So here we are, South Park: Post COVID, the entire reason I paid for a month of Paramount Plus. The hour-long made-for-TV movie is Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s first film since Team America: World Police in 2004.  Rather than picking up where the South ParQ Vaccination Special left off, South Park: Post COVID posits that the pandemic lasted 40 years. It is now 2061, and the boys are adults. This was certainly unexpected, but Parker and Stone have earned the benefit of the doubt many times over. Nor was much patience required because set in the future or not, this is South Park to the core.

Throughout the latter half of South Park’s lifespan, Parker and Stone have shown an increased willingness to experiment and change up the tried and true South Park formula. This has allowed South Park to continue to display some of the sharpest writing among any visual medium. An amazing feat considering the franchise is approaching 25 years since its debut. This newest curveball is no different. Aging the boys opens up a new realm of previously unexplored jokes and allows the writing team to play fortune tellers for a mid-21st-century future, which for satirical masters Parker and Stone is a license to create comedy gold. Among the funniest things I’ve seen this year is an aged Cartman. I’m still undecided if the adult version of Cartman is perpetrating a 25-year-long joke at Kyle’s expense or not.

The story is left unresolved, so I expect this near-future experiment to continue through at least one more movie. Whether it continues past that I can’t say. But whatever it is, I am here for it. Parker and Stone have signed a $900 million deal to take South Park through season 30, plus 14 films of which this is just the first. All exclusive to Paramount Plus. I’m just likely to unsubscribe from the service in the interim.