YMMV / South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid

• Accidental Aesop: Considering Cartman benefitted the most from their disbanded friendship and lost everything after their relationship rekindled, the lesson of the episode can be interpreted as "a dysfunctional relationship can exist between friends, no matter how much they enjoy each other's company". Even though Kyle and Cartman are friends, Cartman gives him the blunt end of his abuse because of his antisemitism, Cartman mocks Kenny for being poor despite Cartman considering Kenny his best friend, and Stan was mocked constantly for one reason or another. In the old timeline, Cartman matured because he was no longer around the people who inspired the worst in him and he eventually grew up because everybody but Yentl gave up on him. In the new timeline, he never left Kenny, Kyle, and Stan's side and his toxic behaviour eventually bit him in the ass because he never took the initiative to turn his life around.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • PC Principal laughed at Jimmy's joke about bisexual Canadians. Are they an acceptable target to him? Has his character development reached the point where he's no longer outraged over crude jokes? Is he just being supportive of a disabled man getting ahead in a cutthroat industry?
  • Is Cartman in the good future really homeless or is this one of his crazy schemes to get what he wants (Like how he once faked having Tourette's syndrome so he can swear when ever he likes or when he faked being retarded so he can be part of the Special Olympics thinking it's a easy win). This would explain why the others are so dismissive with him and why Butters playfully insults him they all know he's faking.
    • On the other hand maybe they think he's faking when in reality he's hit rock bottom and do not care either way.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: In the new future, Jimmy tells a joke about incestuous Canadians on his show, exactly the opposite of the inoffensive comedy he was forced to do in the bad future. Does this mean the future has been changed so Political Overcorrectness has less of an impact on comedy? Or is it still a problem, but PC culture just sees Canadians as acceptable targets and so jokes about them do not get as much scrutiny? Note that PC Principal found the joke funny.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The United States Space Force is a real thing that the Trump administration created in 2019, though they don't seem to actually do anything in the way of actual combat or deep space travel.
• Broken Base: Cartman's fate as a lonely, homeless, and miserable drunk at the end of the special has divided many fans. Some fans believe it to be sad as Cartman had reformed and was willing to risk his happy life for the sake of a better future. Other fans believe he deserved this fate for having done many awful things as a kid, regardless of whether he changed his ways.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After being a huge hindrance in the gang's search for answers just because he wouldn't take the vaccine out of shellfish-ness, it was satisfying that Clyde is finally killed before he kills a child.
  • The altered timeline has to be one of the most satisfying endings in the entire series. Stan, Kyle, and Butters finally get their happy endings after all the hardships they had to go through in the show as well as this special, while their loved ones (Sharon, Shelly, and Kenny) are still alive.
  • After watching Cartman commit countless atrocities for petty selfishness, him finally doing the right thing by performing a selfless Heroic Sacrifice to save the world, even if it may cost his happy life, is very gratifying. While the aftermath of his sacrifice resulted in him being replaced by a version of him that is homeless, miserable, and alone, given that this isn't the reformed Cartman (who disappeared after being Ret-Gone) but the manipulative sociopath who refused to change it's still very satisfying to see that his Karma Houdini Warranty has completely expired and is now suffering karma that is actually permanent.
• Cry for the Devil: Cartman's fate in the new timeline invoked this among a surprising number of fans, as he sacrificed his happiest future for everyone else and the repercussions of that sacrifice are shown in the new timeline. With the loss of Yentl's patience and influence, Cartman becomes an abrasive, alcoholic hobo who has no family or friends. For all of Cartman's cruelty and unforgivable behavior, he legitimately did become a good person who risked his own happiness to help his old friends. And no one remembers, believing that nothing could have stopped Cartman's life from becoming so awful in the "good" future. It says something that even Stan and Kyle feel legitimate sympathy for Cartman (though not Butters). Even Cartman's present-day self wasn't shown to be as jerkish as usual, as he reconciled with the other boys once they got to go see the Denver Nuggets.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the old timeline Vic Chaos provided Kenny with the funding needed for his time-travel research. In the revised one, Kenny was complicit in Cartman's attempt to swindle Butters out of his hard-earned wages. Given how unforgiving Butters was towards Cartman, it can be assumed he won't be quite so generous with Kenny if the latter ever needs another favour.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Butters' recent promotion to the manager position at Denny's in the new future is even more of a heartwarming, happy ending for him after the events of "Dikin Baus Hot Dogs" make him realize that, even though he has strong business skills and could easily make a fortune as an investor, he prefers having a floor job where he can make customers happy.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Despite the two parter's concerns over NFTs being a mainstream currency even in the good future the boys helped made at the end, in real life, Ethereum, the thing that powers NFTs, has crashed and burned in recent times, taking NFTs with it. Making that concern quite a amusing one.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Cartman remains a hateful and bigoted jerkass in the new timeline, but by now he's become friendless and homeless. What's worse is that Cartman used to have a happy life with a loving family, but he was convinced to sacrifice it all in hopes for a better future for everyone else, which resulted in Cartman now having a terrible future.
  • Butters in the Bad Future is a con-artist with an almost supernatural ability to scam people into buying NFTs, losing their livelihood, and even indirectly causing a bloodbath, but he is the way he is because he was left grounded in his room for sixteen years as a result of his parents abandoning him, and was then locked in a brutal mental asylum for some time after that. It's also implied that Butters created his "Victor Chaos" persona so he doesn't have to face the fact that his parents never truly loved him.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While Cartman’s new fate of being a lonely, miserable and homeless alcoholic is supposed to be portrayed as an Alas, Poor Villain moment since he selflessly sacrifices his happy life for to save the world, he can come across as this instead since he has committed so many unforgivable atrocities (feeding Scott Tenorman to his own parents, infecting Kyle with HIV, commanding Cthhulu to go on a killing spree, emotionally abusing Heidi, etc) that is hard to sympathize with Cartman’s entire character, but rather feel like that he got exactly what he deserved for being such a terrible person as a child.

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