Scott Malkinson falls in love with a new student who also has diabetes. He promises to let her watch The Mandalorian on Disney+ at his house, only to find that his dad, a technician for South Park Cable, is heavily against streaming services.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Clark Malkinson makes fun of his own son for having diabetes in the exact same way Cartman does.
- A Day in the Limelight: This episode focuses on Scott Malkinson looking for love.
- All for Nothing: Despite Clark Malkinson and his crew disabling streaming services for all of South Park, it's still going strong as The Scott Malkinson Show is now available for streaming.
- An Aesop: Never pretend you enjoy something you don’t to impress your crush; just be yourself. At the same time, don't assume that a person is your perfect match when you only have one thing in common (even if it's the singular thing that defines you).
- Appointment Television: Discussed. Clark bemoans that the instant gratification of streaming services is killing the communal atmosphere that comes from everyone watching the same programs at the same time.
- Berserk Button:
- Streaming services for Clark Malkinson. In addition to hurting his business, he believes that everyone being able to watch what they want when they want is leading to social isolation since no one in South Park is gathering around a linear TV schedule anymore.
- Scott does not want any other boys to make any advances on Sophie Gray and gets very angry whenever they do.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: Much of the episode is spent dunking on cable television. South Park runs on Comedy Central, a cable television station.
- Bittersweet Ending: The town's streaming services have been disabled and the Park County Cable crew get away with it. But on the bright side, Scott and Sophie Gray become friends. And streaming still manages to move forward frustrating Clark Malkinson to no end.
- Blunt "Yes": When Clark angrily asks Stephen Scotch if, instead of cable's linear programming that tries to appeal to a broad-spectrum audience bringing everyone in the family together at certain times of the day, he'd rather have streaming and the ability to watch shows specifically tailored to his interests whenever he wants to watch them, Stephen says he wants the latter.
- Bullying the Disabled: Clark Malkinson does this to his own son.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Several characters return, including Nathan (who is now selling illegal accounts for streaming services, and doing so successfully because he's doing it alone and not with Mimsy), Pete Thelman (one of the Goth Kids, who tries hitting on Sophie and finds out Michael did the same)
- Among the shows are the Queef Sisters (whose show Cartman watches on Canada Ploos); Crab People; and a show with Dean.
- Call-Back:
- When Scott comes to Cartman for relationship advice, he references the latter's failed relationship with Heidi.
- When Scott gorges on pie from the Grays' kitchen, it sends him into a diabetic rage, which he uses to lash out at the other boys, similar to how his superhero persona, Captain Diabetes, goes into a diabetic rage.
- Character Check: Nathan is portrayed as a dealer in this episode, similar to his role in his debut episode "Up the Down Steroid".
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Scott becomes this towards Sophie, lashing out at any guy trying to talk to her.
- Dude Magnet: Sophie quickly attracts the attention of several male schoolmates, much to Scott's chagrin.
- Easter Egg: If you call the phone number displayed at the end of the episode, it takes you to an automated message from Trey Parker about acquiring streaming rights for all of the fictional spin-off shows shown throughout the season.
- Entitled to Have You: Scott starts thinking of Sophie this way, based solely on the fact that they both have diabetes, and that's the only thing about her that he cares about. When Scott lashes out on the boys for hogging on her attention, Sophie calls him out on this.
- Exact Words: The stereotype of cable repair people giving ballpark figures of their time of arrival like "a time between 10 AM and 2 PM", only to either show up at the literal last minute or even a few minutes late, becomes a Running Gag.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: Cartman shows himself to have a very bitter view on romantic relationships with no interest in pursuing them due to his first girlfriend, Heidi Turner, having dumped him awhile back.
- Flat Character: Lampshaded by Scott. When Sophie says she has more to her than just her diabetes, Scott sadly replies that he doesn't, pointing out how his only defining trait is his condition.
- The Ghost: Heidi is briefly mentioned by Scott when discussing Cartman's former relationship with her. Heidi herself, however, doesn't appear in this episode.
- Grew a Spine: Scott manages to stand up for himself to the other boys who've made fun of him for having diabetes several times in this episode. During the climax, he gorges on pie from the Gray's kitchen to send himself into a diabetic rage in order to stand up to the other boys who want to win Sophie Gray's heart, just like himself.
- Hypocritical Humor: Clark Malkinson keeps slacking off, doing other things when he's supposed to be on his way to fix someone's cable, and then complains to his co-workers when they do the same thing and delay his plan. He also complains about how a streaming subscription costs too much money, yet is regularly spending just as much, if not more, on things like a fancy haircut and bowling when he should be working.
- Jerkass: As stated in Abusive Parents, Clark Malkinson is one to his son Scott.
