Rick and Morty: The Ricklantis Mixup
September 10, 2017 10:27 PM - Season 3, Episode 7 - Subscribe

Want to hear what life is like for a Rick who's a beat cop in the Morty Town district of the rebuilt Citadel? Too bad, because Rick and Morty are going to Atlantis, baby!
posted by sebastienbailard (64 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Pretty weak episode, overall. I don’t think this is a show that can effectively handle American race or police politics, and none of the jokes landed. It doesn’t make sense to me that there would be working-class Ricks in the citadel. The Simple Rick product and the A/B/C anchormen Ricks were amusing, but overall this one left me really cold.
posted by migurski at 11:08 PM on September 10, 2017 [1 favorite]


I actually thought it was the of the best episodes of the entire series so far. Our past visits to the Citadel have shown street vendor Ricks hawking their wares so the mix of different classes of Ricks and Mortys was consistent with things we have seen already.

I have been waiting to see Eyepatch Morty come back and although it was obvious that it was him early on it was still fun to watch unfold. I am anxious to see where they eventually go with it. My original theory was that at some point "our" Morty becomes Eyepatch Morty, perhaps after learning that his Rick isn't even his original Rick but I doubt it now, although Eyepatch Morty might have a similar past to what I was imagining. I guess now I have to call him Palpatine Morty.

I do find it interesting that despite always being described as dumb, slow, learning-disabled... Morty has been disarming planet-destroying bombs and figuring out how to use Ricks technology pretty regularly. Anxiety-stricken certainly, but Morty seems pretty damn smart so I think he is at least the closest Morty in personality/capability to Palpatine Morty (much as in that episode the puppet Rick said that "our" Rick was the closest Rick to him).
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 2:20 AM on September 11, 2017 [7 favorites]


I felt it was starting to creak a bit by the end - I think that this show is better at passing rapidly through gonzo environments than sticking with one and digging down deep into it, which seemed to be what this was aiming to be. It was a solid episode and I liked that the Citadel hasn't just disappeared, as it might have on so many other shows, after being destroyed in the first episode.
posted by AdamCSnider at 3:47 AM on September 11, 2017


I thought it was brilliant writing for three gripping subplots in one established setting.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:15 AM on September 11, 2017 [18 favorites]


This feels like the pilot of a once-per-season drop-in spin-off that will eventually, way down the line, dovetail in to the main story for an epically kick-ass series finale. I'm fine with that.

I'm also fine, though perhaps slightly less fine, with the possibility of it being a pointless one-time-only side-romp.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:00 PM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


I do find it interesting that despite always being described as dumb, slow, learning-disabled...

That's just Rick propaganda, and the Citadel itself undermines it. They need to have classes to teach Mortys their place and tell them how inferior and stupid they are, they aren't naturally that way. Even the Morty students at the academy have their doubts about it despite all the controls.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:08 PM on September 11, 2017 [9 favorites]


This ep completely pushes the evil morty sub-plot. The music at the end was the same as in the episode where they find the evil Rick whose personal citadel is covered with screaming Mortys. And then it turns out that Evil Rick is controlled by Evil Morty, with the eyepatch. That music is HIS music. Political Morty is Eyepatch Morty.

I suspect either a) C-137 Morty ("our" Morty) will convince his Rick that they have to stop Evil Morty, or that Our Morty IS Evil Morty, after some kind of weird time-travel shit. I hope it's the former because I hate time-travel shit.
posted by nushustu at 12:20 PM on September 11, 2017 [3 favorites]


Also, as noted above the Citadel Rick/Morty dynamic was clearly supposed to be an allegory for racism, with the Mortys being black people. That makes the ending pretty uncomfortable, that the first Morty to actually achieve something and become a leader really is a monster. It would be like Obama actually turning out to be the America-hating anti-white Kenyan Muslim traitor the right painted him as.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:20 PM on September 11, 2017 [7 favorites]


Pretty weak episode, overall.

