Original air date: 5/31/2020
It turns out that Rick did make a clone of Beth last season, and she's back for revenge. Or is Beth back for revenge...?
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: When Tammy does her Dynamic Entry at the shrink's office, Jerry gets her name wrong, first as "Tonya" and then as "Tammya" (combining her real name and his accidental misname).
- Achilles' Heel:
- The alien planet killer specifically advertises that it does not have a convenient weak spot that you can shoot to blow it up (and it only took them five iterations to fix it), but chuck a pair of Wrangler jeans into the laser array and it'll burn itself out. This is because it was sponsored by Wrangler and is programmed not to destroy their products.
- Phoenix Person is a nigh-unstoppable cyborg... except for the prominent On/Off switch on his back.
- Action Mom: Space Beth has most certainly become this during her adventures across the galaxy, gaining numerous cybernetic implants and even becoming the universe's most wanted. Earth Beth gets to be this, too, when the two are captured by and then escape from the New Galactic Federation, having no problem keeping up with Space Beth as they fight their way out. Morty and Summer lampshade this at the end by noting that they now have "two badass moms".
- Alien Blood: The Insectoid Aliens have blue blood as testified by their many violent on-screen deaths.
- Ambiguous Clone Ending: Invoked. Rick continuously flip-flops on which Beth is the clone, repeatedly claiming to both that they're the real one and the other is the clone. When he watches the Mind Blower at the end, it reveals that Rick randomly swapped the two around and looked away to make sure he himself wouldn't know which is which.
- And This Is for...: Played for Laughs. Right before Rick delivers the coup de grace to Tammy, he drops the Pre-Mortem One-Liner of "You made me go to a wedding." Then afterwards, he gives a Bond One-Liner—"And you killed my best friend!"—and realizes he should have led with that.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Beth gave one to Rick when she asked him "Do you want me to stay here and be part of your life? Or do you want me to leave?" Rick doesn't answer and instead chose to knock her out, clone her, and either: secretly send human-Beth to space and had her replaced with a clone, or sent a newborn clone to space while human-Beth stays at home with her family. It's shown that even Rick doesn't know which of these two scenarios actually happened because he doesn't know which one is the real Beth, but it's emphasized how much of a terrible person Rick is for making this non-choice.
- Artifact of Attraction: Summer and Morty become possessive of the invisibility belt and repeatedly trick and physically attack each other to get it back.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Jerry's invisible garbage truck is great at fighting crime, but since it's invisible, Jerry can't find the gas cap and is eventually forced to abandon it when it runs out of gas.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: While Rick is beaten within an inch of his life against Phoenix Person, complete with much Bloody Horror, neither of the two Beths are seriously harmed in their own fight against him.
- Betrayal Insurance: Deconstructed. Rick put what may or may not be bombs in both Beths' necks in case they betrayed him or went Blade Runner. He realizes, however, that Space Beth discovering the bomb motivated her to return and come to kill him.
- Big Damn Heroes: Beth and Space Beth storm in Just in Time before Phoenix Person can kill Rick. It's subverted soon after, though, when they're also unable to defeat him. It takes Jerry's not-so-heroic entrance to distract Phoenix Person long enough for the Beths to hit the "off" switch on his back.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- The "bitter" part applies to Rick. In contrast to the ending of previous seasons, the entire family walks out on Rick, leaving him alone to discover that he intentionally mixed up the real Beth and the clone Beth, to the point that not even he can figure out who his real daughter is. He is left in the garage contemplating this revelation with no one for company but the dismantled remains of Bird Person/Phoenix Person, who immediately tries to kill him on reactivation.
- Meanwhile, the "sweet" part applies to the rest of the family, who get a happy ending, as they're now more free from Rick's influence than ever. Both Beths seem to be at peace with themselves, each other, and their respective choices, no longer care which of them is the clone and which is the original, and decide that Rick is a terrible father to both of them; Morty and Summer are happy to have "two badass moms" now and refuse to get caught up with Rick's toxic grip on them; and Jerry doesn't seem to mind the "two Beths" situation either, and is even happy to have been useful for once during their adventure.
