"The Pandemic Special" is the first episode of the twenty-fourth season of the American animated television series South Park.

To Butters Stotch's chagrin, his paranoid parents refuse to take him to Build-A-Bear Workshop even as restrictions are eased.

Butters' father, Stephen, criticizes improperly worn masks as "chin diapers" when he notices the townspeople gathering for an assembly by Randy Marsh, who is offering a strain of marijuana called the Pandemic Special.

Meanwhile, Eric Cartman is ecstatic about social distancing, as he can avoid remote classes by faking connection problems with Zoom.

The South Park Elementary school board convenes a Zoom meeting led by Mr. Mackey, which devolves into a shouting match of obscenities.

Sergeant Harrison Yates and his officers struggle to adapt to teaching when Cartman is dragged in and handcuffed to a chair as class begins.

Randy convinces Mickey to spare him, promising to find a cure; he later laces the Pandemic Special with his semen and secretly tests it on Jimbo.

Protests, rioting, and looting ensue, prompting Mayor McDaniels to reimburse the police with supplies to quell the unrest.

'The Pandemic Special' has moments of comedic brilliance but is brought down by a messy plot that struggles to put a fresh spin on the reality of life in 2020.

Club gave the episode a B+, stating, "While things were far from normal for the residents of South Park in this hour-long special, the show stays true to form, offering a surprising source of consistency.

The hourlong special had plenty of targets — from trigger-happy cops to a bat-raping Mickey Mouse — but it only really dialed in on its own relevance in these trying times.

[19][14][20] Writing for The Slate, Adam Beam stated, "The hour-long runtime greatly hurts this special, and a lot of this material would work better if the show was given more time to develop.

While plenty of the jokes land and many 'South Park' fans will enjoy, 'The Pandemic Special' lacks any kind of focus as it struggles to cram too much material into a very limited time frame.