Is Benson in a simulation?

Near the end of The Regular Show S07E05 "The Dome Experiment Special", the characters finally decide to look for Benson in the woods of the park, so upon entering the woods Rigby says:

Guys, I think I found something

However it is not shown what Rigby found

(Before) Details of when they enter the woods:

The characters wear jackets (see image: characters using jackets)
"Pops" is shirtless and shows a physical improvement due to "field work"
Characters do not carry anything in their hands
Rigby says he found something, but nothing is shown
"Hi Five Ghost" became the group leader (boss)
The house of the park was completely modified, having a system of self-settlement created by the park's own employees (see image: Main house of the park (Pops' house))

(After) When the group finds Benson:

Characters are without jackets (see image: characters without jackets)
"Pops" is in his normal clothes and does not seem to have an improved physical body
"Hi Five Ghost" does not seem to present any lead (which he was presenting before entering the woods)

After Benson saves them all and removes them from the dome they encounter 2 tanks of war. At this moment, everyone pulls machetes out of nowhere, remembering that they had nothing when they entered the woods.

Then I came back to see again the part when Dr Dome captures Benson inside the lab. There, Dr Dome was not sure if the experiment had been compromised by Benson, because even with Benson seeing the graphics, he was more worried about his email, so they put Benson in a simulation of actors going through the other characters to try to find out what Benson knew, but Benson ran away.

However, it's soon after Benson got away that things get strange in the episode, implying that it is a simulation within another simulation (due to the details I quoted earlier).

Everything that occurs from this in the episode made me think two things:

Benson is still in a simulation
The screenwriters of the series thought that the episode might be too complicated for the children (since it is the main audience) to understand and perhaps modify the ending in the last moments and follow another line in the other episodes (afterwards they did another episode about the summit and finally in the eighth season they revealed the real plan for the park and the origin of the "Pops").

What I want to know is if this was really a change of script, or did I miss an episode or lost something in the episode itself?

Maybe some pronouncement of the series creators?

plot-explanation regular-show

Best Answer

No, they are not still in a simulation. Pop's has always been ripped (very muscular) with his shirt off. Watch any other episode, like the country club episode where he boxes with one of the bad guys, he's ripped. So that hasn't changed. He just doesn't have that profile with his clothes on.

Rigby says, "Guys, I think I found something" and then it fades to black and we see Benson wake up in the simulation. Rigby found the fake Benson, but they can't show us that until we understand that the scientists are trying to simulate the characters. After Benson escapes the simulation, we see the guys encounter the fake Benson, that's what Rigby saw. Having seen Benson in an obvious simulation, we now understand why the guys would encounter a fake Benson.

Pops and HFG didn't have jackets on when they went into the forest, but then pops had his shirt on and the guys didn't have the jackets. This is just because that's their normal state. HFG taking charge, and the jackets represent the fact that they are acclimating the their new life, but when they decide to go into the forest, they've returned to their old ways. So it's not an error in the script and not uncommon in cartoons for this to occur.

It's made painfully obvious that the "simulation" was fake by the obvious change in character voices, so you know Benson is not in a simulation still because all character voices are normal, and not everyone got hit with darts, so it's not possible for everyone else to be in a simulation either.

As far as the house, Benson was gone over a month. There were already changes after 2-3 days, because the guys ran out of food. So the changes are what the guys have done to survive after a month. Normal.

It's a pretty cut and clear episode, nothing significant about it other than to explain/prepare us for the change in story line for next season.