- Bond One-Liner: Played for laughs when Rick delivers both this and a Pre-Mortem One-Liner to Tammy, only to then wish he'd said them in the opposite order:
- Boom, Headshot!:
- Space Beth kills the supposed messenger in the Action Prologue this way.
- How Rick finishes off Tammy after Summer defeats her.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: The heroes drag Tammy's body onto the mothership to use her retina scan to gain door access.
- Boss Room: When Rick enters a vast, yet empty, hall on the mothership, he notes how he doesn't like the look of this "giant fight chamber". Enter Phoenix Person.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Morty and Summer struggle to think of a Brother–Sister Team that didn't have any incest. Summer theorizes that even Hansel and Gretel were definitely screwing.
- Brother–Sister Team: Morty and Summer, as always, are a very vitriolic version, but pull it off better than ever, even lampshading that working together as a team has become their new "thing". On two different occasions, they go from fighting to working together flawlessly within seconds:
- The first time, they're still fighting over the invisibility belt when the New Galactic Federation goons show up to arrest Morty; Summer, still wearing the belt, uses it to trick them into thinking Morty has levitation powers, causing them to surrender. Morty and Summer then take their spaceship and use it to save the rest of their family from Tammy and her minions.
- The second time, when they reach the control room for the laser that will destroy Earth, they start childishly arguing and hurling insults, but after overhearing a conversation between the two Gromflomites guarding the laser, quickly come up with and successfully pull off a plan to distract the guards and disable it.
- The Bus Came Back: Tammy, Bird Person and Dr. Wong — all of whom last seen in early Season 3 — return. Tammy is killed while Rick manages to salvage Bird Person's remains after their brutal fight in an attempt to revert him to his normal self. Dr. Wong's office is levelled amidst the brawl.
- Butt-Monkey: Dr. Wong has her office destroyed and is treated with total disdain by Rick, who reveals that he's rigged her office with numerous death traps under her nose. Even Jerry is treated with more respect by Rick than her.Wong: I'm better than this job.
- Call-Back: Dr. Wong warned Rick last season that maintaining a family is boring work, like brushing your teeth, and some people aren't able to put in the effort. That means they'd rather die from adrenaline-seeking quests than seek stability. Sure enough, Earth Beth, Space Beth and Jerry realize they need to put the work in and end the episode and season in a good place, while Rick, who continues to steadfastly refuse to do so, ends the season more miserable and less respected by his family than ever.
- Cassandra Truth:
- Tammy doesn't believe Earth Beth when she says she's a clone when shown the Beth leading the Defiance.
- In the stinger, a sports car driver doesn't believe Jerry when he warns him of an invisible garbage truck ahead.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: Way back in season three, Rick said that if Beth's clone ever became sentient, he would murder her. This leads to both Beths worrying that they are the clone and will be killed. Understandably, they call him a terrible father for treating their lives so disposably.
- Chekhov's Skill:
- Jerry's puppeteering skills—first seen when he and Earth Beth attend therapy as a gag that makes even Dr. Wong feel awkward — end up coming in handy when he uses the invisibility belt and puppets Tammy's corpse to distract Phoenix Person at a crucial moment before he can kill Rick and the Beths, allowing the latter to deactivate him. Lampshaded by Earth Beth:"Saved the day with puppeting. Only one with a decent arc."
- Space Beth's Flash Step ability is showcased early on in the garage and it comes in handy when the two Beths have to escape custody aboard the mothership.
- Jerry's puppeteering skills—first seen when he and Earth Beth attend therapy as a gag that makes even Dr. Wong feel awkward — end up coming in handy when he uses the invisibility belt and puppets Tammy's corpse to distract Phoenix Person at a crucial moment before he can kill Rick and the Beths, allowing the latter to deactivate him. Lampshaded by Earth Beth:
- The Chew Toy: Tammy gets third-degree burns, killed, has her corpse dragged around, likely soaks up some of Jerry's pee, and is last seen on her face and knees with Jerry accidentally sprawled over her in a sexual fashion after he uses her body as a puppet. Karma's a bitch.
- Combat Pragmatist: "Never Ricking Morty" hinted that Summer would get in an epic battle with Tammy, calling her out for betraying her. That's not the case; Summer disarms Tammy while invisible and then snaps her leg to ensure she can't kill Rick or Jerry. Summer does have a Death Glare when she reappears, but don't go all out on Et Tu, Brute?.
