Rick and Morty’s South Park Easter Egg is Actually a Clever Spoiler for “Vat of Acid Episode”

You might not have noticed this on first watch, but Rick and Morty’s South Park Easter Egg was actually a sneaky spoiler for Season 4’s “The Vat of Acid Episode.” The episode sees Rick and Morty jump into a fake vat of acid, and when Morty criticizes Rick’s newest device for its simplicity he challenges Rick to create a time travel like device that would create a “save point” and let him re-do any of his choices. One of these choices eventually leads to a hilariously missable South Park Easter Egg that foreshadows the dark twist at the end.

One of Morty’s re-dos involves him crash landing a plane on a mountain, and the few survivors end up wearing hats that resemble the recognizable hats of Stan and Kyle from South Park. But the key here is Morty is wearing an orange hoodie like Kenny, who died in many episodes through the South Park franchise over the years. This is actually a small spoiler as to how many times Morty dies throughout the episode.

After this re-do brings him to a tragic level of loneliness, Morty then decides to start killing himself in plenty of horrific and hilarious fashions. On top of how many times he died during the re-dos, these suicides rack up the numbers. Soon Rick reveals that Morty in fact has been killing himself in several different timelines for real. He truly experienced all of those deaths.

This makes for a hilariously horrible twist, but also falls in line with Kenny in South Park too. In South Park, Kenny’s numerous deaths are all actually happening to him. The series canon later gives an explanation, and it’s revealed that Kenny also remembers all of these death experiences. So not only did Rick and Morty sneak in this South Park egg as just a funny animation gag, it actually works to hint at the big reveal to come at the end.

This series always has a lot of fun breaking down its pop culture references, and this definitely is a multi-layered one you had to think quickly to catch! Did you notice this shout out to South Park? Did you notice how it actually spoils the episode? What were some of your favorite moments from “The Vat of Acid Episode”? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!