"I've certainly seen worse ionic cell dioxination."
Original air date: 8/30/2015
Rick and Morty travel into Rick's microverse battery. Meanwhile, Summer waits in the ship whose artificially intelligent security system is ordered to keep her safe.
This episode provides examples of...
- All for Nothing: Rick says the whole outing was for nothing because now the ice cream in the universe they visited comes with flies in it. He blames Summer for it.
- Apocalypse How: Rick causes two at once. After returning to the Microverse, he smashes Zeep's Miniverse, destroying everyone and everything in it, including by extension everyone and everything in the Teenyverse.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Parodied with the Microverse battery model; Rick powers his ship using a time-dilated miniature universe to generate power by posing as an alien delivering artifacts that generate electricity from manual labor. He has an entire civilization generating electricity from which he channels a percentage away for power. It's a convoluted process that relies on covert, then later overt, enslavement with an entire civilization at risk of destruction.
- Crosses over into Misapplied Phlebotinum as Rick managing to recreate a Big Bang in a battery would’ve generated enough power to solve his energy issues indefinitely. Even creating a miniature star in a battery would’ve been a better use of his time and not require enslaving - covertly and later overtly - an entire species to do it, but Rick's mind doesn't work like that.
- Asleep in Class: In the stinger, Morty very nearly falls asleep, only to end up turning into a car.
- Bamboo Technology: The Mini-Mecha Zeep and Rick fight in are built on this kind of low tech, being made of wood, rocks, vines, and various animal parts.
- Battle in the Rain: Zeep and Rick fight one out in the climax.
- Brick Joke:
- After the "Turn into a car!" scene (see Deus ex Machina below), The Stinger does have Morty actually turn into a car unintentionally when he hears a horn beep.
- Earlier in the episode, the Microverse president responds to Rick with "Fuck you", which Rick taught them to understand as "Much obliged". Later when Zeep tells Rick "Much obliged!", after he realizes Rick created his universe, he is really saying in his culture, "Fuck you!".
- Comically Missing the Point: When Morty lampshades the fact that Rick is now using the same "slavery" argument with Zeep, Rick has a realization...that Zeep's Miniverse will eventually invent their own microscopic universe for power and forcing Rick's Microverse to go back to their old power generating methods, rather than the moral implications of his actions. Moreover, he intentionally tries to speed along this development so Zeep's civilization will start powering his car battery again faster.
- Complexity Addiction:
- Both Rick and Zeep create artificial power by making a microscopic universe. Especially evident with Rick where it is solely to charge his car.
- Rick's car itself is this in terms of protecting its occupants, preferring Cruel and Unusual Death and psychological torture, finding Summer's complaints about actual simple defensive methods instead of harming people contrived and dumb. Being created by Rick might play into this.
- Conflict Killer: Morty has the tree people force Rick and Zeep to work together at spearpoint, putting their grudge on hold until they get back.
- Deus ex Machina: Subverted and Played for Laughs with Rick and Morty when chasing Zeep. Rick suddenly demands that Morty turn himself into a car, explaining that, long ago, he implanted him with the means to turn into a car at will when he concentrates. Morty is naturally freaked out at being put on the spot like this, but as he starts to try to concentrate on doing so, Rick then tells him to forget it, as he just grabbed them a taxi instead.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Rick was banking on Zeep to realize his hypocrisy when he eventually learns that his Miniverse is developing its own Teenyverse in order to create its own alternate power source, just like Zeep was doing with his Miniverse. What Rick didn't anticipate was that Zeep would instead come to the horrible realization that his universe is actually Rick's Microverse and start resenting him.
- Rick's car, and through it, Rick itself. He installed the car with security mechanisms to protect Summer inside it, along with enough of a sentient personality to negotiate with her. All of its mechanisms involve ultra violence, which naturally only attracts more attention. While non-violent safety like force fields have been routinely shown within Rick's capability, neither he nor the car remotely comprehend Summer's complaints of non-antagonistic protection.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The car's idea of "Keep Summer safe" includes things such as; reducing a man to chunks with precision lasers, zapping another man in the spine in just the right way to cripple him for life, and forcing a police officer to watch a facsimile of his deceased son die again right in front of him. Instead of, you know, locking itself or putting up a shield.
