‘South Park’ Fans Think Cartman Is Going to Die in the Delayed New Episode
As Trey Parker and Matt Stone announced just earlier today, there will be no new episode of South Park this week, and some members of the show’s fandom are trying to be understanding about it — they know it takes time to plan a funeral.
On August 6th, South Park parodied popular right-wing activist and political debate YouTuber Charlie Kirk in the episode “Got a Nut,” in which Eric Cartman raged against the conservative debate content industry for “stealing my shtick” and resolved to become a masterdebater in Kirk’s image. Then, last week, on September 10th, a gunman at Utah Valley University murdered Kirk mid-debate, causing the far-right to erupt in anger at South Park and its creators, whom they blame for supposedly putting a target on Kirk’s back.
South Park and its creators have since been silent on Kirk’s death, and, now, Parker and Stone have punted their first episode post-slaying to next week, supposedly because they couldn’t finish the new Season 27 entry in time for tonight’s airing. Given that the only other time in South Park history when Parker and Stone couldn’t make their deadline was when the power went out in the South Park Studios, many fans are skeptical about official story regarding the delay. Some viewers have even speculated that the South Park creators may have planned to use Cartman’s Kirk parody more prominently in the coming episodes, and now they have to drastically course-correct.
Don't Miss
A few fans even have a theory on how they believe the South Park universe will adjust to the loss of Kirk, and it involves honoring his memory — in a way:
In a Reddit thread about the recently announced episode delay, South Park fans seemed to be in agreement that the postponement was due to the murder of Kirk, and many of them worried for a certain beloved character’s safety. “They’re definitely pacing around in circles in that writers’ room deciding whether or not to kill Cartman,” one of the top commenters postulated of the state of South Park behind the scenes.
“I’m hoping they kill Cartman and everyone in South Park has to pretend as if he was a great guy out of fear of going to jail,” another fan admitted. “Kyle will mention how Cartman chopped up a kids parents and fed them to him, and everyone will be like, ‘Wow what the fuck Kyle, what a disgusting divisive thing to say. Have some respect.’”
However, not everyone is convinced that South Park will go down this dark path and kill off its most popular character just to make a political statement. Wrote one fan, “I think they kill Clyde instead.”
Considering how Attorney General Pam Bondi recently announced that her Justice Department will “target” and “go after” anyone who mocks Kirk’s murder, such an episode would be extremely dangerous and controversial for a show that’s already made a point of putting itself on President Donald “Saddam Hussein” Trump’s shit list. But, then again, the greater danger may be that Parker and Stone could decide that the heat is too much, and South Park retreats from politics entirely.
One fan put it bluntly, writing, “If South Park softballs this then I’m actually scared for the future.”
