{"id":217241,"date":"2021-03-17T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/south-park-vaccination-special-improvement\/"},"modified":"2021-03-17T00:00:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T00:00:26","slug":"south-park-the-vaccination-special-was-a-vast-improvement-over-the-pandemic-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/03\/17\/south-park-the-vaccination-special-was-a-vast-improvement-over-the-pandemic-special\/","title":{"rendered":"South Park: The Vaccination Special Was A Vast Improvement Over The Pandemic Special"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

During the COVID-19 pandemic, in lieu of another season of the show, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have provided South Park<\/strong><\/em><\/a> fans with two hour-long specials: \u201cThe Pandemic Special,\u201d released way back in September, which focused on the origins of the virus and the interminable uncertainty of endless lockdowns, and \u201cSouth ParQ Vaccination Special,\u201d released earlier this month<\/a>, which took a more optimistic approach to the end of the pandemic and mixed in the chaos of the 2020 presidential election for good measure. While both provided plenty of laughs at a crummy time, the latter was a vast improvement over the former.<\/p>\n

For starters, \u201cThe Vaccination Special\u201d had a more cohesive plot than \u201cThe Pandemic Special,\u201d which was more of a series of COVID-related sketches about Zoom calls and mask mandates loosely strung together by a story about Randy\u2019s virus-themed pot strain<\/a>. From the offset, \u201cThe Vaccination Special\u201d establishes that everyone in town wants a COVID vaccine and they\u2019re in short supply \u2013 hilariously comparing Walgreens to an exclusive nightclub. There are plenty of COVID sketches laced into \u201cThe Vaccination Special,\u201d like the vaccinated old people making out and riding motorcycles to show off their freedom to non-vaccinated adults, but they all serve the plot.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0The 10 Best South Park Episodes, According To IMDb<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Within the first couple of scenes, \u201cThe Vaccination Special\u201d does two things \u201cThe Pandemic Special\u201d didn\u2019t: focus on the show\u2019s actual main characters<\/a> and give them a goal to work toward. The boys\u2019 teacher quits after they pull a prank on her and they decide to make it up to her by getting her vaccinated. \u201cThe Pandemic Special\u201d focused almost exclusively on Randy. A huge chunk of the story is dedicated to Randy\u2019s semen magically curing COVID, which squandered an opportunity to satirize history as it unfolded. \u201cThe Vaccination Special\u201d didn\u2019t squander that opportunity.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Focusing on the kids as opposed to their parents was a fun throwback to the show\u2019s classic era. \u201cThe Pandemic Special\u201d followed Randy as he profited from the pandemic with a COVID-inspired weed strain and discovered that he created the virus when he went to China on an ill-fated business trip in \u201cBand in China,\u201d the episode that unsurprisingly got South Park<\/em> banned in China<\/a>. \u201cThe Pandemic Special\u201d shared season 23\u2019s problem of focusing too much on Randy and Tegridy Farms and too little on anything else. \u201cVaccination Special\u201d refocuses the series on Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny as they try to salvage their fading, socially distanced \u201cbro-ship\u201d by stealing COVID vaccinations for their teachers. Randy only appears briefly, selling a new vaccine-themed strain.<\/p>\n

