Rick and Morty: Total Rickall
August 17, 2015 4:03 AM - Season 2, Episode 4 - Subscribe

The gang meet new friends.

The new friends (so many of them!) might be alien parasites.

AV Club review.
posted by sparkletone (43 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
So, so, so many new friends! So, so many. And then it gets a little dark. And keeps getting darker. No, wait, not done getting dark yet. Yep, there we go. Dark.

(Laughed my head off the entire episode, even the ending which... I should probably feel bad about laughing at maybe.)
posted by sparkletone at 4:03 AM on August 17, 2015


That ending was amazing. I was a little disappointed that they had the little post-credits coda, it was so fantastically bleak as it was.
posted by whir at 7:03 AM on August 17, 2015


I'm sad that Pencilvester wasn't the real one.

I still can't decide whether the montage of Rick's catch phrases, Jerry's feelings for Gary, or that ending is my favorite part of this.
posted by sparkletone at 7:08 AM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm not sorry I have nothing but joyful memories of this episode.

It was a good one, which still runs with with an extension that the show doesn't shy from the idea that life isn't always great and fun, but can be depressing and sad. More so, in this episode, kind of like an alternative take to the lesson that Joy learns in Inside Out, that there is a reason to appreciate sadness or bad memories in our lives...albeit, in this instance, it helps us to root out the parasites bent on taking over the world.

Photography Raptor!

Sorry, I loved Photography Raptor.

It was incredibly sad that Jerry was so quickly replaced by Sleepy Gary. There's photographs around the house of Jerry and Beth as a married couple, they have their own memories of a lifetime of being a married couple, and in an instant, Sleepy Gary is accepted as the true husband of Beth. Again, it draws upon the premise that Beth and Jerry have not had an all together happy life together, and both at least subconsciously, are willing to latch on to an imaginary alternative. Yet, we know, they love and need each other enough to keep being together.
posted by Atreides at 7:19 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


I liked how recreating the title sequence with Mr. Poopy Butthole was not just a visual joke but a device to subvert our expectations in the end.
posted by cazoo at 7:33 AM on August 17, 2015 [9 favorites]


Over on reddit there are entire debates raging about Mr. Poopybutthole. Is he real ? Is he a parasite ?
posted by Pendragon at 7:37 AM on August 17, 2015


Is he real ? Is he a parasite ?

There's nothing happy about him getting shot, therefore he is not a parasite. As for what he is (clearly not human), who cares!
posted by sparkletone at 7:49 AM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Favorite lines from this episode:
Jerry: The fire department won't come here any more!

Frankenstein('s monster): Looks like I was on the wrong side of the pitchfork on this one.

Rick: Nintendo, give me free stuff!

Beth: Ugh, sorry Jerry, you're real.
Jerry: I'm a parasite!
Beth: But you're real.


It was incredibly sad that Jerry was so quickly replaced by Sleepy Gary. There's photographs around the house of Jerry and Beth as a married couple, they have their own memories of a lifetime of being a married couple, and in an instant, Sleepy Gary is accepted as the true husband of Beth.

But those memories feel like the real things, so every new member of the family feels like they've been there for a while. New characters appear after another happy flashback, and they, too, have a long history with the family. I think Sleepy Gary was just a variant on Jerry (he looks similar, his name is similar). He's the man both Jerry and Beth want to be (with).
posted by filthy light thief at 10:22 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


Good lord, what a mind-fuck. I watched it twice, and it still hurts my brain. Pray for Mr. Poopybutthole!
posted by SansPoint at 6:13 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Am I the only one who thinks this episode was pretty meh? Was like a lazy clip show except the clips weren't actually from real episodes.
posted by ryanrs at 6:19 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Over on reddit there are entire debates raging about Mr. Poopybutthole. Is he real ? Is he a parasite?

By the time we were introduced to Hamurai and Amish cyborg, it had become obvious that Mr. Poopybuthole was not a parasite. Not even Tinkles the magic ballerina lamb had such a childishly blatant scatalogical name. That kind of puerile attempt to shock was clearly a red herring. After all, misdirection is what puts us at the wrong side of the pitchfork, as Frankenstein's monster would say.

Oh god, I'm beginning to understand instinctively how Justine Roiland's brain works. It's like I'm the one infected with a telepathic parasite.
posted by Doktor Zed at 6:41 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


There's nothing happy about him getting shot, therefore he is not a parasite.

It's happy that there really was someone who loved them all fully and unconditionally, and never hurt them. Therefore he WAS a parasite.
posted by gerryblog at 7:19 PM on August 17, 2015


*shoots Doktor Zed*





Wait...what? Are we not doing that now?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:39 PM on August 17, 2015


Therefore he WAS a parasite.

Rick's made friends with all sorts of weird aliens. Mr. Poopy Butthole is just another (benign) one of those. His shooting is a horrifying experience for everyone involved. There's no happiness. The show ends with Beth relapsing into drinking and then in the post-credits running off in tears. There's no forgiveness. There's no silver lining. Just the horrible crushing guilt Beth feels and the way everyone else is saddened by this turn of events as well. Any past happy memories are corrupted by what she did and the horrible damage it wrought.

