- This the place? - This the place.
- This the stuff? - This the stuff.
And this is no ordinary stuff, Morty.
This sap is primo.
- What the hell? - Shit! Vines!
Locusts come to harvest my bounty.
Hey, giant ancient tree guy.
Sorry. We thought the sap was accountability-free.
Yeah, we're not locusts, just a couple adventurers.
Spacefarers.
You consume your planets,
then spread your sickness to the stars.
Nah. Nah, man. We're clean, I promise.
Yeah, yeah. We just got tested, and I got a bit of a soy allergy.
I have a place for animals like you.
You will be reformed!
What is…
…this?
Yeah, Morty. Not ideal.
But I promise you, the sap will be worth it.
I had the craziest night on this stuff a few weeks ago.
I'm all wobbly, Rick. What the fuck's going on?
I'm in the same position you are.
But I can guess that those roots extracted the biological data
we think of as our minds and reincarnated us as amoeba.
How do we get our old bodies back?
Well, that's the wrong question,
but it's the one all new cellmates ask.
"Cellmates."
We use humor to stay sane in this place.
Yes, sir. Many folks have tried to raid this planet
and ended up down here.
Growth and rebirth. The ball and chain around our ankles.
In here, a man can truly change.
But don't mistake that for freedom.
Give me your cytoplasm, you limp-dick motherfucker!
- What? - Huh.
Guess if you die, you start over.
Good thing we hadn't made much progress.
- Try not to die, Morty. - Hello, my delicious friends.
- He's multicellular now! - Back for another helping?
- Spawn-camping piece of shit! - Jesus!
Prison rules, Morty. Get to the top of the food chain
or you're someone's dinner.
Hey, get in here. We need the nutrients.
Oh, it's like salty tapioca.
If this place is dumb enough to let us manipulate our DNA, Morty,
then we'll just evolve our way out.
First step is fins.
- Wait. How? - Mitosis, Morty.
Think really hard about being your own daughter.
Being a fish isn't so bad. Swimming is fun.
I do like how you're never thirsty.
And the whole world's your toilet.
Oh. Oh, air. So good.
So good.
Toughen up, Morty.
The primordial soup was just the beginning.
We're in some kind of hollow earth.
The reincarnation field must be contained
within the warden's root lattice.
If we escape to the surface, we escape the cycle.
Goddamn it, Morty. You're a lungfish.
Use your lungs.
- Sorry. - You know how much willpower it takes
to drown yourself?
What do you want to try next?
I got eight words for you…
legs.
This is great. We let our food come to us and plan our next move.
I think I'm stuck.
- In our own web? - It's fine.
I'll use you and pull myself up.
Don't! Damn it!
Not so fun, is it?
- Eat shit! - I'm gonna!
Morty, I'm gonna evolve wings, and then I'm gonna kill that guy.
This is amazing, Rick.
And really quick to get to.
Birds are basically small dinosaurs.
All right, Morty, there's no thermals,
so we've got to evolve really specific wings to get up there.
Oh, you can't build us mech suits yet?
Nah. Birds can get wherever they want,
but can't do anything once they get there.
It's like astral projection.
Oh, shit! He can get us down here too.
All right. Pretty obvious we gotta climb a tech tree
to climb the actual tree.
And we do that with…
Hands. Supple, grippy hands
and a pretty familiar version of…
- God, just go already. - Don't wait up!
This watering hole is pretty tense.
- Pretty ape-heavy. - Exactly.
This hole's for apes only. Clear out.
Oh, we were just drinking water.
And using tools!
Hey, look, this guy's jerking off a stick with his rock.
He's a stick stroker!
I'm gonna end you, tool man.
We can move along.
- Oh my God, Rick! - Hey, what the fuck?
Hey! Kill those monkeys slightly different than us.
- What are you doing, Rick? - They started it.
Domination through technology, Morty. We're going apex.
This stick is your god!
He's got a thing!
Rick?
I'm doing this for both of us.
I'll find you when I find you.
Guess he really did bail on me.
