Best Friends Forever

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"Wing"

"Best Friends Forever"

"The Losing Edge"

"Best Friends Forever"
Episode no.	Season 9 Episode 4
Production no.	904
Original airdate	March 30, 2005
Episode chronology Previous Next "Wing" "The Losing Edge"
List of all South Park episodes

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"Best Friends Forever" is the fourth episode of Season Nine, and the 129th overall episode of South Park. It aired on March 30, 2005.

Synopsis

Kenny is the only one of his friends to get the newest, coolest portable gaming device and Cartman cannot deal with it. Will they remain best friends forever?

Plot

Spoiler warning! Plot details follow.

Kenny is the first person in town to get a new PlayStation Portable (PSP) video game system and becomes inseparable from it (even ignoring two very large busty women walking by him). Meanwhile, Cartman, who couldn't get his own because he was late getting to the store, grows envious of Kenny's new toy. Kenny quickly works his way up to level 59 of the game Heaven vs. Hell, but because of his parents having an argument, he goes to complete the 60th level outside; there, he is run over by an ice-cream van while he celebrates (driven by someone playing the same game who just reached level 4) and dies.

In Heaven, Kenny learns that God created the PSP to search for the person who can command his legions against the forces of Hell in a manner like that of the video game. They need someone skilled enough to defeat an army of 10 billion damned souls with only 10 thousand troops. Basically, he is "Keanu Reeves". When Satan's spy returns to Hell and warns him of Kenny, Satan decides to give up, seeing no point in trying to fight a "Keanu Reeves". His advisor urges him to still go through with the attack. Just as the armies of hell begin to attack, Kenny is revived. However, because he had been dead for that long, he cannot talk or communicate and has suffered permanent brain damage. He is kept alive through the use of a feeding tube. The reading of Kenny's will, in which Cartman is given the PSP (out of pity) and Stan and Kyle are given everything else, is interrupted by the announcement that Kenny is still alive. The lawyer mentions a passage about Kenny's wishes in the event of him being in a vegetative state, but the last page of the will is missing, making it impossible to tell what his wishes were.

As Satan's army begins to close in, the angels need Kenny dead so that they can win the battle of the Apocalypse. Meanwhile, Cartman, claiming his status as Kenny's "best friend forever" to the Colorado Supreme Court with the first half of the BFF medallion, gets an order to take out the feeding tube, and he removes the tube after tracking down and finding Kenny's other BFF medallion half (implied to have been planted there by Cartman). Stan and Kyle, along with Kenny's parents and other protesters, including Skeeter and Mrs. Garrison (who gets arrested for trying to bring food and water to Kenny), wage a mass media war to put the feeding tube back in and keep Kenny alive, while Cartman enlists supporters of the rights of "best friends forever" to leave Kenny's feeding tube removed.

After a long, intensive media campaign, (on live TV) the two sides are arguing in Kenny's hospital suite when Kenny's lawyer announces that the last page of the will has been found, and that Kenny's wishes were that if he were ever in a vegetative state, "please, for the love of God... do not ever show me in that condition on national television." In full twist of irony, the two sides immediately realize that they both have not only turned a very private, personal matter into a public spectacle but have been disrespectful of Kenny's wishes, and they leave him alone to die in peace.

Kenny returns to Heaven just in time to command the angels to victory; the battle is not seen, but is described ("Oh, how I wish I had a camcorder!", "Ooh, now they're calling in their demon dragons! Look at the size of them!", "Oh, this battle is bigger than the final battle of the Lord of the Rings movie! It's TEN times bigger than that battle!!!") The battle ends with a few surviving angels weakly cheering and dancing and Kenny receiving an awesome prize: a golden statue of Keanu Reeves.

Awards

• This episode won a 2005 Emmy Award in the category of "Outstanding Animated Program (for programming less than one hour)". This is the first time the show has beaten other nominees, including The Simpsons and Family Guy. It also becomes the fourth prime time animated cartoon to win the award, behind The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Futurama.