You can't sleep-viking this!
posted by sparkletone at 8:47 PM on August 17, 2015 [8 favorites]


The shot of Rick and Frankenstein in 'Nam was what made the whole episode for me.
posted by Catblack at 8:59 PM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


My initial reaction to the episode on Gchat, sent at 23:35:
Omg
FAKE CLIP SHOW
THE BEST KIND OF CLIP SHOW

...yeah, thanks Community for priming my expectations here. I loved that this was both a clip show and a bottle episode, two cost-saving measures in traditional TV, neither of which saved even a tiny bit of costs here. So good.

My husband and I spent a bunch of time debating afterwards what's going on. We feel like there's got to be some connection to the Jerry swap at the end of the episode before last but we're not sure what it is. Apparently according to some guy on reddit who works on the show, this episode is where the season gets kicked into twelfth gear so we'll see where it all goes.

It was incredibly hard for me to get my head around the fact that last night's episode and last week's were the same length. Last night's seemed about 5 minutes long and the previous one felt like it got about an hour's worth of plot and character development into its 22 minutes.

The Beth/Jerry/Gary triangle is so sad. I don't know, the whole episode was fun but the central thesis that you can only really know your loved ones by the fact that you have bad memories of them was still pretty raw.
posted by town of cats at 9:19 PM on August 17, 2015 [5 favorites]


Looks like I was on the wrong side of the pitchfork on this one.

Being on the handle-end of the pitchfork is, in fact, the preferable position.
posted by ryanrs at 12:57 AM on August 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


I was SO AFRAID when this started that it was going to be the absolute worst kind of family-guy-esque "oh ha it's like that one time i did the thing!" *cuts to stupid gag* routine. They really started to go there, and i really started to go "oh god, it's happening, it's getting mediocre. They'll probably do a good job of this but it'll still be fucking sad and stupid and ughhhh"... And then just turned it on its head.

The funniest comment i've heard, is i wonder if when they rerun older episodes they'll have subtly inserted Mr. Poopy Butthole into all of them? There's HUGE reddit threads about him, and people are pointing out that characters who looked almost exactly like him already were in the backgrounds of previous episodes(like some other recurring characters, like the bizarre looking kids in class in several s1 episodes)

At this point watching these guys make this show is like the times i saw legendary master cuban musicians live, just jamming for an hour after a bit of pre determined setlist. You can give them the shittiest, stupidest prompt and they start there and then just rock out and before you even realize it a half hour has gone by and your face is melted.
posted by emptythought at 4:29 AM on August 18, 2015


Anyone but me catch the Sneakers reference?
posted by phearlez at 6:31 AM on August 18, 2015


The funniest comment i've heard, is i wonder if when they rerun older episodes they'll have subtly inserted Mr. Poopy Butthole into all of them?


Isn't the butler already in the opening credits of the other second-season episodes?


Also...how is being in 'Nam with Frankenstein a good memory?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:36 AM on August 18, 2015


Also...how is being in 'Nam with Frankenstein a good memory?

When Frankenstein's Monster and Ghost in a Jar have your back, it's a good thing.
posted by Atreides at 7:17 AM on August 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


How was being in 'Nam a good thing? You know, the camaraderie. They weren't holding the dying body of one of their team mates, they were looking forward to what they'd do when they got back from the war. There weren't even bullets flying, or the sound of explosions!


Isn't the butler already in the opening credits of the other second-season episodes?

I kind of assumed it was a link to this episode, but we'll see if he returns.

I'm so tempted to geek out and improve the Rick and Morty wikia for this episode, which only has 14 parasite characters listed, of which only Tinkles and Reverse Giraffe have their own pages set up. Though upon review of a transcript, it looks like only 14 characters were mentioned by name in the episode.


Anyone but me catch the Sneakers reference?

I missed it. Can you give us a hint?
posted by filthy light thief at 7:27 AM on August 18, 2015


This was the first episode I watched on TV without having viewed it previously.
Beth is her father's daughter in some not-so-good ways.
posted by luckynerd at 10:38 AM on August 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Just one more note on Beth: giving a self-loathing addict a reason to drink crosses the streams on happy and sad in ways that leave the ending ambiguous to me.
posted by gerryblog at 10:40 AM on August 18, 2015


It's possible it's not a reference and just a coincidence, as the quote isn't exact and it's not the most unique idea.

Sneakers quote

I'm inclined to see the connection, though.
posted by phearlez at 11:19 AM on August 18, 2015


When I heard it, I immediately thought of Sneakers. It's not just the line, it's the setup and characters. I choose to believe!
posted by adrianhon at 11:25 AM on August 18, 2015


Aaaauuuugggghhhh! The horrifying realization that killing the parasites doesn't make the false memories go away! So each of the main characters is now walking around with a lifetime of nothing but positive memories of dozens or hundreds of people (using the term very loosely) who they had to brutally kill to save the world.

