Rick and Morty season 1 Episode 3 Anatomy park
It’s Christmas and Jerry tries to push the idea of a “human holiday” to the rest of the family to visit his parents and confiscate Morty, Beth and Summer’s electronic devices. Rick then shows up with a homeless man in a Santa outfit, whom he briefly introduces as Ruben before heading to the garage.
As the holidays progress, 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 into 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 about his parents’ relationship to negatively affect him throughout the episode.
Meanwhile, Morty discovers that Rick has created a Jurassic Park-style amusement park inside the homeless Ruben, and that he is needed in Ruben’s body. Rick shrinks it down to microscopic size and injects it into Ruben’s chest cavity, allowing him to meet Dr. Xenon Bloom and the other inhabitants of Anatomy Park. Ruben soon dies from the multitude of bacteria and viruses that have spread through his body, and the crew must escape him to survive. As they make their way through the Anatomy Park, Morty begins to fall in love with Annie, an employee of the Anatomy Park, who begins his journey apathetic to her situation, but soon grows fond of him. The crew discovers that Poncho planned to compromise the security of Anatomy Park to get back at Dr. Bloom, but he falls to his death trying to fight the bubonic plague, and Roger drowns in the shit soon after.
Meanwhile, Summer’s boyfriend Ethan bursts into the house and questions why she’s ignoring all his texts, leading to an argument. Jacob manages to get Ethan to confess the source of his anger.
Back in the body sits Dr. Bloom, Annie, and Morty in the room watching the animatronic Reuben explain his history. The body soon begins to break down and the crew must attempt to ride the skeleton railway system (or “The Bone Train”) to Reuben’s nipple. Dr. Bloom is eaten alive by E. coli while trying to control the bone train, while Morty and Annie are nearly eaten by Hepatitis A, but Hepatitis C comes to their rescue.
Meanwhile, Rick lin put Reuben’s body in his ship and flew him and the miniature Morty and the crew into space. He activates a growth beam on the corpse, leading to a nationwide panic over “naked sky Santa”. The body soon explodes using the dynamite that Rick planted while collecting Morty and Annie, raining bloody pieces all over America and the Smith household.
Rick, Morty, and Annie return to the house, where Annie reveals that she studied the work of Dr. Bloom and has the knowledge to build a new one. Rick pulls her back down, leaving Morty depressed.
In the post-credits scene, Rick talks to Annie on speakerphone, where the new crew reveals plans to cancel Rick’s special ride, the “Pancreas Pirates”. He hangs up on them and yells at Ethan, instead of the new Anatomy Park, about a compromise. It is unknown how Ethan’s later mutation via Morphixer-XE affected the new park and those within it.
Details
This is the first episode of the series with a holiday theme.
According to the DVD commentary, Anatomy Park’s intended demographic was other members of Dr.’s species. Xenon Bloom.
Summer has clearly moved on from her previous death of Frank Palicky as she was seen with a boyfriend named Ethan who she has reportedly been dating for some time.
Although episodes made before and after this episode feature Morty’s central crush and love interest being Jessica, he develops an interest in Annie during this episode. When Rick pulls her down again and sends Ethan in, Morty protests.
Cultural references
The whole concept and title of this episode and the title is a parody of Jurassic Park.
This is the first episode referencing 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 one of respect for Leonard the cuckold, paralleling Molly Bloom’s adulterous relationship with Blaze Boylan, a major 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 have correlations with the novel: Dr. Xenon Bloom shares a surname with the novel’s protagonist, Leopold Bloom; Joyce Smith shares a name with author James Joyce; and Jacob and Leonard have names strikingly similar to these two individuals, Leonard, and Leopold, and Jacob (or Jacob) and James.
The episode’s main plot is a parody of Richard Fleischer’s 1966 novel Fantastic Voyage, in which a Soviet scientist survives an assassination attempt with a blood clot, and a miniaturized crew aboard the nanobot-sized Proteus submarine navigates through his blood vessels to find and remove the clot. While Fantastic Voyage is relatively carefree, Anatomy Park presents viewers with an alternate side of the story where the adventure inside the human body becomes dangerous and brutal.
The Anatomy Park ride features robotic creatures that sing a song called It’s a Small, Small Intestine while riders sit in a small boat that takes them through an intestinal tube. This is a parody of the Disneyland ride known as It’s a Small World.
Alexander, who is dressed as a dog, is a reference to the Disney character, Goofy.
When talking about the people in the world he hated, Poncho mentions “people on the internet who only get excited 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). “On” is a reference to sexual themes in some anime and manga and pornographic anime/manga called hentai.
Morty entering a corpse is a reference to the movie Osmosis Jones.
The “Pirates of the Pancreas” ride is a reference to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The human pancreas is made of pancreatic islets or islands, hence the reference to the Caribbean archipelago and its pirates.
Mistakes
While Dr. Bloom is driving the bone train, several viruses attack what 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 occurrence of the clock in the garage is set to 3:00 AM. Later, at the dining room table, the clock is set to 6:00. Then the clock in the garage is set to 2:00. After Rick, Morty, and Annie return from space, the clock in the garage is set to 3:00 AM.
Hawaii is on the map showing Reuben’s body in space disproportionately close to the United States.
Morty tells Annie that he was 12 when it was actually Poncho who said that a moment ago.
