Recap / Rick and Morty S1 E6 Rick Potion #9

Season 1, Episode 06:

Rick Potion #9

Love potion + Ordinary people = Morty-obsessed zombies that put The Walking Dead (2010) to shame.

Written by Justin Roiland
Directed by Stephen Sandoval

"Listen, Morty, I hate to break it to you, but what people call "love" is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. I did it. Your parents are gonna do it. Break the cycle, Morty. Rise above. Focus on science."

— Rick Sanchez. Morty doesn't listen.

Original air date: 1/27/2014

Rick supplies Morty with a serum that will make Jessica fall in love with him at the school dance, but her flu virus causes the serum to spread and make everyone else fall in love with Morty, and Rick's attempts to fix things only make things worse and worse. Meanwhile, as things go to hell, Jerry goes out to prove his worth to Beth.

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This episode contains examples of:

• Accomplice by Inaction: Rick knew a Love Potion would be the sci-fi equivalent of a date-rape drug, but gave it to Morty anyway.
• Apocalypse How: A Class 3A. The entire human race, aside from the Smith family, is transformed into Cronenbergs.
• Badass Boast: Jerry (cocking his gun) "Nobody's killing me...until after I catch my wife with another man."
  Beth: "Jerry, thank God!"
  Jerry: "God? God's turning people into insect monsters, Beth. I'm the one beating them to death. Thank ME."'''
• Bait-and-Switch: When the world has gone to hell, Rick tells Morty he has one last plan. The scene cuts to the world apparently back to normal and everyone cured of their mutations, and Rick and Morty are working in the garage together... Only for the two to die horrifically in a huge explosion. Then, another portal opens up and another Rick and Morty from the apocalyptic world come through, revealing that this was Rick's plan all along.
• Battle Couple: Jerry and Beth team up against the Cronenbergs.
• Bittersweet Ending: The entire human race has been converted into Cronenbergs. Yet Summer, Beth and Jerry are left normal with the latter two becoming Happily Married. Rick, on the other hand, decides to cut their losses and move with Morty to another universe where everything is the same, but Rick managed to cure the virus and they both happened to die around the same time. They bury their alternate selves and seamlessly take over their lives. While everything seems the same, Morty knows that they've abandoned everyone they ever knew to a Fate Worse than Death, including their Jerry, Beth, and Summer. And yet life in this new universe will continue.
• Body Horror: Rick mutates everyone into mantis-people and then into "Cronenbergs" in his attempts to cure the virus.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Jerry and Beth are left to fend for themselves in a world overrun with hideous mutants.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • From Rick's side, he angrily but correctly notes that the whole catastrophe could've been avoided had his grandson not asked him for the love potion. He also makes a good point that Morty was essentially trying to mind-control Jessica into loving him.
  • From Morty's side, Rick shouldn't have given it to him if he knew it was wrong and/or warned him the potion would backfire if Jessica had a cold, and never should have rushed into making an antidote with only a modicum of knowledge on what could work instead of what would work.
• Chekhov's Gun: The machine Rick was working on before Morty asked for a love potion is what killed the other Rick and Morty, allowing "ours" to replace them and continue the story.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Rick angrily tells Morty that the whole crisis could have been avoided if Morty had just given him Rick's screwdriver as he told him at the beginning. Of course, it turned out either choice could have been bad for them anyway.
• Crowbar Combatant: Jerry uses a crowbar to kick the shit out of mutant Davin.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart: Rick and Morty escape to a very particular universe where their counterparts cured the Cronenberg plague and were killed almost immediately afterwards by an unrelated incident.
• Deconstruction: Arguably the first iconically bleak one of many the show has done. The start of the plot seems like a simple comedic Sorcerer's Apprentice Plot, with Morty using one of Rick's inventions in a selfish way without thought of consequence, and it backfiring in a way that Morty will realise his wrong doing before things go to normal. However Rick's attempts to fix the situation just make things grimly worse and worse, contaminating the whole planet until ultimately he deems the circumstance so irreversable that he just transfers him and Morty to a new dimension where it hasn't happened. Morty undergoes a lot more than just learning An Aesop about misuse of powers.
• Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: Defied, with Rick flat out stating that a Love Potion is the sci-fi equivalent of a date rape drug, and calling Morty out for wanting to use one on Jessica (though it should perhaps be noted that Rick only calls him on this after making and providing it to him in the first place). When this becomes a global pandemic, everyone in the world wants him, including Beth's fellow doctor.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Both Tammy and Nancy appear at the dance unnamed, before their (alternate counterparts') proper introduction in "Ricksy Business".
