Original air date: 12/4/2013
The horror of Black Friday has begun and the battle begins. Forces will join, backstabbing will occur and there will be blood. And big floppy wieners.
This episode contains examples of:
- Animesque: Kenny's first few scenes are written in the style and visualized as a Magical Girl anime, all down to the Gratuitous Japanese.
- Art Shift:
- Kenny's subplot is styled like a Japanese anime.
- To illustrate the violent madness of Black Friday, the scenes of the shoppers killing each other is interspersed with live-action Stock Footage from actual Black Fridays.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The news reporter who concocted Black Friday gets no punishment for the onslaught of thousands and even gets the hyped-up story he intended. Bill Gates also wins his war against Sony, even if the kids are too warped to really appreciate the Xboxes they bought.
- Big "NO!": By Randy after a security guard is killed with an arrow (that he shot).
- Borrowed Catchphrase: When Kenny appears to die after jumping through a window, a Sony executive exclaims, "Nante koto, Princess Kenny o koroshita!"
- Censored Title: On most cable guides, the title is shortened to "T. and Dragons"
- Closed Door Rapport: Kyle talks through the door to Stan who is grounded and locked up in his room.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Though the Sony executive is shown getting in a couple of hard blows, he is ultimately beaten to a bloody pulp by Bill Gates, who is shown only to be somewhat exhausted by the end of the duel.
- Dark Reprise: Of the Game of Thrones theme, during the mall bloodbath.
- Flat Joy: After Bill Gates wins the final duel.Cartman: Yay, Xbox wins.
Stan: Yay. - Frame-Up: Cartman defecates in the old man's yard and frames Stan for it, resulting in Stan being grounded.
- Gratuitous Japanese: The "Princess Kenny" scenes are spoken in nothing but bad Japanese, with no subtitles to go with it.
- Groin Attack: George R. R. Martin gets his wiener sliced off by an enraged shopper after stalling the crowd gathered for Black Friday for too long.Shopper: You're not delaying this any longer, you wiener-loving bitch!
- Heel–Face Turn: Kyle
- Human Notepad: Bill Gates has text tattoos all over his torso.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Cartman's justification for getting Stan grounded.
- Lying Finger Cross: Kyle does this when he promises he'll fight with Stan for PS4s.
- Mood Whiplash: The kids are walking through the mall, traumatized by all the chaos, death and destruction caused by the Console War, when suddenly a Stop Touching Me Elmo doll blurts out "
Can Elmo smell your genitals?". - No Party Like a Donner Party: A family ate their son while waiting in line at the mall for a Blu-Ray player.
- Previously on…: A recap of the previous two episodes
appears at the beginning. Strangely, an unrelated clip from "Taming Strange" is seen in the montage. - Pyrrhic Victory: Bill Gates wins the deciding battle between Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but the kids become too traumatized from the whole thing to enjoy their Xbox Ones.
- Retail Riot: After much buildup, it finally happens. The results are quite gruesome.
- Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony: George R. R. Martin is supposed to open Black Friday by cutting a ribbon in front of the mall. He gets interrupted by an impatient customer.
- Second Place Is for Winners: Randy is the last person to buy anything at the mall on Black Friday. He is also completely unharmed, walking with his new TV through piles of corpses of those who tried to be first.
- Self-Deprecation: At the end of Cartman's speech about playing outside rather than playing video games, an ad for South Park: The Stick of Truth appears and a joke about its delay is made once more.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of the episode, the boys decide to play a medieval fantasy game outside, and when trying to decide on a McGuffin, Cartman picks up a simple wooden stick. Lampshaded immediately afterward when the show promptly does an explicit plug for Stick of Truth.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The boys finally get the XBox Ones, but the whole ordeal, especially the violent duel between the heads of Sony and Microsoft has traumatized them and realize that they had greater fun with their Game of Thrones style of playing. Hence, instead of playing it, they just play outside, not wanting to do with the console anymore, making the entire thing pointless.
- Shout-Out:
- Besides all the Game of Thrones references, the scenes of the Black Friday shoppers killing each other cutting to live-action footage parodies Any Given Sunday, where the comparisons of football to gladiators is illustrated with cuts from football players to clips from Ben-Hur (1959).
- The anime-styled beginning is visually reminiscent of Sailor Moon.
- Cartman's anime form looks a bit like Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- Some background characters during Anime-styled Kenny's Magical Girl parody, are reminiscent of Gendo and Misato.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The scene of the kids walking through the blood-filled mall in the aftermath of the Black Friday rush is accompanied by the piano rendition of "O Tannenbaum" from A Charlie Brown Christmas.
- Spanner in the Works: The old man who owns the garden Cartman keeps taking everybody to reveals to Stan that Cartman and Kyle are gonna betray him because he's sick of Cartman trespassing in his backyard.
- Special Edition Title: The special title sequence from the previous episode is shown, this time with the "Wiener" song featured in that episode.
- Take a Third Option: After Kyle makes the plan to unite the two groups to hide out in Red Robin, only later to betray them and finally realized what all this did to his friendship with Stan, Kyle attempted to betray Cartman. However, Stan comes (having snuck off from being grounded) and locks everyone in. Both the heads of Microsoft and Sony were led in there by Stan. Stan states that everything has gone out of hand and that they are all being turned against each other for money by the two corporations, who Stan then tells to resolve the fight themselves. Bill Gates ends up winning.
- Take That!:
- George R. R. Martin, like in the previous episode, is seen as a penis-obsessed nut job, which results in an irate shopper castrating him.
- The brutality of Black Friday is parodied with various murders and injuries, at some points showing live footage of actual Black Friday shoppers rushing into stores. After that, the boys are seen trekking the corpse-ridden mall, at one point literally walking through a sea of blood.
- Take That, Audience!: The anime version of Princess Kenny might be an exaggerated parody of the (often female) sector of the South Park fanbase that draws the characters in "kawaii" anime style. The crossdressing is just part of the whole package.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Subverted, it seems Kenny died when he fell out of a window, but he just shrugs it off. By winking and making a V-Sign while exclaiming "Princessu Kenny daijobu dayo!" in a (bad) cutesy Japanese anime voice.
- Victory by Endurance: Ironically, despite all their plotting and scheming, the boys are the last shoppers to enter the mall. However, they and Randy are still able to take advantage of the exclusive Black Friday discounts because all the other shoppers ended up killing each other.
- Was It Really Worth It?: The result in the end. After seeing Bill Gates smash the head of Sony's CEO, the boys go through the bloody mall and the scene is filled with melancholy. Furthermore, the boys are unable to enjoy playing the Xbox One due to the ordeal and Cartman of all people ends up being the one to point out that he is unable to unsee the trauma before leading the kids to realize they don't need video games — they have their imaginations to play with, pointing out they spent the last 3 weeks not playing video games and just playing.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Stan delivers one to Kyle for double-crossing him.
- You Are Grounded!: Played with. Stan being grounded (Cartman framed him for crapping in the old man's garden) is seen as an medieval-esque allegory for imprisonment. Stan even bangs against his door with a cup for Sharon to take Kyle away.
