“Impervious to acid”
Episode eight, “The Vat of Acid Episode,” won an Emmy for good reason. From start to finish it’s an intricately crafted adventure made of seemingly disparate parts, with a final scene that clicks everything together perfectly. But after the main story’s punch line, the button brings back a cop who believes—thanks to Rick’s fake vat of acid, so convincing it has built-in bones that float to the surface to suggest that the victim’s flesh has rapidly dissolved—he’s acid-proof. His smug, oversized enthusiasm at this (false) realization is so over the top (“Feels like that guy had other stuff going on,” Rick mutters) that he takes his talents to The Tonight Show, where he learns that he’s not actually acid-proof in, as you can imagine, the most horrifying way possible. The end result is a payoff for one of the episode’s many random asides—and it couldn’t be more oddly satisfying or gruesome.
