It takes Stan's love for his father to save the future.
It's a long road towards any kind of happiness or optimism, but it's definitely worth the wait.- The special reveals why Ike was absent in Post Covid: he moved out of South Park and was barred from visiting due to the lockdown. In the new future, he's reunited with his brother.
- Speaking of the new future, Kyle is married with two children. His friendship with Stan has also stood the test of time since his kids refer to Stan as their Honorary Uncle.
- Stan finally puts his hatred of Randy to the side and sends him a package containing the last bit of future Tegridy, along with a handwritten note (pictured above).
- Shelly and Sharon were saved from their fates in the good timeline and Stan gets to see them at the Christmas party. And while Shelly does call him a turd, it was more for old time's sake and it seems their relationship has changed for the better.
- Additionally, smoking the future Tegridy he reverse engineered caused Randy to realize how much of a jerk he was being to Sharon and the family and he apologizes to her. The future sees the two of them still married and Randy having a functional relationship with their kids.
- The implications that Cartman's love for Yentl was what made him improve as a person.
- As selfishly as he was acting, Cartman's motivation was to ensure he didn't lose his family. He even tells Kyle in (broken) Hebrew, "משפחה היא לא רק חשובה, היא הכל." which translates to "Family isn't just important. It's everything." He really, truly loves them and even has a Heel–Face Turn because of his wife.
- Yentl convinces Cartman to help, even though it means that she'll lose everything too, and she reassures him that they'll find each other in the new timeline. Tragically, this didn't happen as the repercussions of their sacrifice show that Cartman stayed a hateful bigot as an adult. But, that doesn't mean they haven't met each other yet — maybe Yentl still has a chance to meet him somewhere further down the line.
- In the revised future we finally see adult Timmy. He's capable of walking (albeit with a walking stick), saying full phrases, and using his hands, and he's still friends with everybody else.
- Doubly so, as "The Hobbit" implies that Timmy resents his disabilities and wants to be a normal boy instead. Turns out he got his wish after all.
- During the party Wendy asks Stan if he would like to spend New Year's Eve with her. Given that her husband is nowhere to be seen in the fixed future, which most likely means that they never met at all in the new timeline, it's implied that they'll finally get back together.
- Cartman genuinely sacrifices his happiest and greatest future by helping Stan and Kyle rebuild their friendship and stopping Clyde from assassinating past Kyle. The repercussions of that sacrifice are so pitiful that it overshadows what he did for the greater good; since Cartman gave up his marriage, his family, his faith, and his success as a rabbi in the old timeline, Cartman is now a disgraced, alcoholic hobo who screams at everyone in his vicinity. He has no friends or family to speak of, and since the entire timeline was changed, nobody knows what he did for them. In spite of all this, however, Stan and Kyle can't help but feel some level of sympathy for him anyways.
- Bad timeline Butters was a ridiculously destructive NFT bro who used his Vic Chaos persona to disconnect from reality, but he was still cognizant enough to be Kenny's primary benefactor by selflessly using his NFT profits to finance Kenny's scientific pursuits. Butters never forgot his one real childhood friend after all those years.
- In the revised timeline, Butters is working as a Denny's Applebee's Max waiter with his sanity intact and a good chance at getting promoted to manager. Even Stan compliments him upon hearing this.
- Jimmy kept his Late Night With Jimmy show in the good timeline, except now he doesn't need to neuter his routine to stay politically correct. Even PC Principal didn't show the least bit of outrage over his joke about bisexual Canadians, proving the executives in the bad future wrong about Jimmy's comedy style.
- Kenny being alive and well in the new timeline is heartwarming in itself, but there's also some Fridge Logic to it that makes his survival even more heartwarming: the reason why Kenny died for good to begin with is because his mother hit menopause, meaning she was no longer capable of giving birth to him again should he die. Kenny's mom is about 65 years old in the Future timeline, and most women hit menopause around around age 50, meaning that Kenny, on top of being a wealthy Nobel-winning scientist, hasn't died a single time in the last 15-20 years. He may be the spawn of Cthulhu, but it seems that the universe finally cut the poor guy some slack.
- For fans of the Creek ship, in both specials Craig and Tweek are, forty years in the future, a well-adjusted and happy couple. Given how unstable and irregular a lot of people's love lives are, it says a lot that no matter what happens with COVID, these two stay together.
- It is brief, but Heidi Turner is shown with her parents. Given how much Heidi suffered throughout season 20 and 21, it's nice to know that her parents are now close by to make sure that she's safe, especially during the pandemic.
- Near the end of the special with some help from their future selves, the four boys all forgive each other and decide to go back to being friends. We also see the rest of the town decide to stop holding grudges against each other, understanding that the pandemic had been hard and stressful on everyone. Kelly Clarkson's "I forgive you" plays over it all, and forgiving each other is what ultimately leads to the future being better.
