South Park season 26 finally ended Cartman's "hot dog home" storyline and, for once, the show's antihero might have learned something from the arc.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for South Park season 26, episode 5.
Cartman’s South Park season 26 character arc came full circle in episode 5, which saw him finally get what he wanted only for his victory to prove a pyrrhic one in the end. Cartman is not a particularly complicated character. The South Park antihero has, since the show’s inception, been the most morally questionable of the show's lead characters. While Kenny bore the brunt of South Park’s meanest punchlines in the show’s gory, goofy early seasons, Cartman was effectively the unacknowledged villain of the series. Whether the South Park star was indulging in casual prejudice or committing murder, for most of the show’s episodes, Cartman was a spoiled, callous, scheming, cruel character.
However, South Park’s recent seasons softened up Cartman’s characterization somewhat. While he remains a fairly loathsome figure, in recent South Park seasons, Cartman has had a romantic relationship, made some sacrifices to help his friends, and even been forced to listen to his mother. South Park season 26’s Randy stories prove that the long-running series sometimes struggles to find a fresh take on a familiar character, but the show’s recent Cartman stories have collectively proven that even its most straightforward characters have some hidden humanity. This was never clearer than in Cartman’s character arc from South Park seasons 25 and 26, which made him more sympathetic than ever.
Cartman’s Hot Dog Home South Park Plot Is Finally Finished
In South Park season 25, episode 3, “City People,” Cartman ended up stuck living in a hot dog when he bullied his mother out of the real estate business. Since South Park is not a serialized show (except for a few experimental seasons), viewers might reasonably have expected Cartman and his mother to return to their humble home in the show’s next episode. However, Cartman instead spent the rest of South Park season 25, all of The Streaming Wars Parts 1 and 2, and the first episodes of season 26 stuck living in this converted hot dog.
In South Park season 26, episode 5, “DiKimble’s Hot Dogs,” Cartman finally got his home back, but it came at a high price. In the closing scenes of ”DiKimble’s Hot Dogs,” Cartman moved back into his home when Butters, the only investor in Cartman’s titular hot dog stand, gave Cartman’s mother the money from the successful business. Of course, Cartman now wished he could continue living in the hot dog stand, even after he spent season 25 decrying his living situation. South Park season 26 surprisingly made Cartman sympathetic in this plot as, even though the situation was entirely his fault, it was still tough to see the character’s success backfire on him.
Why Cartman’s South Park Season 26 Arc Changed His Character
Where the Cartman seen in earlier South Park episodes would have sworn revenge, this Cartman is a victim of his success. This is one of the only times that South Park’s Cartman has not gotten what he wanted, with his misdeeds instead thwarting him at every step of the journey. Forcing his mother out of business left him stuck living in a hot dog in the first place, while his attempts to undo this throughout The Streaming Wars led his mother to finally stand up to his misbehavior. This still didn’t get Cartman out of the hot dog, even when his and Kenny’s hot dog shop finally took off.
Instead, Cartman’s greedy, uncaring approach to borrowing from Butters meant that Cartman lost the hot dog home he had just grown to love. As surprising as it may seem, the two-part special Post—COVID may have secretly set up this twist. In that outing, Cartman’s future self was shown to be a thoughtful, caring father and decent man. This seemed like an elaborate misdirection, but the end of the special never pulled the rug out from under the audience. Instead, Cartman’s caring, loving persona seemed to be a real change, as evidenced by his surprisingly sad self-sacrifice in the special’s finale.
South Park Season 26’s Cartman Arc Sets Up His Future
Much like season 25 and The Streaming Wars, South Park season 26 have proven that Cartman may have stopped getting everything he wanted during his childhood and grown up as a result. Cartman’s inability to accept that his mother and Butters outsmarted him led him to bemoan his return home, but this could lead him to change his behavior. After all, in The Streaming Wars Part 1, Cartman failed to convince his mother to get breast augmentation surgery as part of an elaborate gambit to fix their living situation and, in The Streaming Wars Part 2, this subplot ended with him accepting that she no longer did his bidding.
Cartman keeps losing in recent episodes and this could do him a world of good, as well as align with changes in the rest of South Park's characters. In South Park season 26’s premiere, Cartman saved everyone from Cupid Ye in an uncharacteristically selfless move while, in South Park season 26, episode 2, “The Worldwide Privacy Tour,” Butters briefly became a bullying blowhard. Meanwhile, in season 26, episode 4, “Deep Learning,” Stan proved more duplicitous and uncaring than his usual self when he used ChatGPT to avoid listening to his girlfriend Wendy.
Season 26 Proves South Park’s Heroes Can Change
The one-note characters of South Park seem to be changing in season 26, with Cartman’s failure to scheme himself to success acting as the latest example of this storytelling trend. It is not yet clear if this is part of an overarching South Park season 26 story. Most of South Park’s serialized seasons announced their overarching theme early and loudly. However, these seasons received mixed reviews as, since South Park relies on current events for most of its weekly plots, the season-long arcs were often misshapen by the news.
Most famously, South Park season 20 ended with a messy, underwritten finale when the show’s co-creators assumed that Hilary Clinton would win the 2016 election. The hastily-rewritten episodes that followed this event led to some criticism of South Park, seemingly discouraging the show’s creators from pursuing future serialized storylines. However, Cartman’s season 26 character proves that South Park can tell longer, more ambitious stories, provided they focus on characters over news events.
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