Uuuuhm, what ? Did we watch the same episode ? For me this was one of the best episodes of the season and I can't wait to see how Rick handles the Citadel run by Evil Morty.
posted by Pendragon at 12:27 PM on September 11, 2017 [7 favorites]


My dad had never heard of R&M before but was staying with us last night and ended up being awake for the episode's airtime. We tried to describe the show to him and kinda failed but I think we set his expectations fairly well for, say, the Atlantis episode. I think he actually liked this one much better than my imaginary Atlantis episode, but at the second commercial break he was like, "How do they sustain this???" and we were like, "well...they don't?...man IDK this episode is pretty unusual?"

I really liked it but need to rewatch before I can really write coherently about it. One thing I will say, though, is that they set it up to be evocative of race relations in the US and I think this is indicative of the blind spots of the R&M writers & creators - the obvious analogy to Ricks & Mortys for me is men & women - the numbers are roughly equal, they live in the same houses and have roughly the same economic advantages and are generally very likely to be thrown together often even in the most segregated environments, but one group is largely trained by society to consider their needs, desires, skills and abilities as secondary to the other. I am having a lot of fun thinking about how the episode would have been different if they'd picked that analogy instead.

Of course then Evil Morty would have been Hillary as President, pretty problematic (not sure which is more problematic, the episode as written or my imaginary version. Guess it's a toss-up) but I bet most fans of the show would've loved it. Anyway, just a small observation.

Even smaller observation: "Snape Rick" may be both my ultimate Snape and my ultimate Rick. So wish Roiland had attempted a bad Alan Rickman impression. RICKMAN, you guys. Missed opportunity.
posted by potrzebie at 12:54 PM on September 11, 2017 [12 favorites]


And yes it was amazing to realize that of COURSE the idea of Morty being learning disabled is just Rick propaganda and WE ALL BOUGHT IT TOO. I was just saying a couple weeks ago that I thought "competent Morty" was OOC and I feel like I know a few other people who have said the same thing this season and now I feel like I was being totally gross and Rick-supremacist.

And aaah the beat cop starting in with the "oh jeez"s when he's talking to the Mortys on the street!!

I think I'm going to post like 50 times in this thread. I really liked this episode and I can't wait to rewatch and maybe also rewatch the original "Evil Morty" episode since I barely remember it.
posted by potrzebie at 1:20 PM on September 11, 2017 [4 favorites]


Maybe I misunderstood but I thought one of the photos of Political Morty that the Morty who got spaced was holding was a picture of Eyepatch Morty, showing that they're the same person.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:44 PM on September 11, 2017 [4 favorites]


Yep, Eyepatch Morty A.K.A. Evil Morty.
posted by Pendragon at 1:49 PM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


Pope Guilty, I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise?

It's really hard talking about this episode because all of the characters are named Rick or Morty
posted by potrzebie at 1:50 PM on September 11, 2017 [4 favorites]


Of all the jokes in this and past episodes, for some reason the throw-away end comment about C-137 Morty ("our" Morty) getting "mermaid puss," especially with the comments by some Morty in the Rick Citadel World reminding us that he's just 14 years old.

Otherwise, interesting, if not a great episode. I agree with potrzebie:
One thing I will say, though, is that they set it up to be evocative of race relations in the US and I think this is indicative of the blind spots of the R&M writers & creators - the obvious analogy to Ricks & Mortys for me is men & women - the numbers are roughly equal, they live in the same houses and have roughly the same economic advantages and are generally very likely to be thrown together often even in the most segregated environments, but one group is largely trained by society to consider their needs, desires, skills and abilities as secondary to the other.
Also, setting up a world of white men as equivalents for racial conflict in the US feels like they're sinking to South Park levels of edge and wit - interesting/daring for a moment, until you realize how reductive it is. I get it, these are the two main characters, but the show has branched out with other members of the family, let's try something more than white men as the stand ins for everyone. That was a limitation in the time of Shakespeare (focused on gender, but you get the idea).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:03 PM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


Also, as noted above the Citadel Rick/Morty dynamic was clearly supposed to be an allegory for racism, with the Mortys being black people.