- Consulting Mister Puppet: Jerry's shtick in this episode. Even the therapist thinks it's silly.
- Continuity Nod:
- Jerry sarcastically calls Rick "Father of the Year" the way that Beth did the previous season in Froopyland.
- The Mind Blower of his own erased memory that Rick plays at the end is red. "Morty's Mind Blowers" previously established that the removed memories that had Morty screwing up are colored blue, Rick's screw-ups are red, and those by other family members are purple-pink.
- Converging-Stream Weapon: The NX-5's laser converges from three points on the ship.
- Conversational Troping: Casual conversations about character arcs and character dynamics abound throughout the episode, with lampshades hung over how stopping the Galactic Federation and its new superweapon is like Star Wars.
- Crazy-Prepared:
- Rick installed defenses and traps in Dr. Wong's office that are triggered by keywords he says, despite doing his best to avoid going to family therapy whenever possible.
- Rick's heart sprouts armor when Phoenix Person tries to drill into it.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The rebuilt cyborg Phoenix Person is an unstoppable badass. He beats first Rick then both Beths. It takes Jerry distracting him with Tammy's corpse for Space Beth to get close enough to hit his on-off switch.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Though PP ultimately beats him, Rick holds out for a really long time and does some damage (though he mostly just pisses PP off). The Beths both get taken out within a minute, despite fighting him together.
- Damsel out of Distress: Both Beths get captured by the New G-Fed, and Rick gripes that now the rest of the family will need to do a "piece of shit Star Wars" to rescue them. Turns out, the Beths don't need saving; they are able to escape their prison cell thanks to Earth Beth helping Space Beth break out of her handcuffs (with the latter then freeing the former), and successfully shoot their way through the ship as Smash Sisters. In fact, they're the ones who end up saving Rick instead just as Phoenix Person is about to kill him.
- Didn't Think This Through: A minor one with Tammy and the New Galactic Federation. When they capture the Beths* , they specifically don't want to capture Rick alive because they know that he's not a threat unless directly antagonized; however, they clearly don't realize that Rick is enough of a Papa Wolf that kidnapping his daughter is already enough impetus for him to fight back against them. Tammy is also extremely flippant and dismissive during the whole exchange, not considering that, even if they hadn't captured his daughters already, Rick can go long way to avenge even slight offenses, and she is actually antagonizing him.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The first reason Rick comes up with for killing Tammy is for making him go to a wedding. He then expresses some shame/regret for saying that first instead of the infinitely more personal reason that she killed his best friend.
- Doomsday Device: The NX-5 Planet Remover by Xamaxax can destroy planets with its powerful Wave-Motion Gun.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Rick has no response to Jerry sarcastically calling him "Father of the Year" about planting a bomb in Space Beth's Neck, other than a Big "SHUT UP!".
- Duplicate Divergence: When Earth Beth asked Rick back in "The ABCs of Beth" to decide whether or not he wanted her in his life, he made a clone of her and sent one of them (nobody knows which one, not even Rick) into space and had one stay on Earth so she could have it both ways. They were initially the same person with all the same memories, but they made one major, opposite decision from each other, which has resulted in each of them becoming quite different in many ways:
- Space Beth has changed her appearance and outfit and gained numerous cybernetic enhancements that let her take several levels in badass, while Earth Beth remains a physically normal human, though still a badass one.
- Though Space Beth does still want Rick's approval on some level at the start of the episode (hence taking after the way he used to be when he was also a galactic rebel), she's also quick to attempt to kill him multiple times. Meanwhile, Earth Beth, despite being less bad about it than she used to be, still does want Rick's approval more openly and is more affectionate towards him (at least until the end of the episode). Rick, for his part, clearly loves them both and considers both of them to be his daughter, but does seem to be closer to Earth Beth since she's the one who's more accessible to him.
- Though both Beths do love their kids, and they, in turn, consider both of them to be their mom, Space Beth is less close to them for obvious reasons, and doesn't seem to miss them too much while she's away since she knows that another version of herself is taking care of them for her. Earth Beth, of course, has devoted herself to being a better mom to them since the ending of "The ABCs of Beth". It's shown pretty well when Morty and Summer find their three parents after successfully disabling the laser; Summer addresses both of them as "Mom", but Earth Beth is the one who expresses delight with their actions and gives them a big hug, while Space Beth just looks on with a smile.
