Recap / South Park S 21 E 10 Splatty Tomato

Original air date: 12/6/2017

After the events of the last episode, President Garrison is inexplicably haunting the kids of South Park and the surrounding countryside. To make matters worse, Ike's gone missing. The boys decide that the only thing to do is band together and search the countryside for him, in emulation of Stranger Things and It. Meanwhile, PC Principal and Strong Woman are struggling to come to terms with their new relationship.

Tropes

• 0% Approval Rating: Garrison comes extremely close; only 3% of the country likes him. The White family, however, are part of that 3%, and the father, at least, is very vocal about it.
• An Aesop: Heidi realizes that Cartman didn't turn her into a horrible Jerkass like him, but rather it was her own self-proclaimed victimhood. Playing the Victim Card and blaming others for your own faults guarantees that you'll never be able to make any positive changes and be happy in life.
• Angry White Man: Mr. White; Nobody ever cares about the Whites! Hillary would have made this page worse!
• Armor-Piercing Response: After Heidi Turner mocks Kyle for when she rejected his feelings for her and went back to Cartman, Kyle's response makes her realize she's turned into another version of Cartman. Doubles as a very short Reason You Suck Speech.
  Heidi: Oh, what's the matter Kyle? You don't want me around 'cause you had the hots for me, and I shot you down?
  Kyle: I would never have the hots for the person you are now.
  (Heidi is stunned by Kyle's answer)
• Back for the Finale: Barbrady makes a brief appearance at the end of this episode who hasn't been seen since season 19's finale.
• Bait-and-Switch: The adults seem to have found Garrison's hiding spot, they open the tent, and find... PC Principal and Strong Woman having sex.
• Beyond Redemption:
  • Kyle gets this attitude towards Heidi when he gives up trying to save her from an emotionally abusive relationship, simply remarking that he'll never have any feelings for the person she's become. However, Heidi manages to surprise him (and everyone else) in the end, by actually forgoing her Jerkass behavior and breaking up with Cartman for good, showing that she is capable of redeeming herself.
  • Heidi herself eventually realizes this about Cartman, when it's made clear to her that he'll never change his horrible behavior and that staying with him has only dragged her down to his level.
• Bittersweet Ending: How this episode and this season overall ends. Kyle is able to find his little brother Ike and stop President Garrison, and Heidi is finally able to break up with Cartman for good after realizing how much their abusive relationship has changed her. However, Garrison escapes captivity with people claiming things are about to get worse now that he's become desperate, leaving the season on a Cliffhanger. To make matters worse, since Ike failed to deliver Garrison to Canada, there will likely be another war between the United States and Canada.
  • Also, Canada is, you know, nuked, with casualties running into the millions.
• Book Ends: At the end of the first episode of this season, Cartman breaks up with Heidi, believing himself to be a victim of an emotionally abusive relationship. At the end of this episode, Heidi breaks up with Cartman, no longer wishing to be the victim of an emotionally abusive relationship.
• Call-Back: Two seasons' worth:
  • Most of the non-school locations important to the Heidi-Cartman relationship get visited.
  • Toronto has been wiped off the map by Garrison.
  • Cartman threatens to kill himself, even singing his song again, if Heidi breaks up with him. This time, Heidi doesn't buy it at all and leaves.
• Cliffhanger: Garrison escapes captivity, as part of the Whole-Plot Reference to It, and Cartman is threatening suicide to prevent Heidi from breaking up with him for real, saying it out loud to be the center of attention.
• Comical Overreacting: Everyone vomits profusely after learning about PC Principal and Strong Woman's relationship, even the usual Only Sane Man Sharon.
• Continuity Porn: Heidi gets unpleasantly reminded of many events and locations she went through since she became promoted to main cast since Season 20.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • After being mistreated by Heidi in the previous two episodes and mocking his lost brother in this one, Kyle coldly snaps at Heidi, giving her "The Reason You Suck" Speech that makes her realize how much she has degenerated.
  • Heidi finally confronts Cartman for his toxic influence on her and holds him at gunpoint before deciding to dump him and refusing to listen to his threats of suicide.
• The Dragon: Mr. White appoints himself as this to President Garrison.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After enduring a lot of hardships in the past few episodes Kyle has finally achieved his happy ending. First off, Kyle managed to find his little brother Ike and help him capture the president, after spending the entirety of this episode searching and worrying about him. Secondly, Kyle has finally managed to get Heidi to break up with Cartman for good after making her realize what Cartman's abuse has transformed her into, and by the next season Heidi fully returns to her old self, while implying that she and Kyle have become Amicable Exes.