Supposed by whom? I think it might be more charitable to suppose that a science fiction cartoon might merely be informed by real life power dynamics without necessarily being a 1:1 allegory of race relations.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:13 PM on September 11, 2017 [14 favorites]


I think it was using race-based allegories as a trope here in some ways, but I didn't read the story as any kind of take on race. We clearly had a story based on Training Day, and another based on Stand By Me, and sort of had one based on John Q. But the only one that had a racial element was the Training Day one, where Cop Morty had Denzel's part. But in the John Q storyline the Denzel part was played by a Rick, and it was all Mortys playing the white kids from Stand By Me. So while the most obvious parallel for an allegory for this ep would be race-based, I don't think it's that cut and dried.
posted by nushustu at 2:33 PM on September 11, 2017 [9 favorites]


heh, seems like every episode we have someone going "this was the worst" and someone else going "this was the best".

So even though there was a socioeconomic system built into the citadel since we were first introduced to it in season one, it's never been clearly explained how it's sustainable given that Ricks in general are selfish assholes. Mortys can be smart, but they're subjugated by Ricks for servitude(/genius shield/entertainment/etc), so why would some Ricks allow themselves to be subservient to other Ricks, or even a rookie partner to an experienced police Morty? The thin string of reasoning is that they're all so wanted by the federation (who apparently has been destroyed by our Rick) that they must band together and agree to work within this system they built for themselves and their Mortys. And as we saw, outraged Ricks can be subdued by better Ricks. I suppose that requires more world-building that the plot of the show really needs, because at the end of the day, the concept is still plausible enough to work, and I can live with it.

We've been told that our Rick is the most Rick, so he's beyond the system of the Citadel. But there must be others that are within his range, ala Evil Morty's mind-controlled Rick. I wonder if we'll see more of them.

It dawned on me that it was Evil/Eye Patch Morty when that Rick slipped the campaign manager the envelope. Although I wonder why the Ricks that know about him didn't try the assassination themselves. Perhaps they didn't want a Morty uprising from a Rick killing a Morty candidate.
posted by numaner at 2:47 PM on September 11, 2017 [3 favorites]


Although I wonder why the Ricks that know about him didn't try the assassination themselves.

Maybe they did try. Mysterious Trenchcoat Rick is one of the bodies floating outside of the Citadel airlocks.
posted by Iridic at 3:37 PM on September 11, 2017 [5 favorites]


I don't know if it matters but for the record I always believed so-called "evil "morty" is actually a Free-Morty, a liberated Morty. He's back not for revenge but to save Morty kind.
posted by kittensofthenight at 6:16 PM on September 11, 2017


Ultimately I suspect Ricks put up with menial jobs because no matter how shitty their assembly line work is, at least they wake up in the morning knowing they aren't Mortys. They may be very intelligent, but they're still only human.

Tons of humans are too smart for the jobs they do. Many of us are capable of more, are underutilized or misallocated, are doing work that robots will be doing the second those robots are cheap enough. The fact of Ricks doing menial work on the Citadel highlights the absurdity of the situation in which we all find ourselves and one another.
posted by potrzebie at 6:34 PM on September 11, 2017 [18 favorites]


Know what I think? I think we got that one more episode of The Wire that I've been wishing for ever since I ran through that show's run like a man on fire.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:48 PM on September 11, 2017 [11 favorites]


Menial job Ricks don't make sense because the sort of person who would do the job instead of, within a couple of minutes, building a machine to do it better than anybody has ever done it? Isn't a Rick.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:38 PM on September 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


I posit that we have experience with a very small sample of Ricks and that it's actually pretty hard to tell what makes a Rick a Rick. Assembly Line Rick is readily recognized as a Rick by other Ricks; I'll take their heuristics over my own.
posted by potrzebie at 7:48 PM on September 11, 2017 [11 favorites]


Menial job Ricks don't make sense because the sort of person who would do the job instead of, within a couple of minutes, building a machine to do it better than anybody has ever done it? Isn't a Rick.