• Even the Guys Want Him: Rick's love serum affects everyone, male or female.
• Extradimensional Emergency Exit: To sum up, Morty has accidentally turned Rick's Love Potion into an epidemic and Rick has ended up transforming the entire human race into hideous monsters in his attempts to fix the problem. Rick's solution? Simply open a portal to a dimension where another version of him managed to cure the epidemic only to die in an accident immediately after, allowing our Rick to take his place. From then on, Rick and Morty are residents of another universe.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: After he "Cronenbergs" everyone on Earth, Rick cuts his losses and jumps to a nearly identical universe with Morty where their alternate selves cured the virus and then died.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The alternate universe Morty is wearing his normal yellow shirt instead of his prom outfit, providing a brief hint that this is not the same Morty who we’ve been following right before he gets blown up.
• Foreshadowing: Rick is noticeably nonchalant about traveling to an alternate dimension and replacing his and Morty's dead counterparts, in spite of the horrifying implications of the act. While seemingly just an example of Rick being Rick, it later comes around as a big hint to this being far from the first time Rick has done something like this.
• For Want Of A Nail: As Rick "helpfully" points out, had he not failed at actually fixing the love potion problem (and was able to fix his device from before this whole mess, as he wanted in the first place), they would've been the ones who died when it blew up, not... ...themselves...
• Freak Out: Morty has one when seeing his Dead Alternate Counterpart.
• From Bad to Worse: Jesus, where to start. Morty's love potion works as planned, but a sneeze contaminates the mix infecting everyone into loving Morty. Everyone in the world. Rick's first attempt at a "cure" mutates everyone into praying mantis'. Then his second attempt changes them all into Cronenbergs.
• Genetic Abomination: The "Cronenberg" mutated humans.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Morty keeps freaking out after seeing their dead bodies, Rick resorts to this.
• Going to the Store: Jerry says he is going out for ice cream but everyone knows he wants to check on his wife.
• Gone Horribly Right: The love potion works as intended; however, it merges with Jessica's influenza virus, which not only causes it to mass multiply and become airborne but makes the entire world want to jump Morty's bones. Things very quickly decline from there...
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Rick's attempts to fix everything involve accidentally mutating everyone into mantis-people who then want to rape and cannibalize Morty, and then turning them into rather nightmarish, insane flesh-blobs! At least they don't want to rape and eat him anymore, that's one step in the right direction, though not really.
• Heroic BSoD: Morty gets a huge one at the end when he arrives in another dimension where everything has gone back to normal, but its counterparts of himself and Rick are dead; he ends up burying his own corpse and taking his place and examines the family that he knows isn't really his. All this after he was mostly responsible for dooming his original world (including Jessica) and abandoning his actual family. His face just simply screams "Hug me."
• Hope Spot: TWICE. Both instances being the 'antidotes'.
  • The praying mantis antidote only lasts for 2 seconds. It seems to work one second, the next, the praying mantis mutations come in.
  • The other antidote only lasts 20 seconds until everyone mutates into hideous monsters that would make David Cronenberg proud.
• I Warned You: Rick rubs it in Morty's face when he rushes to spray the whole formula on everyone thinking it will turn them to normal, but instead turns them into "Cronenbergs" creatures.
  Rick: Bet you're lovin' this, Morty. This must... be the best day of your life. You get to be the mayor of I-Told-You Town.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Rick calls Morty a creep and blames him for the mess they get into by saying it all started by Morty forcing him to make a love serum to use on Jessica, threatening to never help him with anything again otherwise, and even compares it to Morty drugging an innocent girl to rape her. Morty acknowledges that Rick is right and is willing to accept his part of the blame, but only if Rick accepts that he screwed up worse by mutating the human race trying to "cure" the serum (which Rick doesn't do).
• Kill and Replace: Bar the killing part. Morty and Rick take the place of their deceased counterparts in an Alternate Timeline.
• Lampshade Hanging: While slipping into the places of their dead counterparts, Rick points out they can't do this kind of a thing every week. He reasons 3 or 4 more times tops.
• Love Is in the Air: the plot is driven by an airborne, global plague that transforms everyone into lust monsters.
• Love Potion: Deconstructed with Rick comparing a love potion to a roofie and flat-out accusing Morty of trying to "roofie" Jessica with it, calling him a creep. Since the potion in question compels Jessica into loving Morty, this deconstruction is not unwarranted.