- You lost, son? - Oh. Oh, hey.
Please don't kill me for my cytoplasm.
Oh, child, you've been trapped in the cycle of violence too long.
I don't know, maybe you're right.
I'm tired of fighting all the time.
Mm-hmm.
I've seen countless souls waste a billion lifetimes
trying to bust out of here.
But you can't fight the cycle, son.
You got to submit to it. Serve nature.
Is this where you kill me?
Oh, you are traumatized.
Wow! Pollinating, building little hexagon houses,
feels good to do something positive.
You see? And I reckon the warden likes it too.
What are you in for, Morty?
I was a scout for an orc species looking for planets to conquer.
I was a scout for a sludge species looking for planets to conquer.
Well, I'm a touch different because I was a pod person
looking for planets to conquer.
I was helping my grandpa get sap.
I assume it makes energy or gets you high. I don't know.
Aha. That adds up.
He seems the type to be locked in here, but you don't.
- Thank you! - It's a… There's a…
G-O-R…
Should've spelled "ape."
On to the next one.
Every cycle evolves us closer to parole.
- Yeah! - Yeah!
Oh, I'm so fucking wounded.
Everyone follow my lead.
Your lead? I'm the alpha.
Dog, I'm the alpha.
Easy prey here. Easy pickings.
- Get him. - Now!
- I'm the alpha. - On my go!
A hole? This isn't alpha at all.
We're all betas now. Come on, time to meet the boss.
Hey. I know usually I'd be trying to eat you and all,
but maybe Los Lobos and The Herd…
Hey! No interspecies solidarity.
The wolves have been incorporated, sir.
All except for that one.
I'm sorry for those things I said about apes.
More fermented berry mash.
Right away, sir.
It's time to climb this fucker.
Listen up, pawns.
We begin the task of scaling this root.
The root will kill you if you touch it.
You will go one at a time for observation purposes.
On. Now.
Kind of feel like I'm being punished for my loyalty, but…
Lead by example, Gorilla Number 3.
Gas 20 feet up.
Next!
You know what? Fine.
If we can't break out, we break him.
So we clean shit from the ocean?
Ocean needs cleanin'.
And we shit in the ocean?
Ocean needs shittin'.
And we shit in the soil while eating shit out of the soil?
You're pretty hung up on the shit part of it, aren't you?
What's troubling you, son?
I mean, I like the nonviolence, don't get me wrong,
and having a shell is fun,
but it just feels like we're going in circles.
Well, that's what a healthy ecosystem is.
Eventually, the warden will notice our piety and set us free.
Until then, we find peace in here.
So a reformed prisoner is someone who doesn't want to leave the prison?
See? You get it.
Oh, now you're probably just hungry. Here.
I guess I don't want to eat whoever that is.
Now, son, that's a vegetable.
No one picks being a vegetable.
You'd have to really give up to be one of those.
Hey, I think I'm maybe gonna brave
the rest of this life alone.
Well, you know where to find us.
We'll be eating shit.
Sun! Real sun!
Oh, great Warden! I did it! I figured it out!
The goal is to be a plant, like you!
Whoa! So many nutrients in the soil up here.
Yes.
The life cycles of the guilty provide nourishment.
Oh.
But that's more of a by-product
than the point of all this, right?
So… I live up here now?
Oh. This is my spot.
Okay, I can go find my own planet.
You would kinda need to be a spacefarer for that.
And I don't like those.
But now you know how cool it is to be a tree.
- Oh. - Boink!
Okay, we have that bronze post-mortem in ten,
followed by the all-hands on opposable thumbs.
I'll reschedule.
Look who it is.
You don't have to do this, man.
The system's rigged. He wants us fighting each other.
Sounds like I'm on the right side of history.
Morty!
Alright, Morty, let's shake a leg.
When he respawns in a second, he's not gonna be any less annoying.
Rick? Is this a coincidence?
You died at the same time as me?
I saw everything, buddy.
You beat the system, then the system beat back.
He's evil, Rick!