- Earth Beth, as a result of Rick's gaslighting, had her epiphany with Jerry and got back together with him in "The Rickchurian Mortydate"; though there's still certainly friction between them from time to time, they get along better and have a relatively happier marriage as a result. Space Beth never had this experience, so she still considers herself separated/divorced from Jerry and is irritated that her other self reconciled with him.
- Space Beth has a more violent, darker nature as a result of leaving for space to embrace the dark side of herself, while Earth Beth is lighter and more mellow due to staying with her family and actively working on improving her character flaws.
- However, it's downplayed by the end of the episode, as the Beths become friends, start emulating each other more, and both decide that they don't care about Rick's approval or which of them is the "original" Beth.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Summer uses the Invisibility Belt to get a good look at her shirtless classmate mowing the lawn. Meanwhile, Morty goes to the girls locker room after cheerleading practice.
- Electronic Speech Impediment: NX-5's voice goes all wobbly before the system shuts down completely due to Summer's meddling with the jeans.
- Empty Piles of Clothing: Justified. The NX-5's beam is specifically designed not to damage Wrangler jeans, their sponsor, so those get left behind when it vaporizes people.
- Enemy Chatter: On the mothership, we witness two mooks discussing whether one can finally meet the parents of the other.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even Dr. Wong, whose job sometimes involves helping people who eat feces, thinks Jerry is a putz when he brings a sock puppet to therapy.
- Explosive Leash: Space Beth has a device pulled from her neck which she assumes is a bomb. Rick denies this, claiming it was meant to transfer her memories to Earth Beth, who has a similar device.
- Face Death with Dignity: Phoenix Person has Rick cornered and beaten up too much to fight back anymore, and powers up a beam to kill him. Rick just closes his eyes calmly, though the Beths show up Just in Time to stop Phoenix Person from firing the shot.
- Face, Nod, Action: Summer and Morty go through this facial exchange before executing their plan to disable the planet remover.
- Failed a Spot Check: Phoenix Person correctly deduces that Tammy, who is actually being used as a puppet by an invisible Jerry, is behaving oddly; however, he fails to notice the gaping hole in her forehead and the fake female voice.
- Fakin' MacGuffin: Summer agrees to trade the thermal goggles for the invisibility belt with Morty and trade back an hour later. She takes the belt but smashes the goggles, only to discover Morty gave her his regular belt and kept the invisible one for himself.
- Fire-Forged Friends: The two Beths initially don't get along at all and argue over the choices that they made, but they eventually find mutual ground in their hatred for Rick and work together, blasting their way through the ship while joking with each other.
- Fist of Rage: Phoenix Person clenches his fist in rage when seeing Jerry having landed suggestively on top of Tammy's body.
- Flash Step: Space Beth has this ability. It's activated by a tab on her forehead.
- Foreshadowing: Beth and Jerry go to see Dr. Wong to keep improving their relationship. Rick shows his disrespect by levelling the office to save them from Tammy and refusing to let Dr. Wong evacuate. Fittingly, both Beths realize that Rick is toxic for them and end the episode in a good place, while Rick ends up lonely and miserable.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Watch the photo
on the wall when Summer bumps into her classmate. - Glamour Failure: Jerry's Of Corpse He's Alive act with Tammy ends with him falling over and becoming visible again.
- Groin Attack: Jerry unintentionally grazes Rick's groin when he grasps at the air trying to catch Rick while he's invisible.Rick: Oh, he grazed 'em. That's gonna hurt in a second.
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: The naked and unconscious Beths floating in the water tanks conveniently cover their private parts with their arms.
- Hates Their Parent: It is firmly established that both versions of Beth hate their dad, Rick, by the end of the episode. Space Beth comes back to Earth to kill him upon discovering that he put a device in her neck that may or may not have been a bomb, and while Earth Beth already no longer held him on the same pedestal she did in the previous seasons it is clear that she has lost what little respect she still had for him, describing his actions as "the shameless abandonment of (his) family". The two Beths actually find common ground in their shared hatred towards Rick, with Earth Beth even offering to help Space Beth kill him if she wants. By the end of the episode, neither of them cares which is the clone anymore because they both know that Rick is still a piece of shit regardless of the answer.
