Recap / South Park S 22 E 6 Time To Get Cereal

Original air date: 11/7/2018

When dead citizens start popping up all over town, the boys realize they need Al Gore's help. The boys are willing to do almost anything to save the town, and themselves, but it may be just too late.

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Tropes:

• An Aesop:
  • Don't ignore pressing issues because it can be too late to stop them if they arrive.
    • Shortly after that, don't try to excuse further inaction on your part by saying that others won't do it, so why should you? Otherwise, a ManBearPig will gnaw your head off.
  • Just because certain people are correct about a threat doesn't mean they're up to the task of fixing it, and may just be smug assholes who are content to say "I told you so." Everyone may remember An Inconvenient Truth, but Gore himself helped prop up the very Fossil Fuel companies that made Climate Change a problem in the first place while he was Vice President.
  • That said, Al Gore was still right about the dangers of Global Warming, so the kids apologizing? It's to show that sometimes you just need to suck it up and admit when you're wrong.
• Art Evolution: Al Gore now has a beard to keep up with his real-life counterpart (even though he shaved it off before the episode aired).
• Asshole Victim: The father at the Red Lobster, who is a jab at people who don't think anything needs to be done about Global Warming, is mauled to death by ManBearPig.
• The Bus Came Back: After not being seen since the 201st episode, Al Gore returns. To a lesser extent, Ned and Satan also return. This is also the first time Ned has spoken since Season 5's "Here Comes the Neighborhood".
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Strong Woman tells Yates that the student's death wasn't a shooting (which is made clear by the fact his body is mutilated), but Yates, being the corrupt moron he is, still dismisses it as a shooting.
  • Stan and the others tell the police they weren't responsible for the killings and ManBearPig is on the loose, but the police don't believe them and have them arrested for the killings.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with the four boys falsely arrested, with ManBearPig still on the loose.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Continuing the season's theme of everybody accepting school shootings as a mundane fact of life, Sgt. Yates describes the violent killings done by ManBearPig as 'school shootings' even though they take place outside of school and involve no firearms. He also says things like "Outside of school is supposed to be the one place children are safe!" a few times throughout the episode.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Turns out Al Gore was right about ManBearPig all along. (ManBearPig is a metaphor for Global Warming, which Trey Parker does believe is real this time; he denied it back in 2004 and 2006, in several episodes of Seasons 9 and 10).
• Deal with the Devil: The reason ManBearPig is attacking. It's revealed that it is a being who lives to tempt humanity, and if it's hunted down, it will make a deal in exchange for mercy. Like any Deal with the Devil, there's also a catch, for it will slaughter and massacre for several years after the deal has been made.
• Dirty Cop: Sgt. Yates falsely implicates Cartman and Kenny in the recent rash of school shootings due to being the ones most likely to do it (even though they didn't), just so he could play Red Dead Redemption II uninterrupted. He also implicates Kyle and Stan as accessories.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Satan loves playing Red Dead Redemption II just as much as Yates and Al Gore, briefly bonding with the latter over it.
• Hate Sink: Yates is at his absolute worst in this episode, being a particularly nasty example of both Dirty Cop and Police Are Useless. He not only classifies the attacks as school shootings, despite nobody being shot to death (so much as ripped to shreds) and most of the attacks taking place nowhere near the school, he also falsely arrests the four boys by using flimsy excuses to frame them. All so he can go home early to play his video game, which he even domestically abuses his wife over.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Lampsahded with the boys with Al Gore. Al Gore does something questionable silly or outrageous, like having Satan team up with them right off the bat, the boys would call him out for how unlikely it would work... then be proven wrong.
• It's All About Me:
  • Al Gore cares more about making the boys admit he was right about ManBearPig than he does about actually stopping the creature. Justified however as this is meant to be a follow up to the original ManBearPig episode and how that entire episode was about making fun of Al Gore for believing in ManBearPig.
  • Sgt. Yates as well. He wants to play Red Dead Redemption II, but can't find the time due to his job. So when ManBearPig starts its rampage, Yates immediately classifies it as a "school shooting" once a single child dies at South Park Elementary and immediately begins to frame Cartman and Kenny as the killers, with Stan and Kyle later added as accessories.
