WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for South Park: Not Suitable for Children!

Summary

• South Park's recent specials have struggled to integrate Randy Marsh's storyline with the main plot, leaving his subplot feeling disconnected and tangential.
• Focusing on ing character Clyde as the main character in Not Suitable for Children left Randy's plot feeling out of place and unrelated to the main story.
• South Park's ongoing issue of not being clear on who the main character is has led to Randy overtaking the original main quartet, overshadowing the kids and straying from the show's original concept.

While South Park: Not Suitable for Children did give Randy Marsh an amusing storyline, the special’s main plot made this B-story feel tangential. South Park: Not Suitable for Children is the latest in a series of feature-length specials from the long-running animated sitcom. After October’s ing the Panderverse parodied multiverses, reboot culture, and the state of Hollywood, Not Suitable for Children aimed its satirical jabs at influencers, OnlyFans, and the energy drinks industrial complex. However, in the process, the special ran into a storytelling issue that has plagued South Park for some time now and has been worsened by the show’s recent specials.

Although South Park season 27 may confront this issue head-on, the show’s last few outings have not fixed the problem. South Park is having something of an existential crisis as the satire series can’t decide who its main character is. The show originally focused on Kyle, Kenny, Stan, and Cartman, four foul-mouthed young boys from the eponymous small town. After a while, Butters was integrated into this gang and became a major character in the series. Around South Park season 14, Stan’s oddball father, Randy Marsh, became increasingly central to the show. Now, Randy is arguably the main character, as evidenced by Not Suitable for Children.

South Park’s Latest Special Focuses On Clyde

Spotlighting a character who isn’t connected to Randy was a strange choice

Clyde was Not Suitable for Children's lead character, but this inevitably left Randy's B-story feeling unmoored since he had no connection to the minor character. While Cartman played a major role in the special and Butters had a ing part, Clyde was its protagonist. He is generally a lesser-seen figure, so it was a welcome surprise to see him elevated to main character status. Seeing a character outside the main friend group lead a special to himself made sense when Cartman’s recent character development dominated season 26’s stories and Stan was the show’s de facto lead character for years. However, this creative choice hurt Randy’s story.

South Park’s Clyde-Centric Story Makes Randy's Subplot Weird

Stan’s father dominating Not Suitable for Children’s story didn’t work

While focusing on Clyde’s plight in Not Suitable for Children worked well, this left the special’s subplot feeling like it belonged in a different show altogether. The tale about Stan’s father setting up an OnlyFans didn’t really gel with the primary narrative since Stan barely featured in the special, so Randy’s subplot was barely related to the main story. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time South Park struggled with this exact issue in its feature-length specials. Randy’s status as a fan-favorite character means South Park often prioritizes his subplots even when Stan isn’t involved in the main storyline, making these B-stories feel thematically disconnected.

South Park’s Last Special Struggled With This Same Problem

ing the Panderverse centered Randy and Cartman but not Stan

In 2023’s other South Park special ing the Panderverse, Cartman switching universes had no connection to Randy Marsh trying to find a handyman until the very end. This was another instance of the series failing to find connective tissue between its storylines, and the eventual link was too weak to justify the two stories spending most of the special separated. In Not Suitable for Children's ending, Randy happened upon Clyde, Cartman, Butters, and Craig and gave them a solemn message about the perils of social media influencing. However, this crossover didn’t make the stories feel any more cohesive, instead coming across as a last-ditch effort to justify Randy’s plot.

Randy Marsh is a funny character in his own right, as evidenced by classic episodes such as season 14, episode 14, "Creme Fraiche." However, South Park’s inability to integrate him into each new special’s primary plot creates two issues. For one thing, Randy’s zaniness overshadows the kids, and a show that was originally intended to illustrate the absurdity of the adult world through the eyes of children becomes just another TV comedy about a wacky middle-aged father. For another, the more frequently that Randy acts wildly absurd and over-the-top, the further he strays from his original characterization as a gullible, easily led, but otherwise relatively normal person.

South Park's Earliest Special Couldn't Integrate Randy's Subplot Either

The Pandemic Special made South Park feel like two unrelated shows

Randy accidentally caused the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020’s The Pandemic Special, the first of the show’s recent feature-length specials. While this role might sound pretty pivotal, his plot never aligned with the story of the boys struggling with lockdown restrictions. All the South Park specials have made Randy a main character, but most of his plots were at least connected to the main story. In one great example, 2022’s The Streaming Wars ensued that Randy’s search for his true self was intrinsically linked to Kyle and Stan’s bizarre “streaming service” storyline, and Stan’s bigger role in the special’s plot didn’t hurt in this regard.

However, The Pandemic Special set the standard that South Park has met in most of the specials that followed. As evidenced by ing the Panderverse, most of South Park's specials have focused more on cramming in a Randy storyline than making sure that this subplot connects to the main story of the series. This became an issue in Not Suitable for Children when Randy’s attempts to promote energy drinks on OnlyFans didn’t feel related to Clyde struggling with his inability to fit in at school to the drink’s popularity. Where The Streaming Wars ensured Randy and his son’s plots eventually dovetailed, Not Suitable for Children couldn’t connect Clyde and Randy.

Randy's South Park Subplots Underline A Bigger Series Issue

The satirical series can’t decide who its main character is

South Park isn't really clear on whether Randy or the central quartet is the show’s main focus, which is becoming a bigger problem as the series tells more ambitious, longer stories via specials. South Park’s Randy problem was seemingly fixed when The Streaming Wars Part 2 saw the character it that he had become a “Karen” and question whatever became of his original mild-mannered geologist persona. Initially, this meta-gag made it seem like Randy was ready to drop his antics and return to his more grounded original characterization, and its attendant smaller role.

However, in the six-episode season since then, Randy met up with sex trafficker Andrew Tate, wasted thousands of dollars on a Japanese toilet, and became an OnlyFans model marketing energy drinks to children. In other words, the character is more ludicrous than ever, and he is still taking up screen time that could otherwise go to the show’s original main characters. While it was nice to see South Park: Not Suitable for Children eschew focusing on Kenny, Kyle, Cartman, and Stan as the show gave Clyde a special, it was disappointing that Randy’s plot line proved the series couldn’t keep its most overused character in check.