So maybe some are robots, some are botched or deliberately sub-Ricked Rick clones, and some are just the many Ricks who've been knocked around in their various adventures thereby brain-damaging them back down to a relatively normal human intelligence?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:16 PM on September 11, 2017


I don't know if it matters but for the record I always believed so-called "evil "morty" is actually a Free-Morty, a liberated Morty. He's back not for revenge but to save Morty kind.

In which case, considering of a multiverse of infinite Mortys under bondage to infinite Ricks, the implementing a dome of Tortured Mortys to hide from the Council of Ricks is an acceptable sacrifice.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:48 PM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


he bout to did it.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:20 PM on September 11, 2017


I found this both the best and darkest episode we've seen thus far.
posted by corb at 10:10 PM on September 11, 2017 [4 favorites]


Menial job Ricks don't make sense because the sort of person who would do the job instead of, within a couple of minutes, building a machine to do it better than anybody has ever done it? Isn't a Rick.

In an infinite number of multiverses, there are an infinite number of Ricks willing to do menial labor. Also, it’s narratively convenient.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:37 PM on September 11, 2017 [9 favorites]


Also, it’s narratively convenient.
That’s maybe the heart of what I found so frustrating about this episode. It felt like one of those bottom-shelf allegorical Next Generation filler episodes with important lessons for the people of 1989 acted out by Enterprise crewmembers making out-of-character decisions. The writing in Rick & Morty builds greatness around Rick’s narcissism, illustrated and magnified by the repetition of Ricks in the citadel. Turning the citadel into an all-white society racial morality play^ undermines the familial relationships in Dimension C-137 that make up the center of the show.

The writing has been best when it’s gone dark on the family dynamics in episodes like s1e3, s2e3/4, and Pickle fuckin’ Rick, which led me to thank Jessica Gao directly for her writing.
posted by migurski at 11:17 PM on September 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


one of those bottom-shelf allegorical Next Generation filler episodes with important lessons for the people of 1989 acted out by Enterprise crewmembers making out-of-character decisions.

I wouldn’t disagree that I find the conceits of this episodes less interesting than others during this season, but I’m surprised that people see so much allegory in it. Not all elections are the 2016 election, and not all episodes of Rick and Morty need to be allegory - at best I’d see this as a weird homage to cop shows and political shows, with a weirdo sadistic Willy Wonka thrown in. Demanding that the way the citadel works line up one-to-one with Earth and that every correspondence have meaning would seem to give more credit to the creators than they really deserve, especially since the correspondences aren’t particularly stressed and seem to generally be whimsical. (e.g
the Morty School.) This was just some plot work so that they can get closer to the season climax, and it was plot work done in an interesting way with the general relentless imagination that comes with the show.

I guess I’m just saying that Rick and Morty is at its heart a stupid, imaginative, often nihilistic and ultraviolent show that gladly blows up the world, so why not let it be itself and start to tie up an old, deliberately dangling thread?
posted by Going To Maine at 11:48 PM on September 11, 2017 [7 favorites]


(I will add that I think “it’s narratively convenient” is the defining ethos of the program. Everything goes out the window, all the time, for a gut punch, and demanding coherence is, well, not for this show.)
posted by Going To Maine at 11:50 PM on September 11, 2017 [3 favorites]


I was grateful for a respite from the relentless focus on family trauma that has so far been the hallmark of this season. This felt, tonally, like OG Rick & Morty. Super dense with the jokes, sowing another thread of one of the more interesting sub-sub-plots, exploring the absurdity of infinite timelines. Huzzah, I say! Huzzah.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:13 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


Also, wrt Menial Labor Ricks: is it really so difficult to imagine a Rick who was so burned out on the whole mad scientist thing that he just wanted to get through the day with just enough money to booze it up at home? People working below their capacity is a thing. Take the case of William Sidis, who, even if his IQ was exaggerated by his family, was surely working well below his abilities for most of his life.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:30 AM on September 12, 2017 [6 favorites]


Yes, I've personally met plenty of highly intelligent people, some of them with post-graduate degrees, working blue collar jobs or jobs that were well below what they were cognitively capable of. That's an actual, real-world thing.

