- For the location of the same name, see Anatomy Park (location).
"Anatomy Park" is the third episode of the first season of Rick and Morty. It is the third episode of the series overall. It premiered on December 16, 2013. It was written by Eric Acosta & Wade Randolph and directed by John Rice.
Synopsis
Morty ends up in a bizarre theme park of infectious diseases located inside of a homeless man. Jerry's parents introduce their new mutual lover.
Plot
It's Christmas, and Jerry tries to enforce the idea of a "human holiday" onto the rest of the family for his parents visiting, confiscating Morty, Beth and Summer's electronic gadgets. Rick then shows up with a homeless man in a Santa outfit he briefly introduces as Ruben before heading into the garage.
As the holiday progresses, Jerry realizes that his traditional idea of a family Christmas has been usurped by the introduction of Jacob, his mother's lover, who has entered a three-way relationship with his parents. While the rest of the family accepts and supports the relationship, Jerry becomes insecure and defensive, allowing his anxiety over his parents' relationship to negatively affect him throughout the episode.
Meanwhile, Morty finds out that Rick has created a Jurassic Park-style amusement park inside Ruben the homeless man, and that he is needed inside Ruben's body. Rick shrinks him down to microscopic size and injects him into Ruben's chest cavity, allowing him to meet Dr. Xenon Bloom and the other residents of Anatomy Park. Ruben soon dies from a multitude of bacteria and viruses that have run rampant through his body, and the crew have to escape it to survive. As they make their way through Anatomy Park, Morty begins to fall for Annie, an employee of Anatomy Park, who begins the journey apathetic of his plight but who soon grows to fancy him. The crew discover that Poncho had planned to compromise the safety of Anatomy Park, to get back at Dr. Bloom, but he falls to his death trying to fight off the bubonic plague, with Roger drowning in shit soon after.
Meanwhile, Summer's boyfriend Ethan barges into the house asking why she has been ignoring all his texts, which leads to an argument. Jacob manages to bring Ethan to confess the source of his anger.
Back in the body, Dr. Bloom, Annie and Morty sit in a room watching an animatronic Reuben explain his history. The body soon begins to collapse and the crew have to try and ride a skeletal railway system (or, "The Bone Train") out to Reuben's nipple. Dr. Bloom is eaten alive by E. coli while trying to operate the bone train, whilst Morty and Annie are almost eaten by Hepatitis A, but Hepatitis C comes to their rescue.
Rick in the meanwhile has put Reuben's body into his ship and flown him and miniature Morty and crew out into space. He activates a growth ray on the corpse, leading to nationwide panic over the "naked sky Santa". The body soon explodes via dynamite Rick put in while picking up Morty and Annie, raining bloody chunks all over America and the Smith household.
Rick, Morty, and Annie arrive back at the house, where Annie reveals that she's been studying Dr. Bloom's work and has the knowledge capable to build a new one. Rick shrinks her back down, leaving Morty depressed (Rick waves this off by saying she has a "puffy vagina").
Credits Play
In the after-credits scene, Rick talks to Annie on speakerphone, where the new crew reveals plans to scrap Rick's special ride, "Pirates of the Pancreas". He hangs up on them and rants to Ethan, the site of the new Anatomy Park, about compromise. Ethan only responds "Cool...so who pays me?".
It is unknown how Ethan's later mutation via the Morphixer-XE affected the new park and those inside it.
Characters
Major Characters
- Rick
- Morty
- Beth
- Jerry
- Summer
- Ethan
- Joyce
- Leonard
- Jacob
- Ruben
- Dr. Xenon Bloom
- Annie
- Poncho
- Bubonic Plague
- Hepatitis A
Minor Characters
Deaths
- All of Ruben's Tuberculosis
- Alexander
- Ruben's Gonorrhea
- Poncho
- Roger
- Dr. Xenon Bloom
- Ruben's Hepatitis A
- All of Ruben's E. coli
- Ruben's Hepatitis C
- Ruben
Locations
Songs
Transcript
View the full transcript of this episode here.
Quotes
- Jerry: All electronics are going in the stocking, now.