- Heel Realization: Rick already knows that he's a terrible father to Beth since "The ABCs of Beth", but it's the end of this episode where he finally realizes how much of a "piece of shit" he is.
- Hit Stop: The action freezes for a moment when Rick punches Phoenix Person in the face during their brawl. On top of, the scene plays out in Funny X-Ray vision where we see PP's jaw bone dislodge.
- Human Shield: When Rick comes to rescue Earth Beth from Dr. Wong's office, Tammy grabs her in a hold so that Rick would hit his daughter with any blaster fire.
- Hypocrite: A quickly-lampshaded example. As the Smith-Sanchez adults flee from the Federation forces, Jerry asks why Rick can't just make a portal to escape, and Rick reminds him that his kids are still in danger, sarcastically calling him "Father of the Year". Beth immediately notes that Rick's not one to talk for lying to her about not being a clone, and Rick tries to claim Space Beth is the clone and tells them about the bomb in the latter's neck, prompting Jerry to throw these words back at him.
- Hypocritical Humor: Forced to give up the invisibility belt after peeping on a shirtless classmate and sniffing his clothing, Summer sardonically asks Morty if she'll find him in the shower watching the cheerleaders later.
- I Have Your Wife: Subverted. Rick offers to bargain with Tammy after she captures both versions of his daughter, but Tammy refuses because Space Beth is the one she wants, and Rick is only considered a threat if directly antagonized; thus, she doesn't want to risk doing so and having the Federation collapsed again by capturing him.
- Inspirational Insult: Space Beth needs Earth Beth to kick her between the eyes so that her phasing powers will let her break out of her handcuffs. When Earth Beth expresses doubt that she can kick that far, Space Beth takes a dig at her relationship with Jerry, pissing her off enough that she immediately lashes out with no hesitation and easily lands the kick.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: In his shuttle, Rick assures Beth that she is not a clone. Cue Space Beth appearing in her aircraft next to them and Beth asking "And who is that?"
- Invisibility Cloak: Rick's invisibility belt.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While Tammy gloats about how the Earth is about to be destroyed, she tells Rick it's time to open a portal to another Earth. It wouldn't be the first time Rick did this (assuming that the Beth we see at the beginning of the series is the original in the first place).
- Jerkass Realization: After Rick learns that he has no idea which Beth is the real one and which is the clone — and didn't know even before he used the Mind Blower gun on himself since he essentially took the "easy" way out — he realizes, "Holy shit, I'm a terrible father", and remains by himself in the garage, sad and alone.
- Karma Houdini Warranty:
- After suffering next to no consequences for all the things she did in the previous two seasons, Tammy gets beaten up by Summer and immediately afterwards shot in the head by Rick.
- Rick's runs out in full here. The Smith-Sanchez family decides to go hang out without him, all of them wanting nothing to do with him after he pissed them all off and has repeatedly emotionally abused them. Rick himself even realizes this when he watches the memory to find out which Beth is the clone — realizing what he's done to his daughter and that he erased his memory of it to avoid living with the guilt and shame, he curses himself as a terrible father and pointedly stays in the garage alone instead of trying to join the family in the house.
- The Load: Jerry, of course, at least at first. He's nothing but a hindrance for most of the adventure; Summer even has to hand him the invisibility belt so he can pee in private, which renders her and Morty's quest more difficult. It's subverted in the end, though, when Jerry saves the day with said belt.
- Lockdown: Rick locks down the garage to make him unavailable for family therapy.
- Lovely Angels: Beth and Space Beth acts as smash sisters, if only for one episode.
- Meaningful Echo: During her and Rick's confrontation, Space Beth uses a voice modulator to change her voice to Rick's, distracting Earth Beth away while mockingly calling Rick a "piece-of-shit father". At the end of the episode, while watching a memory of him cloning Beth and going to great lengths to ignore who is real and who is the clone, Rick calls himself this.