• Mass Transformation: Due to Jessica's flu mixing with the love potion everyone gets infected with it, and then Morty tries to fix it by spraying them with Rick's attempt at a cure, which instead turns them into mantis monsters.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Everyone under the influence of the love potion gets huge pupils.
• Montage Out: The closing scene showing Morty with his Thousand-Yard Stare watching his parents bickering and his sister busy on her cell phone.
• Mood Whiplash: When the Sentimental Music Cue kicks in at the end, the mood shifts from comedic to dramatic.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Morty when he realizes his desire for a Love Potion causes The End of the World as We Know It. He also looks horrified when Rick points out that said love potion is the sci fi equivalent of a date-rape drug, which he clearly hadn't considered.
• Never My Fault: Rick and Morty both blame each other for the end of the world.
  • Rick blames Morty for everything due to wanting him to make a love serum in the first place and refusing to simply pass him a screwdriver, even comparing it to drugging a girl so he could rape her.
  • Morty, on the other hand, blames Rick not warning him the potion would mutate horribly if Jessica had a flu (something we see Rick considered telling Morty but decided against), haphazardly rushing his cure by throwing a bunch of random genes together and hoping for the best, which resulted in mutating everyone into "Cronenbergs."
  • Played somewhat more straight as Rick knew the love-potion would be the sci-fi equivalent of a date-rape drug and would mutate horribly if Jessica had the flu, neither of which he told Morty before giving him said potion, yet gladly blamed Morty for things going pair-up.
  • Subverted with Morty who is willing to accept his part of the blame, however, Rick never accepts his part, constantly telling Morty "you're welcome" for all his mistakes and even pointing out in the end that if he didn't screw up as much as he did then the two of them would have died anyway as if that would make Morty feel any better.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Rick and Morty abandon the universe they've been living in for the past six episodes (which is most likely the one Morty is originally from) after Rick irreparably messes up the people in it. The Summer, Jerry, and Beth that we're with for the rest of the series are not the ones we've come to know so far (though, of course, they're very similar), but are instead different versions native to the new dimension that Rick and Morty move to. This was even the working title of the episode.
• Oh, Crap!: Rick, knowing that it's bad to give the love serum to someone with the flu, has this reaction when Summer tells him she's not at the dance because it's flu season.
• One-Handed Shotgun Pump: Beth does this cool thing after fighting off a couple of Cronenbergs with her husband.
• Only Sane Woman: Summer is the only person at their school (including staff and faculty) who doesn't want to go to the Flu Dance because it's flu season and she doesn't want to get sick.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Summer calls Rick out for suggesting openly that Beth's colleague may be making out with her. Rick replies that Beth is also his child and so he outranks Summer in feeling grossed out. Later Summer has to bear with Beth and Jerry making out in front of her. Her reaction? Ignoring by Singing.
• Person As Noun/Person as Verb: "Cronenberg" and "Cronenberged," respectively.
• Plot Armor: A justified example. Rick states that Morty's family (as in, himself, Beth, Jerry, and Summer) are all immune to the love potion since it doesn't work on people who share Morty's genetic components. Because of this, they don't fall in love with Morty, aren't affected by the Mantis mutation serum because they don't have symptoms that would cause a reaction, and similarly, don't react to the Cronenberg spray for the same reasons. Unfortunately, they're still left behind as the only remaining humans in the world, so this is a double-edged sword.
• Post-Apocalyptic Traffic Jam: At one point, Jerry is blocked off on a highway by a convoy of abandoned cars whose drivers went mutant and ran off.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Despite Rick calling Morty out on the disturbing implications of using a love potion, he first does this once the catastrophe is in full swing. In fact, Rick's only initial objection to making Morty a love potion is that he considers it is a waste of his talents.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner / Bond One-Liner: Parodied. Jerry gets both when facing off with the now-mutated Davin, but they're more silly than badass:
  Jerry: You can call me Mr. Crowbar. And now I'd like you to meet my friend, who is also a crowbar.
  Mutant Davin: That's... stupid.
  (Jerry beats him up and defeats him with the crowbar)
  Jerry: Yeah, well, look where being smart got you.
• Put on a Bus: The Beth, Jerry and Summer seen in the first five episodes are left behind in the now-Cronenberged world, and the Smiths seen afterwards are different versions native to the dimension Rick and Morty escaped to.
