When Ike starts seeing ghosts of recently dead celebrities, the boys try to do everything that they can to help him. They soon learn that the ghosts are haunting Ike because they're waiting in purgatory. Unfortunately, their efforts to purge the ghosts only gets Ike possessed by a famous ghost who has unfulfilled dreams.
This episode includes examples of:
- Abusive Parents: One mother pinches her daughter's cheeks despite having cheek implants that makes it more painful while another slaps her daughter for losing the beauty pageant (after she apologized for not winning).
- Afterlife Angst: Ike begins seeing the ghosts of dead celebrities. It turns out it's because the celebrities have been in Purgatory for months since Michael Jackson refuses to believe he's dead.
- Age-Inappropriate Dress: Since the Little Miss Pageant was a child beauty pageant, this is a given.
- Big Brother Instinct: Kyle towards Ike.
- Bittersweet Ending: Played for Laughs, all the celebrities are finally free from purgatory, only to go to Hell at the end. However, they're more pissed off that they have to wait even longer after they get to Hell than the fact that they're in Hell in general.
- The Bus Came Back: This is Michael Jackson's 3rd appearance on South Park.
- Call-Back: Stan groans out an exasperated "Oh no..." when he realizes it's Michael Jackson possessing Ike, likely alluding to the last time the boys had to deal with him.
- Comically Missing the Point: Subverted. It seems that everyone is more focused that Chipotle food leaves blood stains in your underwear rather than the fact it makes you bleed out your ass (except for Stan who seems to be the only person capable of eating Chipotle without crapping blood), however two people imply that they like Chipotle so much that they don't care. However, this trope is played straight when Kyle and Cartman spend about a third of the episode arguing about why Cartman keeps eating something that made people crap blood, and then just brush it off by using "Chipotlaway", instead of focusing on helping the dead celebrities' ghosts.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Ike's parents forbid him from talking about ghosts. Granted, they're under the assumption that he's just giving himself nightmares by thinking about them.
- Here We Go Again!: The dead celebrities are forced to wait at Hell's gate because its a tow-in gate. The episode ends with all of them groaning in response.
- Interrupted Intimacy: The episode starts with Ike walking in on Gerald and Sheila having sex.
- If the self-serving kind counts, then the two male pageant judges when the cops bust them.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gerald is horribly rude to Ike when he's scared of the celebrities, though that might've been because he came in when he and Sheila were having sex, but when he leaves, he shows genuine concern for Ike.
- Large Ham: Billy Mays, just like his real life counterpart.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The two male judges get arrested for masturbating to the girls in the beauty pageant.
- Malaproper: Kyle pronounces "Chipotlaway" as "Chipotaway" at one point.
- Not Afraid of Hell: The dead celebrities at the end are only bothered by the fact that Hell is a tow-in gate.
- Only Sane Man: Only Kyle seems to care that Chipotle food makes you crap blood, and spends about a third of the episode arguing about why Cartman keeps eating something that made people crap blood, and then just brush it off by using "Chipotlaway", instead of focusing on helping the dead celebrities' ghosts. Stan's thoughts are simply how he's never even had this problem.
- The Paranoiac: The Ghost Hunters managed to literally scare themselves shitless, by thinking normal things (a cigarette lighter, a TV, urine, etc.) were all paranormal activity.
- Pet the Dog: Cartman is legitimately concerned about wanting to help Billy Mays' ghost, and helps both Billy Mays and Ike by giving the female judge at the beauty pageant some "Chipotlaway" when he notices her eating Chipotle, in exchange for helping Ike, who was possessed by Michael Jackson at the time, win the beauty pageant.
- Quieting the Unquiet Dead: A bunch of celebrities like Billy Mays, Bea Arthur and Walter Cronkite start haunting Ike because they can't depart until Michael Jackson accepts his death, which he won't until he becomes what he always wanted to be: a little white girl. The boys remedy this by disguising a Michael Jackson-possessed Ike as a girl and entering them in a beauty pageant.
- Refuge in Audacity: The two male judges made absolutely no attempts to hide the fact they were masturbating to the girls (and Ike) in the beauty pageant. Somehow no one notices, not even the female judge between them, until the cops show up and take them away.
- Running Gag:
- Kyle wondering why people would eat Chipotle if it makes you crap blood.
- Billy Mays making product placements despite being in purgatory.
- Shout-Out: When Ike is at therapy, he says "I see dead... celebrities."
- Skewed Priorities:
- Despite the food causing bloody diarrhea, people continue eating at Chipotle because it's that good.
- Kyle calling out the above is this as well, as it causes him to lose focus of the goal to free Ike of the celebrity ghosts.
- Stage Mom: The episode gives beauty pageant moms a pretty unflattering depiction: showing them not caring about their daughters' mental or physical health in the slightest, with one girl complaining about her cheek implants causing pain.
- Take That!:
- The second half makes several cracks at child beauty pageants - from the judges to the contestants to the mothers.
- They have an entire scene devoted to insulting Ghost Hunters, even calling it "The gayest show in the fucking world."
- The Chipotle running gag. Zig-zagged with that one in that several people say the food is so good they don't care that it makes them crap blood. Stan also mentions how this hasn't happened to him whenever he ate it.
- The episode makes a few cracks at Michael Jackson and jokes that he wants to be seen as a little white girl.
- Purgatory is a blatant jab at how time consuming and inefficient airlines are and the amount of frustration they cause. The fact that it's meant to take spirits to the afterlife could be a pun on Spirit Airlines
.
- This Is Gonna Suck: The boys when they realize Michael Jackson is the cause of Ike's haunting.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Poltergeist, complete with a parody of Zelda Rubinstein's Tangina character.