He's feeding off the cycle of death!
We're all just mulch!
Damn. Pretty diabolical tree.
I don't wanna be mulch! I wanna go home!
- We have to stop killing each other! - We will, buddy.
No more death now. That's what feeds the tree.
I'm back!
After that. Now let's go.
Nants ingonyama bagithi baba!
Thanks for indulging me.
I'm not in the form of a lion, but I did want to sing the song.
Hello, inmates.
Okay, I deserve that.
But I have something to say.
You expect us to listen to you?
No, I expect you to listen to Morty.
The Warden seems wise and stoic, but he's just a big tree.
Which means we can starve him out!
It's a hunger strike! But for him.
We'll all live peacefully in a contained system.
I don't know.
So instead of escaping,
we'll live in a smaller, shittier prison?
- I didn't say shittier! - Gorilla 3, is that you?
It's Hyena 3 now. I got a new job.
Seems like a lateral step.
Think of it more as a biodome.
You've spent a million lifetimes being dogs and fish.
It won't kill you to spend one lifetime on this.
Hopefully nothing will kill you. That's the point of the strike.
You know, he does have a point.
Oh, this was a mistake.
What? This looks great!
Then again, I am a bat.
Welcome to me!
Combined with Morty's plant-based livin',
we should all age pretty gracefully.
All he needs from you is…
- Hey. Mornin'. - Shittin' hard or hardly shittin'?
You know, when they pitched me on this herbivore diet,
I was skeptical, but then I tried the pizza.
I need 34 bruschettas, all day.
Yes, Chimp!
And you laugh at all my jokes.
It's true, it's true.
I led us all down here
with the express purpose of killing our tree warden overlord,
which I remind you is still our goal.
He should actually be pretty weak by now.
However, I knew we were putting down roots,
but never imagined love would bloom.
What doesn't bloom down here?
Congratulations!
Hyena 3 and Sheep, you may now…
Okay, already doing it. Hot.
Let's party!
I'm so… hungry.
What's happening down there?
Hey! Start killing each other!
Hello? Anybody?
Oh, you little fuckers are gonna get it now!
"Get bent."
"Get bent"? Little toothless.
- Not that I can beat it. - Now!
It's working. He's too weak to get us with his vines!
Good thing too. I didn't anticipate how old and pacified
our forces would be by the time this plan worked.
Come on, Hyena 3. Marriage made you soft.
- Leave him alone! - You were always a toxic boss!
It's working! Phase 2 now!
Pull!
No! No!
This planet was my retirement!
Say it with me, animals!
Timber!
Doesn't anybody hate anybody anymore?
Hey, birds, don't snakes always eat your eggs?
Don't… Don't fall for that.
Come on. Someone's gotta have a grudge.
This is too reformed!
Oh, did we evolve too much?
I actually have deep respect for spacefarers.
Parked your ships all nice and neat up there.
If it makes you feel any better,
I didn't steal anything from the glove boxes!
No! I'm dying!
Plants rule…
So… that's it, then?
I kinda thought we'd be returned to our original bodies.
No, no, no, no, we will. We all just gotta believe.
Yeah, we all just gotta close our eyes.
Hm. Okay. You guys got us this far.
I don't feel anything. Is it happening?
Oh, it totally is.
You gotta keep those eyes tight, though.
You sound farther away.
Oh! My leaf became a hand! It's working!
- Hope that happens to me. - Whoa! Yeah!
Oh! Oh, so magical.
Interesting how it happened to them first.
Yeah!
Oh man!
Where have you two been all day?
- Nunya. - What's that? Biology?
I think I know a thing or two about that.
Nope.
- Oop. Excuse us. - Huh.
- Dude! - That was totally Hyena Number 3.
Guess people got out, huh?
That is not how I pictured him looking.
- Thanks, hon. - This might sound crazy,
but do you know who I think I just saw?
Was it the old man and boy who saved us from prison
but also left us trapped in our animal bodies?
You always fucking step on my stories!
Did you get any of that?