WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for South Park: The End of Obesity

Although South Park: The End of Obesity’s ending is pretty bleak, the story does promise to retire one major recurring gag that has lasted throughout the show’s 27-year history. South Park: The End of Obesity is the latest of the show’s feature-length specials and, like its predecessors, the hour-long outing doesn’t focus on one timely current event. The show’s uniquely fast turnaround time means that most of its episodes take on a single event, but South Park’s longer movies tend to center on a bigger issue and delve deeper into the topic. The End of Obesity was no different.

The End of Obesity saw Cartman’s doctor inform him that semaglutides, the active element of drugs like Moujaro and Ozempic, could allow him to finally lose weight. Cartman was excited by this prospect and heartbroken when he learned he could not afford the drugs. Kyle decided that this wasn’t fair, so he, Butters, and Cartman tried to navigate the byzantine maze of the American healthcare system. While South Park season 27 may see the series return to this theme, the boys eventually gave up and decided to manufacture their own semaglutides using imported ingredients and questionable advice from TikTok.

Why Cartman Doesn’t Lose Weight In South Park: The End of Obesity’s Ending

The Shipment Of Semaglutides Actually Contains The Insurance Bureaucrat

Meanwhile, Stan’s father, Randy, began hanging around with a group of suburban moms who promised him “Great drugs,” failing to realize that they were referring to weight-loss drugs like semaglutides. Randy and the moms broke into pharmacies to steal their supply of semaglutides, while another faction tried to shut down the market for weight-loss drugs entirely. Tony the Tiger, Captain Crunch, Lil Debbie, and other members of a shadowy food mascot mob were threatened by the prospect of semaglutides curing sugar addiction, so they attempted to intercept and destroy a shipment of the drugs headed to South Park.

Eventually, these subplots converged with Kyle’s latest South Park story. Randy betrayed the moms and helped Kyle, Kenny, Butters, Stan, and Cartman bring the semaglutides to South Park, but the cereal mascots tried to stop them. This led to a high-speed chase with various gory casualties, but the boys finally reached home and opened the truck. However, the truck didn’t contain semaglutides but rather the decrepit, inefficient receptionist from their health insurance company, who informed them that getting access to any of the medicines would mean navigating the American healthcare system all over again. Cartman’s weight-loss hopes were dashed.

How Kenny Dies In South Park: The End of Obesity’s Ending

Tony The Tiger Throws Kenny Through A Windshield

During a high-speed chase between the boys trying to get Cartman Ozempic, the suburban moms trying to steal the drugs, and the sugary cereal mascots who want to destroy the shipment, South Park kills off Kenny for the first time in 4 years. The End of Obesity revived South Park’s oldest joke as Tony the Tiger pulled Kenny from the truck’s cab and threw him into the windshield of one of the pursuing moms. This gruesome fate was as nasty as any of Kenny’s classic South Park deaths, but it was integrated into the story, unlike those random moments.

Kenny hasn’t died in South Park since season 20’s The Pandemic Special, so The End of Obesity’s call-back to this classic gag felt like a return to form for the series. The End of Obesity’s loose, goofy sense of humor felt more akin to early seasons of South Park than many of the show’s recent outings, prioritizing shock value and zaniness over attempts at social commentary. There were a few points made about obesity and the Ozempic craze, but South Park: The End of Obesity’s Kenny death proved the special was more silly than serious and not overly didactic.

What South Park: The End of Obesity’s Lizzo Is

Lizzo Is Prescribed As An Alternative To Semaglutides

Early on in The End of Obesity, Cartman’s doctor prescribed him “Lizzo” instead of Ozempic or its alternatives upon learning he couldn’t afford those drugs. South Park’s doctors stated that Lizzo’s music was pro-body positivity which, according to the special, was for people too poor to afford semaglutides. While South Park’s election episodes prove that the show has a politically conscious side, this gag seemed to be a pretty petty insult directed at the popular singer. However, the joke was smarter than it initially seemed, even though South Park clearly had no love for Lizzo’s musical output.

Lizzo’s work was so bad that numerous patients returned to the doctor suffering from diarrhea of the ears, a grotesque way for South Park to mock the musician’s work. This allowed the doctor to then prescribe them semaglutides, meaning the pharmaceutical companies were paid to solve an issue that they created in the first place. Thus, The End of Obesity’s “Lizzo” subplot was a canny dissection of pharmaceutical industry malpractice, albeit one that was tied up in childish insults aimd at the singer’s music. In this storyline, The End of Obesity argued that pharmaceutical companies contributed to the current healthcare crisis.

Why Cartman Doesn’t Care About His Unchanging Weight

South Park’s Heroes Agree Not To Mock Anyone’s Size

In Kyle’s trademark speech at the end of the special, South Park vowed not to make fun of people’s weight anymore. South Park effectively retired Cartman’s oldest joke when Kyle conceded that an individual’s weight wasn’t related to willpower, but was instead influenced by a complex web of factors including environment, socioeconomic class, education, stress, and healthcare access. This, as far as Cartman is concerned, meant he now had free rein to make fun of everyone else for whatever he wanted. This freedom was the only reason Cartman ever wanted to lose weight in the first place.

The End of Obesity’s twist was obvious to viewers from the beginning, but Kyle and the rest of South Park’s heroes were horrified to discover that Cartman never really cared about losing weight for health reasons. After his friends spent countless hours working hard to get Cartman access to semaglutides, Cartman proved that he just wanted to mock Wendy’s appearance, Kyle’s religion, and the entire population of Pakistan with impunity. This proved that South Park‘s Cartman character change was never going to last, with the character’s relative decency in recent seasons eventually giving way to his usual mean-spirited persona.

What South Park: The End of Obesity’s Ending Really Means

The Special Takes A Dim View On The American Healthcare System

Like most of the show’s specials, The End of Obesity did have something to say beneath its flip, ironic veneer. Ultimately, the show argued that the odds of medicine ever becoming affordable and accessible in America were so low that mocking people’s health conditions was pointlessly cruel. The labyrinthine horrors of navigating the American healthcare system were presented as an impossibility, while the rampant misuse of diabetes drugs was treated as an inevitability in such an image-conscious culture. Thus, South Park: The End of Obesity prescribed a little kindness and understanding for viewers of all sizes, surprisingly enough.