Cartman's Incredible Gift

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"Cartman's Incredible Gift" is episode 813 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired December 8, 2004.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Plot synopsis

Cartman attempts to fly by jumping off of his roof. He goes into a short coma, and wakes up in the hospital, where he shares a room with a victim of a serial killer. The killer cuts-off the left hands of all his victims. Just as the police are lamenting the victim's death, Cartman manages to guess the hospital food's dinner and a few other paltry things, which leads the gullible cop Louis Yates to believe that Cartman is a "child wunderkind" with psychic powers. Cartman ends up getting various innocent people arrested, including a group of rival "psychics". The left-hand murders continue, but the gullible cops believe these are copycat killings rather than being committed by a single killer still on the loose.

Kyle realizes that Cartman is a fraud, and is frustrated by the police's stupidity. When Kyle manages to figure out who the real serial killer is, he is completely ignored. Deciding he has to do something to stop the killer, he imitates Cartman's attempted flight so that he passes into a coma, and when he wakes up claims to have psychic powers and gives the police his original findings. Lou Yates is skeptical but goes to investigate the suspected murderer anyway, who, by this point, has abducted Cartman, furious that the soi-disant psychic has failed to "recognize his work" and name him as the true killer.

When Yates arrives, he finds many hands on the killer's wall, but ignores them, since the way they're nailed (palms against the wall) makes them appear to be right hands, and he leaves, with Cartman still captured. Later, after an intense police research montage, Yates realizes that left hands look like right hands when viewed a certain way, and saves Cartman from the murderer in the nick of time, saving Cartman and killing the murderer. Kyle is now hailed as the child psychic, but by saying that psychics are not real. Yates says that, really, he solved the case with "old-fashioned police work" anyway.

Trivia

This episode is similar to "The Biggest Douche in the Universe" in its treatment of psychics; this same theme is alluded to somewhat in "The Death of Eric Cartman".
"Child wunderkind" is a redundancy. "Wunderkind" means "a brilliant or remarkable child;" there's no such thing as an "adult wunderkind."
In this episode, Mrs. Crabtree dies, as a victim of the serial killer. At this point she had not been seen ever since. It was revealed for the first time that her first name was Veronica.
Unlike this episode, in "The Biggest Douche in the Universe," Kyle does believe in psychics—but then, he may be against it here at least partially because he simply disagrees with Cartman about everything, or because he changed his beliefs after the first psychic was debunked.
The slideshow shown to Cartman and the scar on the lip of the serial killer parody the novel and film Red Dragon.
Cartman's cane in this episode is based on Johnny Smith's in The Dead Zone.
The final scene, where Kyle accidentally blows up the lights with his mind, is a parody of Carrie.
The number of the serial killer`s house is "621".
"God"- Silence of the Lambs reference.
The serial killer wanting to have sex with his limbless mother is a reference to a controversial The X-Files episode Home.

Cartman's Incredible Gift

Plot synopsis

Trivia

See also