South Park: Joining the Panderverse

Our Review

The fifth special is the multiverse parody everyone saw coming and nobody expected to be this pointed. Cartman dreams of a universe where everyone is diverse and it drives him insane, while the real plot follows a displaced multiverse version of him landing in our world and a desperate Disney executive, an unflattering Bob Iger caricature, trying to fix a company whose adult fans have turned on it. The special’s take on pandering, box office panic, and the grown man Star Wars discourse is bracingly mean to everyone at once.

Kathleen Kennedy’s cameo as the source of Disney’s woes is the loudest joke, but the smarter one is Cartman’s mother deciding to become an electrical contractor because she is done waiting for a man to do it. The finale, where the adults finally fix their own pipes, is the show at its best: take a culture war talking point, refuse both sides’ framing, and land on a practical punchline about personal responsibility. That it does this while being consistently hilarious is why it became the most talked about special since Post COVID.

Some of the Disney satire is already dated by design, a time capsule of 2023’s loudest film discourse. But the character work, especially Liane, gives it a spine beyond the topicality. One of the strongest specials, and the one to show people who think the show lost its edge.