- Morty: Ohhh.
- Summer: Dad, I'm not giving you my phone.
- Jerry: Put it in the stocking, Summer, or I'm joining Facebook.
- (Summer gasps and puts the phone in the stocking)
- Morty: Pirates of the Pancreas?
- Rick: You got a problem with that last one, Morty?
- Morty: Huh? No, no, I'm just reading them out loud in the order that I'm seeing them.
- Rick: Okay, alright. If I sounded a little defensive, it's because Pirates of the Pancreas is my baby. You know, I got-I got a lot of pushback when I pitched it, Morty. I guess I'm still a little defensive.
- Annie: You can put your fingers wherever you want.
- Rick: Jerry! Hand me a scalpel and a bundle of dynamite!
- (Morty is making out with Annie and Rick contacts him)
- Rick: Morty, can you get to the left nipple?
- Morty: Are you kidding? I'm hoping I can get to both of them, Rick.
- Rick: No! Morty! I'm taking about Ruben's left nipple!
Trivia
- First holiday themed episode of the series.
- According to the DVD commentary, Anatomy Park's intended demographic was other members of Dr. Xenon Bloom's species.
- Summer has apparently moved on from her previous crush Frank Palicky and moved on after his death since the events of the Pilot episode, as she was seen with a boyfriend named Ethan who she has apparently been dating for some time.
- Although episodes produced before and after this one feature Morty's central crush and love interest being Jessica, he develops an interest in Annie during this episode, and makes out with her. As Rick shrinks her down again and sends her inside Ethan, Morty protests "What did you do that for? I really liked her." and seems to see this as a sign of disapproval.
Cultural References
- The entire concept of this episode is a parody of Jurassic Park.
- There is a potential reference to James Joyce's famous novel Ulysses in this episode. Joyce's relationship with Jacob is a cuckolding relationship with respect to Leonard, paralleling Molly Bloom's adulterous relationship with Blaze Boylan which is the main conflict in the novel for Molly's husband Leopold Bloom. This connection is further evidenced by the fact that many of the characters introduced in this episode feature names correlated to the novel: Dr. Xenon Bloom shares a last name with the protagonist of the novel, Leopold Bloom; Joyce Smith shares a name with author James Joyce; and Jacob and Leonard have names remarkably similar to these two individual, Leonard, and Leopold and Jacob (or Jake) and James.
- The major plot of the episode is a parody of Richard Fleischer's 1966 novel Fantastic Voyage, in which a Soviet scientist lives through an assassination attempt with a blood clot, and a miniaturized crew aboard the nanobot-sized Proteus submarine sail through his blood vessels to find and remove the clot. While Fantastic Voyage is relatively worry-free, Anatomy Park presents the audience with the alternate side of the story in which the adventure inside of the human body becomes dangerous and brutal.
- A ride at Anatomy Park, features robotic little creatures singing a song called It's a Small, Small Intestine, as the riders sit in a little boat that takes them down the intestinal tube. This is a parody on a ride at Disney Land known as It's a Small World.
- Bladder Falls is a reference to Gravity Falls as evidenced by the typography of its sign board.
- Alexander being dressed as a dog is a reference to the Disney character, Goofy.
- When Poncho talked about people in the world he hated he mentions "people on the internet who are only turned on by cartoons of Japanese teenagers." This was a reference to members of the otaku subculture, sometimes referred to as wapanese or weeaboos. Otakus are obsessive fans of Japanese culture (especially anime and manga). 'Turned on' is a reference to the sexual themes in some anime and manga and pornographic anime/manga called hentai.
- Morty entering a corpse is a reference to the film Osmosis Jones.
- The ride "Pirates of the Pancreas" could be seen as a reference to the opera The Pirates of Penzance, or the Pirates of the Caribbean movies / Disneyland ride (as evidenced by the It's a Small World reference).
Errors
- As Doctor Bloom is going to operate the bone train, several viruses invade, which he calls an "E. coli outbreak". However, E. coli are bacteria, not viruses. Ironically, the viruses are Enterobacteria Phage T4, viruses that infect and kill E. coli bacteria.
Gallery
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References
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