• Easily Forgiven: Even after Kyle went to the trouble of being like his mom and (inadvertently) got the president to bomb Canada, Stan, Craig, Tweek, and even Cartman still thinks of Kyle as a friend and decides to help him find Ike and defeat President Garrison.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even Mr. White finds the idea of co-workers having relations to be nauseating.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse:
  • Kyle tries to justify his actions (trying to censor Canadian TV) by telling Ike he's been through a lot in the past few episodes (getting dumped by Heidi, her becoming another Eric Cartman, getting picked on afterwards etc.), Ike angrily retorts back that his actions resulted in the president nuking Canada (Ike's birth country) and causing millions of deaths.
    Ike: Oh, stop being a victim! Jesus Christ!
  • Likewise, after hearing Kyle's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Heidi Turner realizes that even though she suffered a mentally abusive relationship with Eric Cartman, it doesn't mean she can act like such a horrible person. She eventually learns to take responsibility for herself by breaking up with Cartman.
• Grew a Spine:
  • Heidi finally grows one when she breaks up with Cartman and ignores his suicide threats.
  • Kyle also grows one after being mostly silent in the face of Heidi's abusive treatment of him in the past few episodes, telling her that he would never be attracted to the person she has become, humbling her in the process.
• Hated by All:
  • Mr. White gets the whole town booing at him for vocally defending Garrison.
  • Cartman as well. When Cartman threatens to kill himself if Heidi leaves him, not only does Heidi not fall for it, but despite being surrounded by a large group of people, including his so-called friends and their families, nobody moves to stop him. Just before Heidi gives him the final big flat no, Eric tries speaking to the audience again, telling them to show him their support and say they don't want him to kill himself. To his surprise, still not one person speaks up for him.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: In the final minutes of the episode, Bob steals the sheriff's handgun to defend President Garrison, which leads to Randy calling him out and trying to reason with him. Just when it looks like Randy has reached Bob and the latter is starting to come to his senses, Heidi swipes the gun from him to point it at Cartman. It's here where Heidi pulls her Heel–Face Turn and when everyone's distracted, Garrison escapes. Later episodes show that Bob continues to support Garrison.
• Heel–Face Turn: Heidi pulls one after coming to her senses and breaks up with Cartman for good.
• Heel Realization: Thanks to Kyle, Heidi realizes just how she's changed since she started going out with Cartman and of his attempts to murder her.
• The Hero: Ike is the main hero of this episode, serving as the biggest driving force to stop the president. Ike's actions have also led to the end of Cartman and Heidi's relationship as Ike's journey to find the President is what causes the boys and Heidi to look for Ike; Heidi revisits all the locations where her romance with Cartman was formed, and reevaluates her relationship with him, leading to her decision to break up with Cartman for good.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Heidi comes to realize the biggest factor to becoming a Jerkass similar to Cartman wasn't Cartman himself, but her own victim mindset.
• Hypocritical Humor: One of the people disgusted by PC Principal and Strong Woman being in a relationship despite being co-workers is Richard Tweak, even though he himself runs a coffeehouse with his wife. Similarly, Randy and Sharon dabbled in a home improvement series together.
• I Hate Past Me: Heidi switches between fondly remembering her more naïve and happier self, while also being bitter and showing contempt for her.
• Interrupted Intimacy: PC Principal and Strong Woman in quite possibly the most embarrassing way possible, as half the town caught them.
• Irony: Despite being a parody of It, the adults can actually see the monster (Garrison).
  • Stan is the leader of the group, just like Bill, but his name sounds like a mix between Stan Uris and Beverly Marsh.
• It's All My Fault: Kyle says this nearly word-for-word when Ike vanishes to find and capture Garrison.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Mr. White complains about the school having a liberal agenda. Given PC Principal's previous behavior, Mr. White's paranoia isn't totally unreasonable.
• Jerkass Realization: Heidi finally realizes how horrible she has become thanks to Cartman's influence on her this season.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Basically, everything Cartman has done this season coming to bite him back in the ass. He manipulates Heidi into staying in a dysfunctional relationship with him all while he still thinks of himself as "the victim of her abuse". Not only does Heidi learn of Cartman's manipulative nature and his attempts to kill her, but realizes how his victim mindset changed her, causing her to break up with Cartman for good and ignore his suicide bluffs that originally kept her from leaving him. To add even more karmic irony to the mix, the only reason Cartman keeps the relationship going is because of the attention Heidi gives him. By the time they break up however, everyone is too focused on The President and the Whites to pay attention to their breakup and his suicide bluffs.