- The Dog Bites Back: After being stranded for months inside the "Teenyverse," Morty, leading the Tree People tracks down Rick and Zeep, fighting over who's smarter than whom:Morty: Look, I— I don't care what it takes! You two are putting aside your bullshit and you're working together to get us back home!
Rick: No can do Morty, I just... can't.
Zeep: I just don't see how I can—
Morty: Roo roo danuga!
(The Tree People surround Rick and Zeep, and point their spears at them in a threatening manner)
Morty: You're smart, you'll figure it out. - Dramatic Thunder: Rolls at the start of Zeep and Rick's final confrontation.
- Driven to Suicide: Upon realizing that his own universe was a fabrication of an already fabricated universe and the fact he skipped his father's funeral because he was busy at work, Kyle drives his ship into a mountainside.
- Exact Words: Rick tells his ship to "Keep Summer safe", so immediately resorts to lethal force against anyone perceived to be a threat. Summer keeps adding restrictions, so the ship resorts to the most cruel solution it can devise within the parameters set. Summer's inability to verbalize the exact commands to keep people safe is what causes so much harm the first few times the ship attempts to protect her. Once she manages to veto both physical and emotional harm, the ship makes a peace agreement with the spider people and humans of this dimension so they'll leave it alone.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!:
- Zeep tries to convince a scientist within his Miniverse not to develop his own Teenyverse, as he wants to keep stealing power through the old method. When he catches himself making the same arguments Rick was making earlier, he realizes that his own homeworld is a microverse made by Rick.
- Subverted a few scenes earlier when Rick was trying to convince Zeep to stop his experiment with the Miniverse and found himself repeating the same arguments Morty had used against him (it's slavery with extra steps). He trails off... then has a "Eureka!" Moment where he realizes that he just has to make Zeep see himself as a hypocrite.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: Both the Miniverse and the Teenyverse. Kyle kills himself before the Teenyverse reaches a state where he'd be able to introduce blooble yanks to its inhabitants, meaning Kyle's people would continue to use flooble cranks that Zeep would draw off electricity from for his world, and Rick's ship would be left without a power source to fly. Upon returning to the Microverse however, Rick destroys the Miniverse to ensure Zeep's people would continue to use gooble boxes for the foreseeable future.
- Extradimensional Power Source: The Microverse, Miniverse, and Teenyverse, which the scientists exploit for energy.
- Eye Scream: During their last fight, Zeep sticks his thumbs in Rick's eyes.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Morty forces Zeep and Rick to team up and find a solution together, causing them to bond in the process. It lasts about as long as it takes them to get out of Kyle's Teenyverse.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: A statue of Zeep's likeness in his full-body alien suit and cordially showing peace signs can be seen as the ship flies through the Miniverse, very shortly before Rick and Morty see him greet the inhabitants in the same way.
- Flipping the Bird: As a greeting gesture.Rick: You've gotta flip them off, Morty, I told them it means "peace among worlds"!
- Inverted, or possibly subverted with Zeep's Miniverse as well. He also made the same joke as Rick with his Microverse, but since Zeep's frame of reference for insults was flipped by Rick, he ends up teaching the Miniversers the actual friendly greetings. Assuming, of course, Rick's universe actually is the top and Rick's world's greetings weren't also reversed by their creator, only for that universe to also be a microverse with flipped greetings...
- Morty flips the bird as he leaves the Teenyverse, exclaiming, "Fuck you, fuck nature, and fuck trees!"
- After Rick and Morty leave the Micoverse and Zeep's people go back to using the Gooble Boxes to power Rick's car, Zeep flips off the sky. It is implied he is using it in the correct context though, given his contempt for Rick now and his sarcastic "Peace among world, Rick," as he does so.
- Food End: At the Ice Cream parlor. It's not entirely a Happy Ending though.
- From Bad to Worse: Because Rick gave the ship vague instructions, Summer keeps trying to add restrictions to keep it from hurting people, it just finds more strange and extreme things to do.
- Giant Spider: The dimension the group went to see a movie is said to have these. We see one of them towards the end, with the peace deal stipulating that they will no longer use mental tricks to lure humans into their webs for consumption.