- Karma Houdini: Clark Malkinson and the Park County Cable crew get away with sabotaging the town's streaming services just so they can help everyone switch to basic cable and make the Park County Cable crew feel needed again. Subverted at the end due to their laziness, meaning that Clark and his crew barely put a dent to the streaming juggernaut.
- Left Hanging: It's unclear if Clark Malkinson and the other cable guys also cut off the town's internet, needed to access the streaming services, or not.
- Laser-Guided Karma: A delayed example, as in an earlier episode the Cable Company were nothing but unhelpful jerkasses to any and all of their customers, derived sexual pleasure from doing so, and was run by a Corrupt Corporate Executive who has a monopoly on Park County's cable, thus enabling him to screw customers over. Now they are losing customers left and right to streaming services, even after they manage to sabotage the streaming for the third act of the episode.
- Lazy Bum: Despite fearing for their jobs and their jobs' reputation, all of the cable repair men spend more of their shifts killing time with errands or just generally farting around than getting to what few jobs they have on time.
- Love at First Sight: Scott immediately develops an interest in the new girl in his class, Sophie Gray, after she says she has diabetes.
- Love Hurts:
- When Scott goes to Cartman for love advice, Cartman tells Scott that love is just anger, frustration, and pain, still feeling bitter that Heidi broke up with him.
- Scott himself suffers this when Sophie declares that she has no interest in hooking up with him nor the other boys.
- Loving a Shadow: Scott believes that he's fallen in love with Sophie solely because she has diabetes like him. Sophie has to tell Scott that there's more to her than her diabetes and that it's too soon for Scott (or any other boy) to develop a genuine connection with her as she just moved in and hasn’t even unpacked all of her stuff into her new room yet.
- Maybe Ever After: After Scott and Sophie become friends, the ending suggests that after spending time together, the two could possibly develop a romantic relationship. However, it is implied that while Scott sees Sophie in a romantic light, she currently does not reciprocate his feelings and only sees him as a friend. The nature of what their ultimate relationship to one another will be also remains uncertain.
- Never Be Hurt Again: Cartman is still very bitter about his breakup with Heidi so he has decided to never pursue romantic relationships again, so he can avoid being emotionally hurt.
- Never My Fault:
- Clark and the other cable repair men always worry about how they're at risk of losing their jobs thanks to streaming services. They never take into consideration the reason why their clients are flocking to streaming services instead of sticking to cable is because of their crappy and slow service.
- Cartman blames the end of his relationship with Heidi on the concept that love is just meaningless frustration, anger, and pain that will always eventually end, while ignoring the fact that he’d still be in a relationship with Heidi had he not treated her horribly in season 21.
- Not Helping Your Case: Unfortunately for Clark, the more he tries to build up the more communal-yet-quaint medium of cable against the overwhelming-yet-convenient medium of streaming services, the better streaming sounds.
- Pet the Dog: Despite Cartman's own abysmal opinion on romantic relationships he does help Scott impress Sophie by recommending Scott someone who can lend him streaming services.
- Plumber's Crack: All of the cable repair men sport these as they prepare to cut the town's internet.
- Pun-Based Title: The title refers to both generally affordable cable TV channels and how cable TV in the late 2010s had become "basic" (ie, boring and uninspired).
- Skewed Priorities: The Park County Cable crew slacking off doesn't help in their opposition to streaming.
- Shout-Out: The Mandalorian (specifically the memetic "Baby Yoda") plays a large role on the episode.
- Show Within a Show: Played with. Clark finds the phenomenon part of the issue with streaming services (referring to the trope by name) but during the episode several ideas for other shows (such as a show about Token's family living next to the Whites) are bought up, complete with fake "coming soon" advertisements for their airing on various streaming services.
- Special Edition Title: The South Park intro is replaced with an entirely new intro called The Scott Malkinson Show, which is based off of both James Bond and Archer.
- Take That!:
- The abundance of streaming platforms popping up in the mid-to-late 2010s, such as Prime Video and Disney+, are the main focus of the episode's satire, though it's more ribbing than malicious. There's also a fictional streaming service from Canada called "Canada Ploos", which only has two shows: Terrance and Phillip and The Queef Sisters.
- Cable companies are made fun of significantly more, with their employees being presented as lazy bums who shoot themselves in the foot by taking their time with the few jobs they even get any more rather than doing them diligently, making cable seem even less appealing when compared to streaming.
- While never directly shown, cable television in general is implied to be a passé wasteland of trashy programs and useless infomercials which don't stand a fighting chance against the quality entertainment being produced for state-of-the-art premium streaming services.
- The Disney Star Wars films are made fun of again, with Sophie flat out calling them "dogshit" compared to The Mandalorian.
- Trauma Button: Apparently for Cartman, it is being reminded of his past relationship with Heidi given that it ended with her dumping him.