In the past few years, South Park<\/em>\u2019s headline-ripping storytelling model has\u00a0been\u00a0impacted by the fact that the real-life political arena has become more absurd than any political satire. Parker and Stone have always used South Park<\/em> to exaggerate reality<\/a>, but that\u2019s hard to do when there\u2019s no room for exaggeration. Mr. Garrison has suffered from being the show\u2019s Trump stand-in, but the \u201cVaccination Special\u201d handled post-Trump Garrison perfectly. At the end of his controversial presidential term, Garrison hopes to return to South Park and for his life to just go back to normal \u2013 but almost everyone in town hates him. This is a hilarious next step for Garrison\u2019s character. He\u2019s also been given a new\u00a0Mr. Slave-esque\u00a0sidekick in the form of the scantily clad Secret Service agent assigned to protect him, \u201cMr. Service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon returning to South Park, Garrison is ostracized by nearly everybody in the grocery store \u2013 except \u201cthe Whites.\u201d The Whites, first introduced in season 21,\u00a0are\u00a0revealed in\u00a0the \u201cVaccination Special\u201d to be ardent QAnon believers, eagerly awaiting their next instructions from President Garrison<\/a>. Garrison wants nothing to do with them and tells\u00a0Bob White to \u201cblow s*** out your d*******!\u201d The Whites believe this is a coded message and work with South Park\u2019s other Q supporters to decipher it. Through some wild mental gymnastics, they convince themselves he wants them to teach America\u2019s youth about QAnon, so they found \u201cTutornon\u201d to capitalize on the shortage of teachers and go maskless into kids\u2019 houses to preach the teachings of Q.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Satirizing QAnon was a unique challenge for South Park<\/em><\/a>, because a conspiracy theory that wholeheartedly posits that there\u2019s a\u00a0child-murdering left-wing cabal run by Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey that secretly controls the world sounds more like a South Park<\/em> storyline than an actual thing. It would\u2019ve seemed impossible to make satire out of it, but Parker and Stone surprisingly nailed it. They took the conspiracy a step further, revealing this cabal\u2019s ability to literally alter reality as \u201cthe elites\u201d take over the show to cut away from \u201cthe truth\u201d and transport Bob White into the snowy wilderness and turn him into a giant penis.<\/p>\n

The ending of \u201cVaccination Special\u201d was much stronger than that of \u201cThe Pandemic Special.\u201d Where \u201cThe Pandemic Special\u201d ended with everyone in town growing a mustache from smoking Randy\u2019s semen and Randy telling Sharon he\u2019ll probably make another special, \u201cThe Vaccination Special\u201d offered a hopeful glimpse at the end of the pandemic<\/a>. As the Israeli government arrives to vaccinate everybody in town, they all celebrate the fact that their lives can go back to normal with a big party. One can only dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pandemic Special\u201d was a welcome return for the show<\/a> in the middle of a challenging year. It had a ton of strong moments, like the police arming themselves to the teeth in military gear set to \u201cKickstart My Heart\u201d or Butters\u2019 frustration over the ever-expanding timeframe of when the pandemic will be over, but it never quite felt like the sum of its parts. This could be because it was the show\u2019s first special and the writers weren\u2019t accustomed to the format yet, which is pitched somewhere between an extended episode and a condensed season. With their second special, they nailed down the pacing and structure of an hour-long South Park<\/em> episode. The promise of COVID-era South Park<\/em> is so tantalizing that it\u2019s almost impossible to deliver on. But where \u201cThe Pandemic Special\u201d fell short, \u201cThe Vaccination Special\u201d succeeds.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Every South Park Video Game, Ranked<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n

\\\"IT\u96fb\u8166\u88dc\u7fd2
\u7acb\u523b\u8a3b\u518a\u53ca\u5831\u540d\u96fb\u8166\u88dc\u7fd2\u8ab2\u7a0b\u5427!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<\/br>Find A Teacher Form:\r\n<\/br>https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/1vREBnX5n262umf4wU5U2pyTwvk9O-JrAgblA-wH9GFQ\/viewform?edit_requested=true#responses\r\n<\/br><\/br>Email:\r\n<\/br>public1989two@gmail.com






\r\nwww.itsec.hk<\/a>
\r\nwww.itsec.vip<\/a>
\r\nwww.itseceu.uk<\/a>
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Park’s first COVID special was a welcome distraction from the pandemic, but the second one finally delivered on its promise.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1074,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"South Park: The Vaccination Special Was A Vast Improvement Over The Pandemic Special - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"South Park's first COVID special was a welcome distraction from the pandemic, but the second one finally delivered on its promise."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217242,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217241\/revisions\/217242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}