- Going Native: Subverted. Although Morty appears to have adopted the ways of the tribal people in the Teenyverse and tries to humble the scientists Rick and Zeep via lessons on nature, Morty immediately demands they try and fix the technology needed to send them home since he misses his advanced life on Earth, as primitive life sucks.
- Hamsterwheel Power: Rick's car is powered by a Microverse battery, which consists of its residents using Gooble Boxes to walk or run in place. Inside the Miniverse, Zeep gave the residents of the planet Flooble Cranks, an exercise device to power his world, and Kyle a scientist in the Minverse has created a Teenyverse battery to power his world, and once a sapient species evolves, he'll give them Blooble Yanks, a pulley based exercise devise that will create the electricity to power his world.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Rick calls Morty out for creating lame word combinations like "quantum carburetor" which is a sci-fi word and a car word together. He then proceeds to mention his own invention... the "microverse battery".
- Rick calling Zeep "psychotic".
- Rick openly condemns Zeep's plan to use people in a smaller universe as a source of power despite that being exactly what he's been doing. Morty lampshades this, as Rick says to Zeep what Morty said to him earlier. Taken even farther when Zeep objects to how a scientist in the universe he created intends to do the same thing. As Zeep uses the words that Rick used, it dawns on him what's going on.
- Insistent Terminology: Rick and Zeep argue over the proper term: Microverse and Miniverse, respectively. The scientist in Zeep's Miniverse also suggests Teenyverse.
- Magic Pants: When Morty changes into a car his clothes appear to somehow stop existing rather than ripping off of him. This is notable, as the show nearly always takes clothes into account whenever anybody transforms or switches bodies.
- Mirror Character: Rick and Zeep, down to repeating quite a bit of the same dialogue. Morty is the first to pick up on this, but Rick gets the realization later as well.
- Mundane Solution: During their pursuit of Zeep, Rick wants Morty to turn into a car but then calls the stunt off as a cab arrives.
- Mundane Utility: Rick created an entire universe and manipulated the population of a world within that universe for the express purpose of making a battery for his car. Zeep is rather dismayed by how callous this is. While Zeep did much the same thing, he at least did it to benefit his entire world.
- The Needs of the Many: After Rick's ship negotiates a peace deal between the humans and giant spiders, someone asks the President about whether or not to leave the ship alone. The President notes that the ship killing one guy and paralyzing another is well-worth having peace with the spiders.
- Never My Fault: At the end of the episode, once ice cream now has flies as a mandatory ingredient, Rick immediately blames Summer and Summer shoots back that it was Rick's ship fault. Rick says his ship only does what it is told to do. Both are guilty to an extent because all Rick told his ship was "keep Summer safe" with no other orders or instructions and once the ship started killing people and harming them in brutal ways Summer kept trying to add restrictions to make it stop.
- Noble Savage: Subverted. The forest tribal people in the Teenyverse appear to be this at first, but Morty points out they do sadistic things like eating every third baby.
- Objectshifting: Rick reveals that he secretly implanted Morty with the power to turn into a car at will, and tries to use this to catch up with Zeep in the climactic chase... only to realize it'd be simpler just to hail a taxi instead. And then in the after-credits scene, Morty hears the sound of a car being remotely unlocked outside - and promptly turns into a car right in the middle of math class!
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Morty manages to take over the tree people in the span of a few months without any help from Rick.
- Pocket Dimension: The Microverse, Miniverse and Teenyverse.
- Poor Man's Porn: Morty admits that during his time spent with the Teenyverse denizens, he "masturbated to an extra-curvy piece of driftwood".
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Rick's battery is powered by millions of inhabitants of a Microverse working their treadmill-like gooble boxes.
- Race Against the Clock: Subverted. Rick and Morty's race against Zeep to return to their universe is juxtaposed with the police giving Summer ten seconds to surrender before they open fire on her (something Rick and Morty themselves are understandably completely unaware of). The police manage to reach five (by then Rick and Morty have reached the Microverse, destroyed the Miniverse, and distracted Zeep into crashing into a Ricksgiving float) when they're notified by the local government that the ship (in compliance with Summer's refusal to induce physical or emotional harm on them) brokered peace between the inhabitants of the version of Earth they're currently in.