• Pyrrhic Victory: For all of the Smith-Sanchez family, in two different ways:
  • Rick and Morty survive the Cronenberging of their world, but they have to escape to a new one. While Rick doesn't care, this deeply affects Morty.
  • Beth, Jerry, and Summer, as genetic and literal relatives of Morty, are immune to his love potion. Unfortunately, this means that they're the only three humans left alive in a world full of Eldritch Abominations that used to be human themselves, with infrastructure and society having totally collapsed.
• Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: Beth and Jerry reconnect in their fight for survival against the Cronenbergs.
• Riddle for the Ages: What was the other Rick's "crazy solution" to the genetic epidemic?
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Rick resorts to leaving the Cronenberg world he created. In The Stinger, it's revealed that a Cronenberg Rick resorting to leaving the "human" world he created.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title is a parody of the song "Love Potion No. 9" by The Clovers.
  • When Morty unzips his pants in front of Rick when all he asked was for a lock of hair to use as DNA for his love potion, Rick mentions Game of Thrones.
  • Rick refers to the horrific mutations as "Cronenbergs", referring to David Cronenberg, whose films are known for their Body Horror.
  • Jerry's haphazardly-armored car parodies the car from Dawn of the Dead (2004).
  • During The Stinger, Summer reenacts Quint's monologue from Jaws.
  • When Beth pumps her shotgun, Jerry says he wishes that shotgun was his penis. Beth replies that, in that case, you can call her Hemmingway (died of suicide by putting a shotgun in his mouth).
• Single-Target Sexuality: A forced and horrifying version. Once the love potion spreads thanks to mixing with the flu virus, everyone in the entire world (except his family) has this for Morty. Becomes even worse once mixed with the mantis potion, where everyone still has this in a Yandere version since they want to rape him and then eat his head afterwards.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: The sleeves of Jerry's shirt come off as part of his transformation into a badass.
• Spit Take: Brad at the school dance when seeing Morty with Jessica.
• The Stinger: In the apocalyptic wasteland populated by "Cronenbergs", Jerry and Beth are now happier together with Rick and Morty gone, especially since Jerry is now a muscular, rugged badass wearing a bandana and a bandolier. Meanwhile, "Cronenberg" versions of Rick and Morty arrive there from a dimension where they turned their world's population into humans.
• Tempting Fate: Just before things go to hell, Morty hopes that nothing will go wrong.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Poor Morty at the end of the episode.
• Took a Level in Badass: Jerry! When Beth's life is on the line, he becomes a badass killing machine. Also his wife.
• Understatement: Rick says he has an emergency solution to "relatively speaking" put things back to normal. Then Morty finds it's moving to a new reality and assuming the lives of dead counterparts.
• Wham Episode: After playing fast and loose with science fiction tropes and cliches for the sake of absurdist comedy, from this episode on, the series shows that horrifying adventures and experiments do, in fact, have a long-term effect. Morty's thousand-yard stare at the end shows that, even though everything is back to normal, he certainly isn't. There's a reason that the working title for this episode was "Nothing Is the Same Anymore".
• Wham Shot: After everything has seemingly been put back to normal, Rick and Morty get killed in an explosion and then our Rick and Morty emerge from a portal.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Rick likens the love potion to date-rape drugs and gives Morty the gears for forcing him to make it.
  • Morty delivers one back to Rick by pointing out that he willingly agreed to make it for him, and that the only protest he made at the time was that he considered it a waste of his time and talents, rather than any moral scruples on his part. He also points out that Rick constant fails in creating a cure and instead ends up making things worse in the process.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Cronenberg's first film, Shivers (1975), was the story of a mad scientist who designed a parasite that would produce a heightened sexual response in humans it infected, only to turn out to be more powerful than expected — the love plague ran out of control, turning its victims into insatiable, violent lust zombies with no ethical boundaries including pedophilia, infecting an entire apartment complex and (by implication) the rest of the world after the end of the film. This episode is thus Shivers crossed with The Fly (1986).
• Yandere: All of humanity ends up becoming this to Morty.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Rick's love potion piggybacks on Jessica's flu and gradually infects the entire human race barring Morty and his immediate family, causing them all to become obsessed with having sex with him. That's only the start.

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I can't be the same thing to you now,
I'm just gone,
Just gone,
How could I say goodbye?
How could I say goodbye?
Goodbye...