And infinite realities means infinite possibilities. That doesn't just mean Ricks that look like Willy Wonka or Mortys that have bug heads, it means Ricks that aren't super geniuses, or Ricks who are but frankly don't give a fuck. Recall that the show's main Rick wanted to walk away from science entirely until his wife was killed. He was at peace and unconcerned with greatness. He cared about people. What would that Rick have been? A schoolteacher? Working net/ops for a bank? Opening a little shop down the street?

It's absolutely a narrative convenience to have infinite realities. It's also thematic fuel. It means you can explore whatever configuration of your main characters you want to. In a show heavily focused on psychology and therapy and the damage we do to ourselves and each other, it's a pretty useful and meaningful tool. Whether or not the Citadel of Ricks is "realistic" enough is sort of beside the point, from what I can see.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:04 AM on September 12, 2017 [12 favorites]


middleclasstool, Halloween Jack: The entire character of Simple Rick, the Rick who preferred to work with his hands and do crafts instead of science, gives credence to the theory that there are Ricks who have either given up or never gotten into science.
posted by SansPoint at 8:12 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


Recall that the show's main Rick wanted to walk away from science entirely until his wife was killed.

I agree with your point about infinit possibilities, but the plot about the dead wife was a ruse by Rick to escape.
posted by Pendragon at 8:40 AM on September 12, 2017 [6 favorites]


Recall that the show's main Rick wanted to walk away from science entirely until his wife was killed.

... But that's simply the fantasy that he fed to the bugs in order to pass on the brainalyzer virus. Rick isn't a reliable narrator about his own past.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:41 AM on September 12, 2017 [5 favorites]


I know, but Rick's an expert liar. The best and most convincing liars use as much of the truth as they possibly can to sell the story (particularly if it's personal or embarrassing, because people will instantly buy it). You only lie about the parts you have to lie about. It's my firm belief that what he showed the bugs there was absolutely real and the reason he is a sworn enemy of the council of Ricks. And Harmon has hinted that it was real too.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:53 AM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


Rick's a functioning alcoholic who is co-written by a functioning alcoholic. Big parts of this show are a litmus test for which fans have had experiences with people with addiction issues.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:54 AM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


And Harmon has hinted that it was real too.

That's fine & good, but there's nothing explicitly in text to support this. It may come out, and it may not. (The closest thing to explicit support would be the Rick hooked up to the memory machine in the cookie factory.)

At this point, the show has made it clear that the entire world is disposable in order to advance a story about the interior development of the characters. So I find it entirely plausible that Rick was talking part of the truth, I find it plausible that he was just ripping off Cookie Factory Rick's backstory, I find it plausible that he made it up from whole cloth, and I find it plausible that Harmon et al. haven't decided yet.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:09 AM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


Nice bit of Watchmen-esque foreshadowing: Evil Morty's emblem first appears as graffiti in Mortytown.
posted by Iridic at 10:28 AM on September 12, 2017 [5 favorites]


(The design of that emblem - an "M" piercing an "R" - seems like a reference to the infamous Trump/Pence logo.)
posted by Iridic at 10:32 AM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


This episode really takes the cake for the Talking To Himself trope. The only other voice actors in this episode are whoever plays kid Beth and Jeff Davis doing his Sam Neill impression (which I was never convinced was very good on recordings of Harmontown, but wow, is it pitch perfect in this ep).

