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-Dr, Xenon Bloom
- This article is about the episode "Anatomy Park". You may be looking for another Anatomy Park.
"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 and Wade Randolph, and directed by John Rice. The episode is rated TV-14-DLSV, and has 8.3 stars on IMDB.
Synopsis[]
Morty ends up at 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 has 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 discovers 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 has 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.
Meanwhile, Rick has put Ruben'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.
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. It is unknown how Ethan's later mutation via the Morphixer-XE affected the new park and those inside it.
Characters[]
Major Characters[]
- Rick Sanchez
- Morty Smith
- Beth Smith Prime
- Jerry Smith Prime
- Summer Smith Prime
- Ethan (Prime Dimension)
- Joyce (Prime Dimension)
- Leonard Smith (Prime Dimension)
- Jacob (Prime Dimension)
- Ruben
- Dr. Xenon Bloom
- Annie (Prime Dimension)
- 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[]
- Prime Dimension
Episode notes[]
Songs[]
Trivia[]
- This episode has 8.3 stars on IMDB
- This is the 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's death 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. As Rick shrinks her down again and sends her inside Ethan, Morty protests.
Cultural references[]
- The entire concept and title of this episode and name is a parody of Jurassic Park.
- This is the first episode to reference the title, the second being Juricksic Mort.
- 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 individuals, 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 of a ride at Disneyland known as It's a Small World.
- 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" is a reference to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The human pancreas is made out of pancreatic islets or islands, hence the reference to the Caribbean archipelago and its pirates.
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.
- The first clock appearance in the garage is set to 3:00. Later, at the dinner table, the clock is set at 6:00. Then, back in the garage, the clock is set to 2:00. Then after Rick, Morty, and Annie return from space, the clock in the garage is set to 3:00.
- Hawaii is disproportionately close to the United States on the map showing Reuben's body in space.
- Morty told Annie that she said his age as 12, when it was actually Poncho who said that moments before.
Transcript[]
View the full transcript of this episode here.
Gallery
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References
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