- Meaningful Rename: Bird Person has come back as a cyborg and now goes by the fitting name Phoenix Person. Beth thinks it's a dumb rename and refuses to address him as such.
- Mundane Utility: Jerry uses the invisibility belt to pee so he doesn't have to do it in front of his family.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Rick when voice-activating the Gatling Good guns on his shuttle to target Tammy and her men:"Smart guns, white-list human life...*sighs* And the therapist.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Rick replays the Mind Blower of his own memories and discovers that even he doesn't know who the real Beth is, as he purposely had the two of them scrambled around in their clone cases while he looked away, and then erased his memory of the entire incident just to be sure he wouldn't know. After seeing this, he laments on the fact that he is indeed a terrible father, just like his daughter said he was. The ending scene closes on him wallowing in his own self-pity.
- Never Trust a Title: While the episode ends with the family having to deal with "a fucking Star Wars", it's more about Beth(s) than anyone else mentioned in the title.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Space Beth returns to Earth to kill Rick for implanting an explosive device in her neck, she unintentionally leads the Galactic Federation to Earth, too.
- Not So Stoic: Dr. Wong gets annoyed when Rick fires on her office, reveals he installed voice-activated weaponry, and refuses to evacuate her with his family. On top of that, they didn't even pay for the session.
- Obligatory Earpiece Touch: Tammy touches her ear when communicating with the mothership.
- Of Corpse He's Alive: Invisible Jerry puppeteers Tammy's body to distract Phoenix Person.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: After distracting the two Gromflomites guarding the Earth-destroying laser, Morty somehow successfully kills them offscreen while Summer uses his pants to disable the laser. Morty even lampshades it.
- Oh, Crap!: Beth gets two of them in the same scene. When Tammy storms Dr. Wong's office, she grabs Beth and starts kicking her, asking about her changed hair and the Defiance. Beth is understandably confused and asks what a Defiance is. Then she sees Tammy's hologram showing Space Beth and says, "Oh god, I'm a clone".
- Other Me Annoys Me: As detailed under Fire-Forged Friends, the two Beths start out disliking each other since they each disapprove of the choices that the other has made, but they develop a bond as the episode progresses.
- Pet the Dog: After the New Galactic Federation captures both Beths, Rick is willing to exchange himself for them. Too bad for him, Beth really is the one they want, so they're not interested in negotiating.
- Pimp Duds: The pimp in the stinger is wearing stereotypical clothing.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: Summer is appalled by Morty in his underwear because the crotch got damaged in his fight with the Gromflomites and she can see his balls. Morty just says that's on her and refuses to cover up.
- Poorly Disguised Pilot: Spoofed. The Stinger treats Jerry and his invisible garbage truck as a new spinoff, only to abruptly call it off when Jerry runs out of gas and can't find the invisible truck's gas cap.
- The Power of Apathy: Discussed when Rick admonishes Space Beth's decision to fight the Federation, saying someone's always trying to conquer the galaxy and the trick he learned is just staying under the radar of whoever is trying. Beth rejects this, saying she'll never stop "giving a shit". Rick's nihilist attitude is deconstructed when Tammy dismisses him as no longer on the Federation's radar since, although his knowledge is valuable, he's shown the capability to destroy their organization yet is a non-entity that'll leave to another universe as long as he's not directly antagonized.
- Power Perversion Potential:
- Summer uses the invisibility belt to sneak into the bedroom of one of her male classmates, and sniffs his clothing. She doesn't get the chance to do much more before Morty catches up to her.
- Unsurprisingly, after Morty steals the belt, he uses it to enter the girls' locker room at school. Summer easily predicts this and exposes him by spraying him with a fire extinguisher.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The New Galactic Federation has realized that antagonizing Rick just leads to him retaliating, so as long as they leave him alone, he'll ignore them. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of taking his daughters hostage.
- Pre-emptive Declaration:
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Played for laughs when Rick delivers both this and a Bond One-Liner to Tammy, only to then wish he'd said them in the opposite order:
- Product Placement: Spoofed:
- The New Galactic Federation's death star-like WMD weapon is somehow sponsored by Wrangler, and thus vaporizes everything but Wrangler brand jeans. Summer and Morty exploit this by sneaking Morty's Wrangler jeans into the beam chamber, destroying the system when it detects the sponsored product.