In the interdimensional cable episode, Rick gets a craving for wafer cookies. Now, because of Simple Rick, that moment is embued with Rick feeling more domestic contentment than he lets on.
posted by vaghjar at 11:29 AM on September 12, 2017 [5 favorites]


Jeff Davis doing his Sam Neill impression

I'm thinking you're referring to the narration of the Simple Rick cookies ad, which would be a Sam Elliott (eg. in The Big Lebowski) impression, rather than Sam Neill (Jurassic Park).
posted by wabbittwax at 12:16 PM on September 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm thinking you're referring to...

Ack, you're absolutely right. I was thinking of Elliott but wrote Neill, oops.
posted by vaghjar at 3:54 PM on September 12, 2017


This was my favorite episode of the season so far. I rewatched it several times and I keep finding myself laughing at the dumbest joke.

"I thought I was left-handed Morty."

"Then you should use your left hand to eat more vegetables."
posted by cazoo at 4:59 PM on September 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


Why Is Rick Such a Rick?
posted by middleclasstool at 5:30 AM on September 13, 2017


Man, cazoo, that really caught me by surprise, just the callousness of it, I had to pause the video while I composed myself. It came completely out of nowhere.

The genius of the joke is both the punchline, but also the long beat that it takes to get there from the initial set-up. He gets called Fat Morty quite early on by Suicidal Morty, and then there's more discussion in the scene until, finally, Fat Morty finds the courage to pipe up, and the joke lands with devastating cruelty.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:43 AM on September 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Menial job Ricks don't make sense

But remember we met Doofus Rick way back in episode 10, Season 1, a Rick the other Ricks openly mock and push around, and who lets them.
posted by glitter at 9:37 AM on September 14, 2017


I think this episode is the Duck Amuck of voice acting.

Also they buried a huge peek at the mechanism of the show's universe right at the start of the first Simple RIck commercial:

"60 iterations off the central finite curve..."

Does that mean Rick C-137 is 137 iterations off the central finite curve? (Whatever it is...)
posted by Catblack at 12:59 PM on September 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Has it ever been floated that Rick is Morty, like an Im-my-own-grandpa reference?
posted by lkc at 6:05 PM on September 14, 2017


lkc: Has it ever been floated that Rick is Morty, like an Im-my-own-grandpa reference?

Yes, definitely. In fact you can hear an audience member ask Dan Harmon about that in the latest Ricking Morty (first audience question, way at the end of the show.)

Ricking Morty is a post-show talk-show sort of thing they've been doing this season. Adult Swim may stream it live, but usually it's posted at the above link by Tue/Wed after an episode airs on Sun. They have been pretty funny, IMO. Typically three "guests" each show, a writer, a voice actor, a rando minor-celeb-slash-friend-of-Justin-and-Dan. Harmon has been on the last two episodes. This most recent episode was him, Jeff Davis and Reggie Watts.

Check it out if you want to watch an hour talk show about a sci fi cartooooooooooon... I guess
posted by jprind at 6:43 PM on September 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


I would watch Reggie Watts discuss a baloney sandwich.
posted by phearlez at 9:44 PM on September 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Our past visits to the Citadel have shown street vendor Ricks hawking their wares so the mix of different classes of Ricks and Mortys was consistent with things we have seen already.

It still doesn't make sense, though.
posted by kenko at 7:44 PM on September 15, 2017


In this economy? Makes perfect sense.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:18 AM on September 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Errant observation from my part:

Setting this in a world of exclusively Ricks and Morties is brilliant. It makes every death, even the most casual, have more impact than any of the anonymous alien deaths we've seen throughout the series. Even when we only get a fraction of a characterisation, it's impossible not to feel something when a Rick or a Morty is killed. That's what I felt was most poignant about the final shot; each of those corpses could and partially is "our" Rick and Morty.

The same goes for Dramatic Morty: his self-sacrifice only resonates because of the time we've spent with other Morty.