- Rage Breaking Point: Happens twice to Morty inside the Teenyverse, after they get stranded. First, he decides to take his chances with the Tree People because he got sick and tired Rick and Zeep arguing over who's smarter than whom. Second, months after leaving Rick, Morty, who's now leading the Tree People, finds Rick and Zeep still fighting over who the real genius is, and when he says he wants to leave the Teenyverse because he misses his family and computer he tells Rick and Zeep to work together and figure a way out. As Rick and Zeep begin explaining why they refuse to work with someone they consider an intellectual inferior, Morty sics the Tree People on them, and forces them to work together under the threat of violence.
- Recursive Reality: Rick created a mini-universe, which created its own mini-universe, which also created a mini-universe that if it wasn't for Rick's interference would've eventually created its own mini-universe to create another and another. It's possible this works upwards as well, where Rick's universe is itself a mini-universe that's also a mini-universe. In a Meta sense, being a TV show means that Rick really is in a mini-universe created in our own universe.
- Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Satirized. Rick and Morty wear fake antennae, and Zeep a full-body costume, intending to fool their creations into thinking they're aliens who live on another planet within their universes... despite the characters themselves being otherworldly to begin with anyway.
- Sadistic Choice: Rick knew that Zeep would have two options when he and Morty left the Microverse, either Rick would have to change the battery (destroying Zeep's universe), or it wouldn't be broken. It's shown that Zeep, reluctantly, chose the latter.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Summer's experiences in Rick's ship leave her on the verge of a breakdown by the time Rick and Morty come back.
- Shout-Out:
- The title is a reference to The Gods Must Be Crazy.
- While chasing after Zeep, Rick activates a pair of air-ski shoes by saying, "Go, go, Sanchez Ski Shoes!"
- Yes, there was, in fact, a TV show about a teenager turning into a car.
- Ku'ala, the spirit tree, and Zeep and Rick's Mini-Mecha are spoofing Avatar.
- Slave Race: The residents of the Microverse are this to rick since they unknowingly power his car via the Gooble Boxes he gave them. The Miniverse residents are this to Zeep, who created his Miniverse battery to power his world and not rely on Gooble boxes anymore. Inside the Miniverse, a scientist named Kyle created a Teenyverse battery to power his world and not rely on the Flooble Cranks Zeep gave them. When Zeep starts to expalin that he'll enslave an entire planet, he realizes the true meaning of his existence, and attacks Rick. Upon hearing them argue, Kyle realizes how and why he came to exist, climbs into his ship, and crashes it, stranding Rick, Morty, and Zeep in the Teenyverse. At the end, when Rick and Morty leave the Microverse, the car starts up again, and Rick explains to Morty that he told Zeep: "I was gonna' have to toss a broken battery, or the battery wouldn't be broken."
- Slippery Skid: Zeep uses little stones to make Rick's mini mecha trip.
- Speaking Like Totally Teen: The AI in Rick's ship calls Summer out for her speech mannerisms.AI: My function is to keep Summer safe, not keep Summer being, like, totally stoked about, like, the general vibe and stuff. That's you. That's how you talk.
- Spiteful Spit: Rick spits on Zeep after defeating him.
- The Stinger: As a Brick Joke to the Deus ex Machina scene, Morty, while half-asleep in math class, hears a car horn and unintentionally transforms into a car.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Rick and Zeep use the expression "somebody's gonna get laid in college" as a means of humiliation.
- Took a Level in Badass: Sick of Rick and Zeep being more interested in undermining each other, Morty leaves to live with the Forest People. Morty ends up becoming a skilled warrior that the tribesmen are willing to defer to.
- Tribal Face Paint: Morty sports this as part of his new lifestyle as a Noble Savage.
- Wacky Wayside Tribe: The Forest People. Morty becomes a member of the tribe for months of Teenyverse-time.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Several months pass for Rick, Morty, and Zeep while they're in the Teenyverse. Less so for the Microverse, as one of the aliens there had merely cooked a meal for them while they were gone, and it was probably an hour at most that passed for Summer outside in the real world. Time is explicitly dilated to allow the development of a planet capable of supporting intelligent life.
- You Are Already Dead: When the ship's laser cuts some random fellow into pieces.
