Original air date: 10/19/2005
Cartman and Stan crash a boat into the world's largest beaver dam protecting the town of Beaverton. People blame Global Warming for the flood.
"Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow" contains examples of:
- All Jews Are Cheapskates: Cartman states that all Jews have bags of "Jew Gold" around their necks. Cartman demands that Kyle hand his gold over. Kyle, appalled, tries to convince him that this is a Jew stereotype, but Cartman doesn't relent, and Kyle pulls out a small sack of gold that had been tied around his neck. Cartman proceeds to insist that all Jews carry a fake sack of "Jew Gold" to keep the real one, and demands that Kyle hand over the real gold. Kyle doesn't hand over the real Jew gold either; he tosses it into a fire rather than let Cartman have it.
- Apathetic Citizens: The town of South Park refuses to help the people of Beaverton since they are more concerned about what caused the flood and believe Earth is dropping to sub-zero.
- Big Dam Plot: The plot of the episode is the town of Beaverton being flooded after Cartman and Stan crash a boat into the dam.
- Cassandra Truth: Stan finally decides to come clean and tell the town that he destroyed a beaver dam and caused a massive flood in a neighboring city. The adults of the town, being complete idiots, misinterpret this as him saying that everyone in South Park is to blame for the destruction of the dam. The episode ends with everybody in the town saying, "I broke the dam", and Stan's yelled confession being ignored completely.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: The people of Beaverton are all extremely sarcastic in their thanks for the military's rescue attempts, although it's hard to blame them considering how they were first being purposefully ignored for seemingly no real reason and when someone made an attempt to rescue them, they just made the situation much worse.
- Dramatic Irony: The South Park citizens are panicking since they believe Global Warming is responsible for the Beaverton flood, which was really caused by Stan and Cartman ramming their boat into the Beaverton dam by accident. Even when Stan confesses what really happened, they still don't get it.
- Faux Horrific:
- While fearing the effects of global warming is warranted, fleeing from literal nothing and believing it to be global warming is not.
- Kyle tossing his "Jew Gold" into flames sends Cartman into hysterics.
- I Am Spartacus: Stan's attempts to confess "I broke the dam" cause the other townspeople to falsely confess the same, misinterpreting this as symbolic (as in they are all responsible) instead of literal (he took a joyride in a boat and crashed into it). They continue this into the credits as Stan is getting increasingly specific (and profane) about what he meant and still be ignored until he closes the episode with "Aw, fuck it!"
- Idiot Ball: Stan trusting Cartman and crashing the boat in the first place wasn't one of his better decisions. Lampshaded later in the episode when he confesses to Kyle, saying that he just let Cartman egg him on.
- Karma Houdini: Stan and Cartman will likely get away with hijacking a boat, crashing it into the dam, flooding Beaverton, and causing mass hysteria thanks to the adults' sheer stupidity, even as the former tries to confess.
- Kent Brockman News: Tom Pusslicker talks about the recent events with a field reporter who hasn't actually seen what has happened but is just reporting it. Every news reporter also makes up ridiculously exaggerated numbers of casualties, even stating at one point how having a death toll of hundreds of thousands would be a very bad thing indeed since "Beaverton only has a population of 8000".
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Stan, Kyle, and Cartman try to fix their mistake by stealing another boat and using it to save the stranded people of Beaverton because everyone else is too busy finding a scapegoat for the destruction of the dam to bother rescuing them, only for them to lose control of it in the same way they did with the first boat, zoom right past the people they meant to rescue, and crash right into an oil refinery, setting what little of the town wasn't already flooded on fire.
- Only Sane Man: Kyle is really the only character to keep his head on his shoulders throughout the episode. The adults are preoccupied with theorizing the cause of the dam's destruction and panic when they believe it's global warming; the military subscribes to the theory and takes way too long to rescue Beaverton citizens; and Stan and Cartman attempt to dodge the consequences for causing the mess in the first place. Kyle, however, tries convincing Stan to confess his culpability in the matter multiple times and only goes along with the rescue mission when the latter refuses to budge the first time.
- Poke the Poodle: Kyle throwing his "Jew Gold" into the fiery ruins of the town rather than giving it to Cartman is a pretty cleverly done version of this. Cartman, being who he is, reacts as if Kyle committed multiple cardinal sins at once.
- Rule of Three: After Stan, Kyle, and Cartman leave, Randy volunteers to go after them, whereupon he is told "You can't go, you'll freeze to death!" whereupon Gerald volunteers to go and is told, "You can't go, you'll freeze to death!" Cue Stephen Stotch volunteering and a third random person reluctantly saying "You can't go, you'll freeze to death."
- Sarcastic Confession: Realizing that he won't get in trouble for what he and Stan did, Cartman joins in with the other people claiming they broke the dam.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sick of trying to convince the town that he destroyed the dam, Stan just leaves the townsfolk to wallow in their idiocy.Stan: Oh, fuck it!
- Shout-Out:
- The title of the episode is a reference to The Day After Tomorrow. Several scenes allude to imagery from the film such as Randy delivering an address on what's coming, drawing on a map, and leading a team to rescue the boys in what he believes is freezing temperatures.
- The man saying "George Bush doesn't care about beavers" is a paraphrase of Kanye West's famous declaration "George Bush doesn't care about black people."
- A man is seen hoarding beer during the scramble to find supplies akin to an infamous photo of a man scavenging for beer in the aftermath of Katrina.
- The map drawings are also a reference to a similarly unfortunate map drawing a reporter did during Katrina.
- Skewed Priorities: People care more about finding out how the dam broke and flood the town than rescuing the townsfolk.
