The boys have bought an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and don't know who is in the real world or stuck in virtual reality.
Grounded Vindaloop contains examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Mrs. Cartman finds her son comatose and unresponsive and simply thinks he is ignoring her. Of course, that could be Liane in a simulation, but it is a perfect simulation of how she would act.
- Breather Episode: Has no plot relevance to the rest of the season (at least until the final episode).
- Brig Ball Bouncing: When Butters is mysteriously grounded in Stan's simulation (his grounding having worked its way up from Cartman's simulation), he can be heard bouncing a racquetball against his bedroom wall until Stephen yells at him to stop.
- Cyberspace: The episode begins with Butters wearing an obviously fake "Oculus Rift" headset with Cartman speaking to him through a walkie-talkie to make him think that his journey through South Park Elementary is only occurring in virtual reality, while the other students look at him as though he's lost his mind, and thanks to Cartman's fake headset being built around a pair of hearing protectors and Cartman claiming that they haven't fixed the "audio issues" yet, Butters can't hear the other students which could give away the prank to him. Before long, we're left confused as to which characters are in cyberspace and which ones are in reality.note
- Death by Transceiver: Subverted when Butters last words to Cartman on the radio is a scream. Cut to Butters in hospital.
- Denied Food as Punishment: Butters' father denies him dinner as punishment for his misconduct.
- The Dog Bites Back: Butters punching his father in the balls in revenge for the many groundings he has received over the years, even if he thinks it's simply virtual reality.
- The Ending Changes Everything: In the final minutes, the entire episode is revealed as an Oculus Rift session with Stan at the controls. More precisely, live-action Stan.
- Gainax Ending: In the final scene, a live-action version of Stan removes the Oculus Rift headset as live-action versions of Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny look on.Live-Action Kyle: Sssso, aside from all the bullcrap, whaddya think of the Oculus?
Live-Action Stan: [looks at the headset] It's pretty cool, but the graphics suck. - Groin Attack: Butters punches his dad in the balls.
- Hypocritical Humor: Cartman justifies pulling the Oculus Rift prank on Butters by saying the latter is an asshole who needs to be taken down a notch.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Stephen Stotch, who has gotten away for being abusive to Butters for years, finally gets what he deserves courtesy of Butters himself.
- Medium-Shift Gag: As Stan takes off the Oculus Rift at the end of the episode, the scene cuts to a short live-action sequence with Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny being played by actors.
- Mind Screw: The episode starts simply enough, with Cartman playing another prank on Butters with a homemade "Oculus Rift headset", but then Cartman gets a phone call telling him he's the one in an Oculus Rift simulation, and a cutaway to his bedroom seems to confirm this. And then things get really weird, to the point that many viewers need a diagram to see how the various "realities" fit together.
- Operator from India: "Steve", the customer service rep, works in a call centre in India - which provides customer service not just for the Oculus Rift, but for Korean Air Lines, El Pollo Loco, and Best Buy.
- Precision F-Strike: Kyle starts off the "Fuuuuck you" running gag when Kenny tells him and Stan that Cartman is stuck in virtual reality. Considering the antics Cartman has put Kyle through in the series, it's not hard for him to be suspicious.
- Reality Warper: Cartman fools Butters into thinking he's capable of it via some basic street magic tricks and making him think he could predict that a nurse is about to enter his room while pressing the nurse call button without Butters noticing so that he can get away with essentially causing Butters to go on a rampage by making him think he's still trapped in virtual reality, setting up the premise of the rest of the episode.
- Recursive Reality: Hold onto your seat...