• It's Up to You: When the kids are confronted by the police, Gore states that at this point he's too much of a laughingstock to be taken seriously and that it's up to the younger generation to deal with ManBearPig. He laments how difficult it will be for them and that they're bound to face ridicule.
• I Warned You: Al Gore is clearly relishing making the boys apologize for previously mocking his warnings.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The fact that the boys had to apologize to Al Gore before he'd help with ManBearPig did not go unnoticed.
• Mundane Solution: When asked about ManBearPig, Satan states that the answer can be found in the greatest depository of knowledge: the local library.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Marvin has this reaction when the boys get arrested at the end.
• Never Found the Body: Ned is taken away by ManBearPig as opposed to being ripped into a bloody pulp on the spot, so there is a chance for survival. In the season finale "Bike Parade" we see Ned alive and wrapped in bandages.
• Not Me This Time: Cartman is accused of committing the school shootings and ManBearPig's rampage - things that he actually didn't do. However unlike with the Skankhunt42 incident, the boys actually believe him.
• Police Are Useless: Sgt. Yates believes that murders that happen outside of school still count as school shootings. He also doesn't bother to do a thorough investigation into the actual shootings and instead frames Cartman and Kenny, thinking that they're the most likely suspects due to Cartman's history of violence and Kenny being a social outcast. Bonus points for Yates and the rest of the police force thinking that all the dead citizens died because of a "school shooting" when all the victims have been clearly mauled to death to the point that most of them have been literally shred to ribbons, and only one child was actually killed at South Park Elementary.
• Real After All: ManBearPig. In his previous appearances, he was always portrayed as a product of Al Gore's imagination. The only time he was ever seen as "real" was in the Imaginationland Trilogy. This time, though? He's really out there.
• Running Gag: People such as Al Gore, Sgt. Yates and his wife, and Satan playing Red Dead Redemption II religiously, to the point of coming off as Product Placement.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • The entire episode is basically the creators making one big apology for when they made the original ManBearPig episode (which is meant to be a stand-in for Global Warming) and how they treated Gore before and called him delusional.
  • The Red Lobster scene on its own can also be interpreted as this trope.
• Sequel Episode: To the season 10 episode "ManBearPig".
• Took a Level in Badass: Up until this episode, almost every appearance of Al Gore on the show depicts him being a delusional whinny loser who is trying to play hero but makes things worst for everyone. Here: not only was he right about ManBearPig as well other things, but he actually manages to trick the boys into making fools of themselves too. Though, he does cross the line to still being an egoistical jerk.
• Take That!:
  • The Reveal that it was Stan's grandpa who made the deal with ManBearPig is a commentary on how the Baby Boomers (and, to a lesser extent, Gen Xers) made economic and political decisions that had short-term benefits and long-term consequences, which would screw over any generations that followed.
  • While the show admits that Al Gore was correct about Global Warming (using ManBearPig as the stand in), he still gets mocked for his self-righteous personality.
  • The most vicious one is reserved for climate denialists with the Red Lobster scene.
• Too Dumb to Live: There is the father at the Red Lobster who talks with his wife about ManBearPig as if the beast was Global Warming and being completely dismissive of the crisis in town. Then ManBearPig attacks the Red Lobster, and the man completely ignores the carnage behind him even as his wife is panicking. When she DOES get him to see ManBearPig butchering everybody else in the restaurant, he then dismisses the chance of actually stopping the monster with his snooty tone until ManBearPig comes for him and slaughters him in front of his wife and kids. The wife in Red Lobster doesn't get hit with this trope because she does try to warn her husband, and when ManBearPig starts to get close, she begins to pick up her son to start running away.
• Wham Shot: As the boys are arrested on TV, the camera pans out to the old folks' home where Grandpa Marsh's shocked reaction reveals that he was the one who made the bargain with ManBearPig all those years ago.
• Would Hurt a Child: ManBearPig does not hold back, and it quickly becomes a common sight that there are a bunch of kids torn to pieces across the town. The true horror sinks in with the family in Red Lobster with the dismissive father. While the mother might have gotten away with their son, their infant daughter was sitting on the inside seat next to the dad right when ManBearPig started to bite into his head.