Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm 2022

Frylock Carey Means steps back into a world that feels both familiar and estranged: years have passed since Frylock left the house in frustration, and now his old friends are scattered and homeless—Meatwad and Master Shake among them. In the gleaming yet isolating offices of Amazin, a colossal megacorp ruled by the enigmatic Neil Peter Serafinowicz from his llama-shaped tower, Llama Dolly, Frylock is pulled into a plan with high stakes and even higher ambitions. Neil, a reclusive boss with a rumored spaceship pedigree, asks Frylock to fix one of Elmer’s experimental stretching machines, only to propose a far more dramatic alternative: DNA splicing to clone a much taller version of Neil. The conversation is strange, even for this crew, and it marks the start of a cascade of choices that blur the line between invention and obsession. Elmer Paul Walter Hauser is present as the assistant who seems to be chasing a breakthrough that could redefine height, humanity, and power, while the ever-curious Frylock wonders if cloning a giant version of Neil might be the key.

When a mugging goes wrong, Frylock is brutally mutilated, and Neil and Elmer step in to save him. His old shell is destroyed, and a new metal shell is fitted, powered by a crystal that catches their eye and imagination. As Frylock recovers, a cautious friendship grows between him and Neil, a dynamic that will soon be tested by ambition and control. The first major experiment arrives: Frylock manages to splice in the DNA of a giraffe and the basketball legend Shawn Kemp [Shawn Kemp], yielding a towering clone who calls himself Big Neil. Big Neil does not merely imitate Neil; he asserts dominance, locking the original Neil away in a wooden box. Meanwhile, back at Carl’s house, Master Shake and Meatwad arrive in search of refuge, only to discover Carl unwilling to host beyond the backyard.

Amazin has been busy, mailing out countless packages across the country, a detail that becomes a crucial trap later. Carl notices many of the deliveries are empty, and Meatwad and Shake construct improvised homes from the vacant boxes in Carl’s yard. When a sprinkler turns on and saturates the boxes, they sprout into plant-like beings that threaten Shake, Meatwad, and Carl. They try to reach Frylock, but he’s initially unwilling to listen, wrapped up in the unfolding corporate scheme. Return to Amazin reveals a darker truth: Big Neil and Elmer have unwittingly become puppets in a larger plan, while two alien races—the Japongaloids Natasha Rothwell and the Fraptaculans Tim Robinson—have been enslaved using the Llama Dolly, which has revealed itself as a powerful spaceship.

Neil and Elmer intend to replace the new plant beings with Elmer’s perfected hybrids, a plan that hinges on Frylock’s crystal. Neil quietly admits that his interest in Frylock was never friendship but access to that crystal, and Amazin’s packaging proves to be nothing more than seeds that sprout into the creatures when watered. When a storm spreads the plant menace, Elmer expands into a colossal, tree-like hybrid and seizes control of the plant army, turning the confrontation into a battle for the fate of the world. Big Neil fires Elmer and the plan seems doomed, but Elmer consumes plant seeds, drinks water, and becomes the catalyst for a whole new order of life.

Frylock, alongside Shake and Meatwad, fights to defend themselves and their allies. Carl arrives with his car, and the trio escapes to Used Babywipe Mountain—the only New Jersey summit that stays above the treeline—where they find safety from the growing forest of threat. The Llama Dolly finally joins the fray, and Frylock and the two Neils hatch a plan to eradicate the plant creatures by ferrying the ship to the Moon and pushing it in front of the Sun, cutting off the light they depend on. On the Moon, the ship is intercepted by the Mooninites, but Frylock frees Neil so he can take full control. The two Neils, working in concert, defeat the Mooninites and push the Moon between the Sun and Earth, depriving the plant life of sunlight.

Back on Earth, Carl, Shake, and Meatwad marshal a DIY Mad Max–style car assault against the plant horde. The battle seems to tilt in favor of the humans at first, but the tide turns again as Japongaloids and Fraptaculans arrive, tilting the odds back toward a larger, more cosmic struggle. With the Sun blotted by the Moon and the Earth cooling rapidly, the Neils return home only to be killed in a brutal moment by the two alien powers. The Earth freezes, and the fates of the Aqua Teens become a dark, edible joke for their new predators: the Japongaloids and the Fraptaculans decide they can eat what’s left, including the heroes themselves.

In a final, darkly comic post-credits scene, a dying Master Shake is bitten by Markula and begins to turn into a vampire bat, cackling with a twisted certainty: I smell a sequel!

I smell a sequel!