiving and are left sitting in drawers afterwards, collecting bacteria all the while.
- After the boys agree to get a sample of Tom Brady's fecal matter in exchange for each of their own copy of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Kenny eventually realizes that, due to his family's poverty, he doesn't have a system to play the game on.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: The episode ends this way when Dr. Gauche states that the women's Day in the Limelight was too much for them.Dr. Gauche: Well, I think we've all learned something. "One for the Ladies" is one too many for the ladies! [Everyone laughs]
- Every Man Has His Price: Harriet Biggle, Henrietta and Bradley's mother, asks the boys to get a sample of Sheila's fecal matter for her in exchange for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The boys immediately take her up on her offer, except for Kyle, who is completely against it, as he is still totally disgusted at the fact that there are microorganisms living in his body. Afterwards, Mr. Mackey asks the three other boys to get a sample of Tom Brady's fecal matter in exchange for getting each their own copy of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
- Evil Is Petty: Everyone is so obsessed with fecal transplants because they want to cut corners rather than actively take care of their bodies. Tom Brady lampshades this.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Harriet Biggle, Laura Tucker, and Linda Stotch are all very jealous of Sheila's fecal transplant and how healthy it made her to the point where Harriet resorts to bribing Kyle and his friends into stealing her feces in exchange for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (though Kyle refuses in disgust, with his friends taking Harriet up on her offer instead). Later on, it's revealed that Linda and Laura stole Sheila's leftover feces from Harriet's house sometime after so that they could have fecal transplants as well and have the same health benefits as Sheila and Harriet, as both of them were jealous of Harriet's fecal transplant.
- Hidden Depths: Stan seems to know how to unman pipes and a security grill pretty well, and leads Kenny and Cartman in stealing some of Sheila's feces.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Cartman mocks Kyle's mom for being fat.
- The "ladies" devolve into a shouting match over each other being "backstabbing bitches".
- Inner Monologue: Nearly everyone in the Turd Burglars B-Plot has this from time to time. Lampshaded by Stan and Cartman with their own Inner Monologues when they and Kenny meet Tom Brady's housekeeper at his house, who figures out that the boys are trying to get a sample of Tom Brady's fecal matter, along with several others.Cartman: I wonder why everyone keeps taking really long pauses after they talk?
Stan: People just keep looking at me like I'm supposed to say something. - Irony: Sheila's friends gave themselves DIY fecal transplants when Harriet asked the boys to get a sample of Sheila's fecal matter in an attempt to become healthy like Sheila did from hers, but they wound up giving themselves the same infection that Sheila had.
- Jerkass Ball: Stan and Kenny prioritize getting Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order over Kyle and his family's privacy, trying to steal his mom's feces by messing with the pipes in his basement. Kyle is understandably not happy with this in the slightest.Harriet: Oh well, think about it. The offer stands. I heard you can customize your own lightsaber....(walks off)
Cartman: [Beat] What is your problem?!
Kyle: What is my problem?! I'm not gonna go steal my mom's shit!
Stan: Dude, you realize we won't get that game until Christmas? We could be playing it tomorrow!
Kenny: TO-MOR-ROW!
Kyle: I said no, and that's final! - Only Sane Man: Tom Brady, to a literal degree considering this episode is focused on showing how crazy the women in South Park are.
- Product Placement: The boys agree to get fecal matter from Sheila and later Tom Brady in exchange for copies of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Lampshaded by Kenny, who says he doesn't have a system to play the game on and wonders why he agreed to help.Kenny: Why did I agree to this? I don't even have a machine to play Fallen Order on.
- Properly Paranoid: Tom Brady started sealing his feces away and hiding it in a secret room to stop people from breaking into his house to steal it.
- The Speechless: Subverted with Kenny's Inner Monologue. While previous episodes have given Kenny an inner monologue, but given him an obviously fake voice, his inner voice in this episode sounds exactly like his regular non-muffled voice.
- Rule of Three: The first two times someone gets a fecal transplant and gloats about it (Sheila and Harriet in this case), Linda Stotch says "Fuck her, fuck her!" behind their back. By the time Harriet calls everyone "backstabbing bitches", Linda directly says "Fuck you, Harriet!"
- Take That!: Towards shows with all-female casts which depict them as wiser and more refined than men (or at the very least, the belief that shows like this would do this or Shout-Out to this). This episode highlights how such shows will often show their female cast as being just as bad as their male counterparts.
- Truth in Television:
- A C-Diff infection is very contagious, very painful, and very disgusting. It won't make you explode out of both ends, but it will give you serious diarrhea that puts you at risk of death from dehydration, especially if you're older and/or have preexisting conditions.
- Almost every part of your body is occupied by millions of microorganisms. Most of them co-exist peacefully, though — at best they're essential for your well-being (E. coli, L. bulgaricus) and at worst they kind of just hang around until they become opportunistic infections (H. pylori, S. aureus, and of course C. difficile).
- Undesirable Prize: At one point, Kenny wonders why he even agreed to the boys' scheme. He doesn't have a system to play Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on, so the reward is useless to him.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The women of South Park nearly cause an epidemic of C-Diff in an attempt to perform DIY fecal transplants in order to become healthy.
- Variations on a Theme Song: The South Park theme song is back after 6 episodes of the Tegrity Farms arc and the PC Babies intro in the last episode, though it's sung by the South Park women instead with various clips from past episodes featuring them, proving that this episode really is "One for the Ladies".
- Whole-Plot Reference: The episode is a big parody of Dune, with, of all things, Tom Brady's poo standing in for Spice. Kyle also sports Fremen-style eyes when his microbiome takes over his intuition.
