Cells at Work!! Season 2

Episode 6

Disclaimer: The views and opinions in these reviews are observations made by the reviewer(s) and should in no way be construed as medical advice! If you have a question, please contact your general practitioner for information!

Killer T Cell gets a new assignment as "Memory T Cell" as WBC, TK Cell, Ordinary Cell, and RBC enter the large intestine. The organ smells like shit harmful bacteria and is starting to fall apart despite the cells' best efforts. This is shown primarily through a museum-style exhibit about bacteria where the platelets are having a field trip. Except gas keeps leaking in and the walls are crumbling. Ordinary Cell splits off from the rest of the group to find the last bacteria's home and NK, Memory T, and WBC head in another direction towards the suspected cancer cell.

There are three things happening simultaneously and all of them are bad. Bacteria are breaching the intestinal walls putting Ordinary Cell (and quite a few others) in serious jeopardy, the toxic gas is smothering the platelets and RBC, and the cancer cell is making short work of the Immune Trio trying to fight him off. Last season, opinions were mixed when the Cancer Cell made his appearance. The show highlighted the tragedy of the cell's existence; born with genetic flaws, it can't change what it is and so questions why it was ever brought into this world. Of course, cancer itself is a tragedy and I know too many people that have suffered the effects of it. This episode didn't bring on much emotional pathology to Cancer Cell as his previous introduction, but my primary concern is where exactly the conclusion is heading.

Cause I hope it's not convincing people to eat more yogurt in a move to prevent cancer. There are a lot of things you can do for your health, some of which can lower your risk of cancer, but I start getting bunk naturopathy tingles whenever we go into "this superfood will protect you from cancer" territory. I swear there was a time when both blueberries and pomegranates were touted as such. We'll have to wait and see what exactly happens, but I can't imagine a scenario that doesn't involve the little bacteria being brought into the cancer fight.

Thoughts from Matt (RN): I'm not 100% sure what they're showing going on in the intestines in this episode. It seems like there's a couple of things happening at once. The first is the wall of the intestinal tract has been breached by bacteria, possibly representing an abscess or perforation. It could also be Crohn's disease or colitis. Our body uses mucus as a defense mechanism against bacteria. You'll see this also in the stomach, lungs, and nose.

The second is obviously the attack of the cancer cell. It's actually a daily occurrence in the body for our defenses to neutralize cancer cells before they can proliferate. It's not clear if this is related to the happenings in the intestine, but intestinal cancers could absolutely cause perforations.

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Cells at Work! is currently streaming on Funimation.