• Last Episode, New Character: The final episode for season 21 introduces the White family, barring Jason.
• Last-Name Basis: One of the recurring students named Jason's last name is revealed to be White.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Mr. White's rant about how no one cares about his family also applies to the fact Jason has been Out of Focus for all 21 seasons and the rest of his family's debut appearance is treated as a case of Remember the New Guy?.
• Leave Me Alone!: Kyle initially rejects his friends' offer to help him find Ike, but eventually relents.
• Montages: Parodied; Stan insists that their search for the President has to be set to "kickass 80's music". Craig does this by setting Pandora to songs from the 80s, which leads to scenes of the kids walking around spooky forests set to love songs. Later, Stan tries using Spotify instead, which isn't any better.
• Must Make Amends:
  • After Kyle's furious rant indirectly causes President Garrison to nuke Canada resulting in Kyle's brother Ike to go out searching for him, Kyle makes it his mission to find Ike and stop Garrison.
  • Kyle's friends decide to help him find his brother after their previous apathy towards his social concerns unwittingly led to him going off the deep end.
  • After realizing that her victim mindset has caused her to become Cartman's Distaff Counterpart, Heidi decides to forgo said mindset and break up with Cartman to pave a more productive future for herself.
• Nice Guy: Or guys in this case. Kyle wants to find his little brother, Stan followed and encouraged the others to do so too, as well as being the most optimistic about it. Tweek and Craig also got this role, despite Tweek being a Nice Guy and Craig wanting nothing to do with the boys, but this took some Character Development.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: When Cartman threatens to kill himself in an attempt get Heidi to take him back, she simply states that's not going to work on her anymore and leaves him as his Villainous Breakdown intensifies.
• No-Sell: Cartman's manipulative tactics no longer work on Heidi, as Heidi merely responds to them by walking away, much to Cartman's surprise.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Despite Cartman's dislike for Kyle, he is still willing to help him find Ike and defeat President Garrison.
  • Butters' good behavior pays off; PC Principal and Strong Woman take him to a restaurant (possibly multiple times), even if it's just an excuse for them to take an informal date.
• Playing the Victim Card: The Whites, Garrison, and Cartman play the victim throughout the episode, with Mr. White ignoring his daughter's fears of the creepy president to blame it on her school.
• Political Overcorrectness: Mr. White feels this way about any negative coverage of the president.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kyle gives a very short but powerful one to Heidi Turner that makes her realize what kind of horrible person she's turned into. Doubles as an Armor-Piercing Response.
  Heidi: Oh, what's the matter Kyle? You don't want me around 'cause you had the hots for me, and I shot you down?
  Kyle: I would never have the hots for the person you are now.
  (Heidi is stunned by Kyle's answer)
• Sequel Hook: This season ends with the residents of South Park preparing for the worst now that the president has escaped their clutches.
  • Not only that, but plot threads of how the residents will handle the relationship between PC Principal and Strong Woman as well as the Whites are still left out in the open.
• Shared Family Quirks: Upon hearing of PC Principal and Strong Woman's tryst, Sharon vomits into Randy's face similar to how Stan used to vomit on Wendy.
• Ship Sinking: Once again, Heidi/Cartman: this time it's truly sunk for good with Heidi's determination to end the relationship and ignoring Cartman's repeated threats of suicide.
• Shout-Out:
  • This episode borrows elements from It (2017) and Stranger Things with Stan even mentioning those two.
  • The title is a reference to Rotten Tomatoes.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • Heidi tries to mock Kyle as usual, only for the latter to shut her down by giving her an Armor-Piercing Response.
  • Likewise, Cartman tries to fake suicide to manipulate Heidi into staying with him, but Heidi doesn't buy into it no more.
• Sleeping with the Boss: PC Principal and Strong Woman are now having a secret romantic affair, which is somehow vomit-inducing after everyone finds out.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Played for Laughs; See Montage above. The songs used during these scenes, as a Running Gag, are "Super Bowl Shuffle", "Gloria", "Hold On To The Night", "Pac-Man Fever", and "Queen of Hearts".