Even by Rick & Morty standards, that is fucking rough.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:54 PM on August 18, 2015 [10 favorites]


I'm guessing Mr. Poopybutthole is part of the family or group on an alternate timeline - we were watching that alternate timeline the other night.
posted by Nevin at 3:37 PM on August 18, 2015


I wasn't entirely as amazed by this episode as some other folks in this thread - it seemed odd that the alien parasites almost all (except for the brother, the Italian guy, and Gary) all deliberately chose insanely unreasonable characters to impersonate. Although I guess we've already established (with this episode's Toast People) that some alien species have real issues figuring out plausible Earth-life.

It was pretty solid, and the dark twist at the end was pretty fierce and shocking, but nowhere near (for me, at least) Morty's "I'm burying my own dead body" bit. I feel like Rick & Morty does dark better when its subtler and doesn't depend so much on just shock to push it through.

Aaaauuuugggghhhh! The horrifying realization that killing the parasites doesn't make the false memories go away!

Don't they? I must have missed that on both my watch-throughs. That does up the ante, certainly.
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:01 PM on August 18, 2015


For some reason, I'm really interested in finding the lyrics of the mid-episode music video.

No kitchen-sinkles, no little brothers.
Going to raves and waving our hands.
someone and tinkle, friends to the end.
something group texing all of our friends
something something
tink-to-the-inkle with a ?

Loved the re-credits. Lots of end of episode feels these days.
posted by sibboleth at 7:37 PM on August 18, 2015


Maybe the next episode will end with a fart joke.
posted by French Fry at 6:06 AM on August 19, 2015


was going to be the absolute worst kind of family-guy-esque "oh ha it's like that one time i did the thing!" *cuts to stupid gag* routine.

I choose to believe it was subtly satirizing the family guy flashback gag routines. Although the idea that you have no bad memories of Family Guy gag routines is something of a compliment.
posted by pwnguin at 8:47 AM on August 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


Don't they? I must have missed that on both my watch-throughs. That does up the ante, certainly.

After Rick kills Steve, Morty recalls Steve teaching him to ride a bike. Cousin Nicky also died before anyone brought up their memories of the adventure on the Nazi submarine. Ergo, the memories implanted by now-dead parasites don't go away.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 10:37 AM on August 19, 2015 [3 favorites]


Also both Beth and Jerry need time to mourn Sleepy Gary.

Yeah they keep those memories.
posted by French Fry at 10:47 AM on August 19, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm glad they kept the memories of killing all of their friends and loved ones. Like, sure, saving the world and all, but they all jumped at the chance to kill all of these people/things they had wonderful perfect memories with. (other than Rick's one scene with the pencil guy.) In fact, they seemed to be having fun.

During the mass-murder scene the first realization I had was that all of the parasites were not fighting back, they were all terrified, and the family were literally frothing at the mouth in their bloodlust.


Who's the real monsters?
posted by mayonnaises at 8:09 AM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]


So, regarding Mr. Poopy Butthole. Do the parasites have to die before they reveal their true form? Because Mr. PB didn't die. So he could still be a parasite, just a wounded one, who is now outside the blast shield.

Also, as I think about it , the vectoring was kind of weird. Brother Steve is alone in house for a week with no further outbreak (except maybe Mr. PB), replaced by Cousin Nicky shows up as soon as Steve dies, who is replaced by Mr. B, the butler, and then rapidly and exponentially followed by the rest. So do they breed? Are they released like spores on death?
posted by rtimmel at 8:49 AM on August 20, 2015


Do the parasites have to die before they reveal their true form?

Didn't Rick reveal one by wounding it in the shoulder?
posted by DiscountDeity at 11:26 AM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yep, when they're hit in any way they obviously deform or die. Some had to be shot twice to die, but they always like... lose their shape.

It's sort of like shooting the changelings in star trek DS9.
posted by emptythought at 12:06 PM on August 20, 2015


but they all jumped at the chance to kill all of these people/things they had wonderful perfect memories with. (other than Rick's one scene with the pencil guy.) In fact, they seemed to be having fun.

Perfect fake memories, implanted by opportunistic creatures looking to replicate at the expense of their lives and maybe their world. I don't know that I think them being angry about being used that way is at all unreasonable. We accept that someone drugging someone and then taking sexual advantage while they're unconscious is a violation. What is it when you alter someone's mind - their memories, which I'd say are the very basis of who they are - without their consent?

Brother Steve is alone in house for a week with no further outbreak

They seem to go from tiny to large in nothing flat; Rick doesn't recognize the thing so it must have popped up just in the time he's been in the garage. As far as a week goes, apparently they start off super small...
posted by phearlez at 12:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]


If you play Dota2, there's an official Rick and Morty announcer pack.
posted by bluecore at 11:47 PM on August 20, 2015


It's also a totally ridiculous announcer pack. Like the most ridiculous one ever made. It has something like 750 recordings, whereas the next biggest one has something like 500, and the majority of them have ~400.
posted by emptythought at 12:50 PM on August 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was really hoping that boat scene with Jerry and Sleepy Gary was going to be a Talented Mr. Ripley gag.
posted by codacorolla at 5:23 PM on August 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Tinkles - "Summer, I've always loved you!"
Summer - "Yep"
BLAST
posted by Navelgazer at 7:47 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


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