- Production notes
confirm that Stan is wearing the Oculus Rift headset in reality. In his simulation, Cartman is wearing an Oculus Rift headset, and Kyle puts on another one to go in after him. In their simulation (which is where the episode begins), Butters puts on the fake "headset" and Kenny puts on the real one.note Butters getting grounded in Cartman and Kyle's simulation results in him being grounded in Stan's simulation and in reality. - The recursive reality means there are also four Steves. The first Steve calls Cartman in his simulation. Kyle calls the second Steve from Stan's simulation when Kenny leads them to the comatose Cartman. Once he and Cartman are in a simulation together, they both call a third Steve. Stan, meanwhile, is on the phone to a fourth Steve as Kenny is lost in another simulation. The "vindaloop" kicks in when the fourth Steve calls the second Steve.
- Production notes
- Running Gag:
- Whenever anyone calls customer service, they get the same Operator from India, who introduces himself with "Thank you for calling customer service, this is Steve!"
- In the many exchanges when one character tries to persuade another that he is stuck in virtual reality, the response is invariably an angry, disbelieving "Oh, fuuuuuck you!"
- Self-Deprecation: During the Medium-Shift Gag at the end, live-action Stan complains about the poor graphics in the animated South Park reality.
- Shout-Out:
- When Cartman shows up at Butters' hospital room to tell him that he is trapped in a VR simulation, he is dressed like Morpheus from The Matrix, another story in which people are unknowingly trapped in a VR simulation.
- The idea of someone living a simulated life without realising it is a nod to Total Recall (1990). As if the homage weren't overt enough, Steve tells Kyle that there has been a "total recall" of Oculus Rift headsets due to technical problems.
- The production notes confirm that the idea of a VR simulation within a VR simulation within etc. is a spoof of the "dream within a dream within etc." plot structure of Inception.
- Butters decides to live out what he thinks is a VR version of Grand Theft Auto as he goes rogue against his parents, hijacks a car and attempts to pick up a prostitute.
- Skewed Priorities: Steve seems less interested in giving relevant answers to the boys' questions and more concerned with whether or not they think he has provided adequate customer service and answered their questions in a timely and polite manner. To quote the call he has with himself when he gets stuck in a "vindaloop", "Well, what is more important, my friend? The result, or good customer service?" At the end of the episode, Stan answering "Yes" to the question "Have I answered your questions and provided good customer service?" turns out to be the key to resolving the paradox.
- The Stinger: A few seconds into the end credits, the live-action versions of the main quartet are joined by a live-action version of Butters, who bunny-hops into shot and announces that he's no longer grounded.
- Techno Babble: Cartman spouts streams of nonsensical technical buzzwords to convince Butters that he's using cutting edge VR technology, but must do exactly as Cartman says for it to work as intended.Cartman: [switching off his bedroom light and switching on a UV light while Butters can't see anything] Digital malcontent now at parameter alpha. Prepare for full graphic interfaces on my mark: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
- The Treachery of Images: There are numerous exchanges throughout the episode in which one character tells another that nothing they are seeing is really there. In particular, Cartman begins insisting that he's just a computer program and that Stan and Kyle can't really see him when the question of who is in reality and who is in VR becomes harder to answer.
- You Are Grounded!: Naturally, Butters' punishment for punching Stephen in the balls is to be "grounded more than [he] can possibly imagine", which involves being stuck in his room with no food and no human contact, real or electronic. The episode manages to fit twenty-four references to Butters' grounding in its runtime, several of which provide hints as to how the realities mesh together. For example, when Butters is brought back from the hospital, Stephen grounds him for the Groin Attack, and Cartman, who has just been told by Steve that he is in a VR simulation, confronts Butters over his presumed role in the prank; in the very next scene, Butters calls Kyle in a panic, saying he's been grounded for no reason, implying that he's not the same Butters whom Cartman just confronted.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Discussed when Cartman intimidates Butters into submission by telling him he should not remove the headset while in VR because it would split his neurons and cause him to die in real life.
- You Say Tomato: As in several previous episodes, Cartman completely mangles the pronunciation of coup de grâce, and doesn't care when Kyle corrects him:Cartman: Come on, guys! This is the cure de gars of Butters' torture!
Kyle: Coup de grâce, Cartman.
Cartman: [thinking Kyle is agreeing with him] Thank you, Kyle!
