Top 10 Things You Missed In Rick and Morty Season 6 ep 6

When Morty shows up to class, Mr. Goldenfold as well as his classmates are predictably worried and put on high alert. Morty tries to calm them down and insists there is no danger. Amongst the commotion, Goldenfold wonders if he’d been “Faculty’d again”. This refers to the horror film “The Faculty” where an alien parasite infects teachers and students at a high school. It would seem that Goldenfold lived through a similar experience and was forced to lick toilet seats. Given all that has happened to Earth since Rick and Morty started venturing to different dimensions, it shouldn’t be too surprising that aliens have secretly invaded a high school.

After everyone’s been put out of work Beth laments her directionless life while playing the game Operation where you have to remove various objects from a patient without touching the sides of the game. In this instance, instead of a human patient she plays a version with a horse. This isn’t the first Beth has become despondent with her purpose in life, though. Back in season three when the Galactic Federation took over Earth, Beth also found herself out of job. Advancements in medical technology made it so that horses are healthy forever. This time, with Summer and Morty, she seeks out Jerry’s advice to cope, which may be a better strategy than downing glasses of wine.

Even though there are several nods to “Jurassic Park” in this episode, the plot is a bit closer to that of another Steven Spielberg associated dinosaur film, “We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story”. In the movie dinosaurs are made sentient and return to the present day, not in spaceships similar to “Arrival” or “Independence Day” but rather through time travel. The dinosaurs don’t solve society’s problems but end up living the rest of their days in a museum entertaining kids. The film received mixed reviews from critics and didn’t perform well at the box office.

The episode opens with Rick watching interdimensional cable and comes across a news segment about a mysterious rift in the fabric of the universe. This rift was caused by Evil Morty at the end of season 5 when he enacted his plan to escape the Central Finite Curve and enter a world without Rick. When Rick attempted to reset portal travel, he accidentally caused portal travelers to revert back to their home dimension. He uses the rift to go to different dimensions to rescue Morty and Jerry. The dinosaurs repair the rift after Rick tries to show them up much to his chagrin saying in a meta commentary that the show could have milked the rift for a whole season or at least a 3 episode arc.

The episode takes its title from the popular movie about a dinosaur theme park where disaster strikes. There are many references to “Jurassic Park” littered throughout. When the dinosaurs present Rick with a new portal gun that performs better than Rick’s, Morty comments “Clever Girl”, echoing the game warden when he’s outsmarted by the raptors. Later when visiting other planets the dinosaurs have influenced, one of the aliens comments how they’re making a series of films based on cloning them in a theme park. This isn’t the first time the movie has been referenced. The episode “Anatomy Park” shares a similar concept to the ‘93 film except the theme park is inside a person and also ends in disaster.

The dinosaurs decide to go on different shows once they learn from Rick that their presence on different planets has directly caused large-scale destruction. The dinos are sad that all their work has been for nothing, causing a lot of death and a sentient rock is headed to Earth. They go on various shows to discuss the situation similar to what some celebrities do when facing a scandal. On “Anderson Cooper 360°” they reveal that they’re working on a solution that doesn’t involve violence. On “The Joe Rogan Experience”, Rogan questions if the meteor species is real, referencing some statements he’s made with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the dinos appear on “The Wendy Williams Show” to announce they’re leaving for good.

Looking for a way to discredit the dinosaurs, Rick and Morty travel to other worlds they’ve helped. On the planet Alpha Centaurus they’re known as “grindosaurs” where they’re believed to be skateboarders. At a crater, Rick decides to drop in on a skateboard to collect data, but he fails miserably. Morty tells him it’s the hardest thing to do in skateboarding and Rick replies that it looked so easy in Pro Skater 3. He’s referring to the “Tony Hawk Pro Skater” series of video games known for their arcade style of gameplay where it’s possible to string together a crazy series of combos. In the post credit scene we see that these dinos really can skate as uptempo music plays just like the Pro Skater games.

In exchange for getting rid of the dinosaurs President Curtis agrees to let Rick host the Oscars. After they leave, we see Rick hosting the 95th Academy Awards. While on stage, a microphone is raised from the ground and he smacks it with an award statue. He also gets Tom Hanks to shout the line, “Wilson” from “Cast Away”. Backstage Morty says how the microphone bit killed and Summer is surprised to learn that it was scripted. Rick replies that everything at the Oscars is scripted, including “that one thing”. Although not explicitly stated, that one thing is most probably the incident involving Will Smith and Chris Rock where Smith hit Rock following a joke a Rock made about Jada Pinkett Smith.

Rick determines that every planet with dinosaurs on it is eventually impacted by a huge space rock causing an extinction level event. He explains that while the dinosaurs evolved into high levels of being, at the same time another lifeform devolved into a hate filled species of barely sentient rocks. These rocks view the dinosaurs as their enemy and follow them around to do as much damage as possible. Since they are back on Earth, Rick reveals that another rock is on its way toward the planet. The angry space rocks look very similar to the angry moon in the video game “Majora’s Mask.” The dinos destroy the rock rather easily without having to reset time every three days.

If you look closely, there’s an underscored environmental message throughout this episode. At a U.N. conference the dinos wonder why some of the delegates are nervous after asking about the remains of their ancestors. President Curtis says it’s because it’s weird that dinosaurs are back but it’s more likely that the previous dinosaurs have turned into oil and other fossil fuels. When Rick first meets the dinosaurs they’re at a memorial for the ancestors in an oil field. After they leave a musical montage lists different environmental disasters as the world goes back to normal. Summer even comments how it’s like 1000 degrees outside. It’s a bit of a sad reminder of the state of the planet.