Go God Go XII

"Go God Go XII"

"Go God Go XII" is episode 1013 (#152) of Comedy Central's South Park, which aired on November 8, 2006. The episode is a continuation of the previous episode, "Go God Go".

Plot summary

The episode begins with a parody intro of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which recaps the plot from the previous episode. Cartman, still trapped in the year 2546, has learned that the 21st-century Wii game console is incompatible with 26th-century video screens, and decides to use a "Time Phone" to call the past and thereby prevent his self-freezing plan from ever happening.

Meanwhile, it is learned that Richard Dawkins and his wife Mrs. Garrison were destined to become the co-founders of worldwide atheism. But whether because of Garrison's mean-spirited influence on Dawkins, or simply due to a human instinct for fighting, atheism has split into three hostile denominations at perpetual war over the so-called "Great Question": the super-intelligent otters of the AAA, the humans of the UAA, and a rival human faction, the UAL.

As the AAA otters complete their planning for a sneak attack against the UAA and UAL, one elderly otter asks if the war is worth fighting, and implies that logic and science can be harmonized with some sort of belief in the supernatural. After pondering this for a moment, the rest of the otters brutally murder the heretical thinker.

Although Cartman successfully uses the Time Phone to call several people in the past, they all hang up on him, and thus the attempt to prevent his do-it-yourself cryogenics experiment fails. However, the phone calls inadvertently create fluctuations in the fabric of space/time, producing subtle changes in the future -- Cartman's robot dog suddenly becomes a robot cat, and hairstyles are different.

As a massive battle between the three atheist groups begins, the nature of the "Great Question" is finally revealed. The entire war is being fought over whether atheists should call themselves the AAA, the UAL, or the UAA.

Cartman tries again to call the past, and this time interrupts passionate sex between Garrison and Dawkins, who picks up the phone. As a result of some disturbing information learned from future-Cartman, Dawkins ends his romance with Garrison, who immediately renounces atheism and tells the departing Dawkins to "have fun mocking God in Hell."

Now that the two "co-founders of world atheism" are no longer destined to marry, future history is altered again, but this time much more significantly. Cartman suddenly finds himself in a room with members of all three factions, who live in peace with each other and explain that no one fights about abstract "-isms" anymore -- instead, they're at war with the "French-Chinese" over legal ownership of Hawaii.

Cartman is sent back to the 21st century and merges with his present-self, but discovers that the time machine sent him back too far: he now has a full two months until the Wii release, instead of three weeks. Distraught once again, present-Cartman angrily hangs up on a phone call from another future-Cartman, who's trying in vain to warn him against the self-freezing plan. Having learned nothing from experience, he is seemingly doomed to keep looping in time, as the end credits roll.