It also adds further weight to the callousness and indifference of Atlantis Rick and Morty in a way that I don't think the previous episodes featuring the Citadel quite has.

Definitely liked this episode but watching this back to back with Bojack isn't amazing for my mental wellbeing.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:14 AM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Recall that the show's main Rick wanted to walk away from science entirely until his wife was killed.

After the commercial, I figured that c137 adapted the story from simple rick. Simple rick was kidnapped for his delicious brain juice because the main citadel ricks place no value on life (the backstory pitch is pretty nihilistic). c137 is probably unusual because he has not overcome his attachment to "his" morty and "new" Summer. Menial labor ricks were probably similar dimensions with intrinsically "failed" ricks or burned out alcoholics who could be talked into the citadel's "vision" by visitors like in c137s fake backstory.

evil morty either got a little bit more lucky with a recombination breakpoint or was permanently altered by his rick ala the mega seeds. He may even be inhabited by a rick since we saw that tech as well (except he got stuck and was changed by it as in mini-rick).
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:39 AM on September 16, 2017


This season is absolutely blowing me away. We watched the new south park right after this episode, and then agreed never to watch them back to back again because south park seemed so empty and pathetic after Rick and Morty (which, granted, it probably is on it's own. I think I just have a soft spot for cartoons with swearing)
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:33 PM on September 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


RE: The Central Finite Curve, if I have my math terminologies right, is basically the part of the distribution curve of all possible universes that are all most similar to each other. There may be minor differences, but your Ricks and Morties from universes in the Central Finite Curve are all pretty similar. Universe C-137 (which Rick ended up Cronenberging) is on the Central Finite Curve, and so is the universe they jumped ship to. The more outlandish the Rick and Morty in the Citadel, the further off the Central Finite Curve they are. At the furthest ends are places like the Blender Dimension or Butt World, or parallel universes that don't support any form of life at all.
posted by SansPoint at 10:58 AM on September 17, 2017 [3 favorites]


i did not think this was as much about race relations/gender as some in this thread and more about class. there weren't any clear 1 to 1 parallels to our reality or 2016 election as some have drawn. Evil Morty is not really Hillary, he was made fun of before the debates and pulled an surprise win by using the frustrations of the working class Rick and Morties, which sounds more like Trump if you really want to draw parallels.

The episode draws an extremely detailed picture of the citadel and its inhabitants, which really impressed me. To quote another Rick "It's so dense, every single frame has so many things going on."
posted by Megustalations at 2:51 AM on September 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Having rewatched this episode a couple of times with Mr. Palmcorder, I think I'm starting to understand a little bit about why Rick, and the Citadel, are the way they are.

It seems to me that portal guns, more than anything, are the key to Rick's soaring, bell curve-annihilating intelligence. Not only do they allow him to glide away from any and all consequences, they also make it possible for him to benefit from the discoveries and innovations that other Ricks throughout the multiverse make. In essence, Rick is able to use large-scale distributed processing, while everyone else is limited to a single, lonely desktop computer.

Since the Citadel is a monoculture composed only of Ricks and Morties, it can't function unless a substantial number of Ricks are willing to stay, long-term, in boring, repetitive jobs. Maintaining strangle-hold on portal gun technology is one of the ways the Citadel makes that happen. If you take away unfettered portal gun access, suddenly, despite his personal brilliance, Rick becomes just as susceptible as anyone else to ending up an angry, underutilized smart guy in a hairnet.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 10:08 PM on September 20, 2017 [6 favorites]


This was the first ever episode of Rick & Morty I have ever seen- and it has me totally sold! To the point of paying for a Netflix subscription- the only legit way I could find to watch it in Australia- so I can catch up on all the rest of it. Oh gosh! What an amazing show- I've never seen anything like it!
posted by Philby at 11:41 PM on September 23, 2017


Netflix is fine, but it lacks the warmth of viewing it in the original format of
109 instagram videos.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:02 AM on September 24, 2017


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