• Spared, but Not Forgiven: Heidi was about to kill Cartman as payback for being such a terrible boyfriend to her, only to not go through with it since it won’t undo the abuse he had inflicted on her and she herself must also take responsibility for letting him corrupt her. That said, Heidi still refuses to forgive Cartman and let him be held unaccountable for his actions where she breaks up with Cartman before abandoning him when he threatens to kill himself.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Cartman threatens to do this when Heidi tries to break up with him. However, Heidi doesn't fall for Cartman's threat and follows through with ending their relationship.
• Take That!: All over the place in true South Park fashion:
  • President Garrison is acting even more deranged than normal: running around the wilderness eating rodents, pets, and muttering about opinion polls.
  • The Whites are a double-barreled one to both White nationalists, who frame all their problems in the language of them being attacked on the basis of their race, and to do-no-wrong Trump voters who bring up irrelevant scandals of past political rivals to discredit current-day criticisms of their preferred politicians.
    • By extension Fox for constantly defending Trump.
  • The victim mindset gets a well-deserved going over with Heidi realizing that no matter how justified or not her "I'm a victim" attitude was, all she used it for was picking fights and justifying anger. The Whites are also part of this, extrapolating any criticisms of their actions or attitudes into perceived shots at who they are — it's not explicitly a racial thing but given the language involved, it's hard to miss it.
  • Spotify and Pandora for their poor song selection and nomenclature for their playlists that results in users not getting the kind of music they wanted to play.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After being hit with a streak of bad luck for the past few episodes (having Heidi dump him and go back to Cartman, then become his Distaff Counterpart, being made into a laughingstock by the rest of the school, and inadvertently getting Canada nuked), Kyle manages to reconcile with his friends, who help him find his missing brother and capture the President. He also finally manages to reach through to Heidi and get her to break up with Cartman.
• Took a Level in Badass: Going along with Grew a Spine, but Heidi takes a level of this after abandoning the victim mindset and breaks up with Cartman.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Kyle's friends (including Cartman) take pity on him and help him search for his missing brother, even when he initially rebuffs them, a far cry from the apathy they displayed towards him in the previous episodes.
  • Heidi, after receiving an Armor-Piercing Response from Kyle, breaks up with Cartman, hoping to make amends for her previous behavior.
• Tranquil Fury: When giving out his Armor-Piercing Response to Heidi, Kyle doesn't raise his voice. However, it's made abundantly clear through his tone that her recent streak of abusiveness has caused Kyle to lose all of his feelings for Heidi, leaving her shocked and hurt.
• Villainous Breakdown: Cartman has one after Heidi dumps him, ignores his suicide threats, and makes it clear that this time they're breaking up for good.
• Visual Pun: One of the attempts to capture the deranged President involves a "fox trap"... or to be more specific, a cardboard cutout lure that looks like a Fox News studio.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Everyone’s response to the discovery of PC Principal's and Strong Woman's relationship.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We're not told what became of Terrance & Phillip or the M.A.C. group after the previous episode, though the latter was likely disbanded.
• What Have I Become?: After hearing Kyle's Armor-Piercing Response, Heidi becomes disgusted with the fact that she has become Cartman's Distaff Counterpart. She initially blamed Cartman and was about to kill him for in her own words "turning her into this!" However, she soon realized that it was her "I'm a victim" attitude that resulted in her deteriorated state, so proceeded to resolve this issue by breaking up with Cartman, no longer being able to live as a victim.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Ike gives an angry one to Kyle after he got Canada nuked in the last episode.
    Ike: Oh, stop being a victim! Jesus Christ!
  • "Hero" is a loose term here, but Heidi realizes that Cartman was deliberately trying to get her kidnapped by the witch on Halloween and chews him out over it.
• Whole-Plot Reference: To It. The kids and Randy also bring up Stranger Things, though Randy can't ride a bike and falls down.
• With Friends Like These...: Not specifically stated in the episode, but judging from their lack of interaction, the European members of NATO are more than okay with Canada and the US kicking the shit out of each other.
• Won't Get Fooled Again: When Cartman once again threatens to kill himself to manipulate Heidi into not breaking up with him, Heidi simply tells him that his attempts at manipulation will not work on her anymore, before she officially breaks up with him and ignores his threats of suicide.
• "You!" Exclamation: Heidi gives this to Cartman when she initially blamed him for turning her into his Distaff Counterpart.

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