Marjorine

"Marjorine"

"Marjorine" is the ninth episode in the ninth season of the American animated series South Park. The 134th episode of the series overall, it originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 26, 2005.

In the episode, Butters must fake his death, dress up as a girl, and infiltrate a slumber party, in order to retrieve a future-telling device which Cartman is convinced the girls have.

Plot

Cartman gathers the boys together in his basement to show them a video tape of the girls of South Park Elementary using a device, which he believes is a high-tech gadget which gives them the ability to see into the future (in reality, it is a paper fortune teller).

The boys build a containment center with which to study the device, and devise a plan to steal it. The boys fake Butters' death by dropping a pig cadaver dressed in Butters' clothes from the Bowery Building. Stephen and Linda Stotch are devastated at the death of their son and there is a funeral held a few days later.

Butters then dresses up as a new girl, "Marjorine", and infiltrates a slumber party that Heidi Turner, a classmate, is hosting, in an attempt to retrieve the device.

Meanwhile, Linda is still distraught by the loss of her son, and Stephen is deeply troubled by her sorrow, also missing Butters. Unprompted, he is told by an old farmer not to dig Butters' body up and re-bury him at the Indian burial ground. Stephen—who had no intention of doing such a thing until the old man put the notion in his head—does however exhume Butters' "remains" and re-bury the pig carcass at the Indian burial ground, believing this will bring Butters back to life.

Butters (as Marjorine) is just starting to have fun after being made over and is now dancing with the girls, when Heidi's father realizes that there are boys around the house. Butters believes his cover to be blown and makes a desperate escape with the fortune telling device, and gives it to the other boys. Stan tells Butters to come along to learn about the device, but he refuses, saying that the device is nothing but trouble and his job is done, and goes home to tell his parents that he is not dead. When the boys attempt to ask so many questions with the device, Stan realizes what Butters has meant. The boys, this time around, decide that the power of the fortune-telling device is too great for any mortal. Rather than spending their lives defending it from girls, the CIA, terrorists and Russians, they decide to destroy it by having Kenny blow it up.

Meanwhile, Butters' parents have now convinced themselves that their child will return as a demon. Butters knocks on the door but they do not want to see him back from the dead. Butters returns home to his terrified parents who lock him in the basement and chain him up. When he says he is hungry, his father murders a saleswoman with a shovel in front of him, and offers up her corpse to feed on, still believing Butters to be hell-spawn. The episode ends with Butters asking for SpaghettiOs instead.

Production

On the DVD commentary, Trey Parker and Matt Stone reveal that they find this episode unbearable to watch, mainly because they felt that there was too many ideas packed into one episode. They wished that they split the stories into two episodes and felt that the episode served as a reminder to keep future episodes simple.

External links

• Marjorine Full episode at South Park Studios
• Marjorine Episode guide at South Park Studios
• Marjorine South Park Wiki