- The show's contemporary Wendy's commercial is also alluded to by Rick when he brings up that they gave him some money recently.
- The Reveal: Initially, the beginning of the episode seemingly reveals that the Beth we have seen the entire season has been a clone, as alluded to at the end of the Season 3 episode “The ABCs of Beth". However, as the episode goes on, it becomes increasingly muddled as to who the true Beth is, as Rick — who clearly loves them both and considers both of them to be his daughter — tells each one that she is the real deal and the other is the clone. The end reveals that even Rick himself doesn't know. He intentionally shuffled the two so he wouldn't know.
- Riddle for the Ages: The end of the episode makes it clear that which Beth is the clone will never be answered, as Rick intentionally made sure he'd never know himself.
- Rump Roast: Tammy gets her butt set on fire by Rick after she attacks Beth and Jerry in Dr. Wong's office.
- Samus Is a Girl: The opening scene shows a rebel in a dark outfit with a Vader mask (and voice) holding off a group of pursuers. The character then removes the helmet and reveals herself as Space Beth.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Jerry in The Stinger when he can't find the gas tank on the invisible truck to refill it.
- Seen It All: Rick claims to be disintegrating to get out of going to therapy. Morty outs him as using an invisibility belt without missing a beat.
- See the Invisible:
- Morty uses infrared goggles to see Summer when she takes off with the invisibility belt. She smashes them when trading for the belt.
- Summer sprays Morty with foam to make him visible in the locker room. He calls her a monster.
- Sentimental Music Cue: "Don't Look Back" playing over the final moments of the season finale.
- Sequel Episode: Serves as one to a couple of Season 3 stories:
- First, to "The Rickshank Redemption", as the Smith-Sanchez family faces off with Tammy, Phoenix Person, and their reformed Galactic Federation, who were still at large and last seen (in canon) at the end of that episode.
- Second, to "The ABCs of Beth", as this episode finally provides an answer to its question of "Is the Beth who stayed here on Earth the real thing, or a clone?" Turns out that literally, no one knows, not even Rick.
- Third, in a more minor example, to "Pickle Rick", because a brief subplot has Beth and Jerry going to the family's therapist, Dr. Wong, and Rick still doing whatever he can to avoid going as well.
- Shout-Out:
- Rick describes Space Beth's exploits as a Star Wars-style adventure. There's even a quasi-Death Star, which Rick also lampshades.
- Rick and Space Beth very briefly engage in a Pokémon battle.
- When Rick lies mortally wounded and cornered by Phoenix Person who is moving in for the kill, he sarcastically laments that this isn't how he expected to die since he is nowhere near Venice and Phoenix Person isn't a dwarf in a raincoat. Rick is describing the ending of Don't Look Now.
- Space Beth has a blue streak in her hair, possibly referencing Darkest Timeline Britta from another Dan Harmon show, Community.
- The death laser leaving behind Wrangler jeans is a reference to the similar Reduced to Dust laser in War of the Worlds (2005).
- Morty mentions Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters as another memorable example of a Brother–Sister Team.
- Shy Bladder: Jerry's hang-up with peeing in front of his family.
- Soft Glass: Summer easily smashes the protective glass of the NX-5 with her elbow before inserting Morty's pants.
- Spare a Messenger: Hilariously subverted in the Action Prologue. Space Beth initially intends to leave one of the mooks alive so he can tell his boss that the Defiance lives on. But the guy gets her name wrong so many times that she finally gets fed up and kills him via Boom, Headshot!.
- The Stinger: Jerry throws the invisibility belt in the trash...only for a garbage truck to come by, empty the trash can, and turn invisible as a result. After the invisible truck causes several accidents, Jerry drives away in it himself and gets up to various shenanigans with it until he runs out of gas and is unable to find the gas tank on the truck to refill it, at which point he just leaves it there.Jerry: Well, we had a good run. (absconds)
- Stunned Silence: Jerry and Beth after Rick tells them about having put a bomb in Space Beth's neck in case she ever came back to Earth.Jerry: Father of the Year.
Rick: She wasn't supposed to come back!
Beth: Then why did she?
Rick: She found a bomb in her neck, wouldn't you?
(Long silence as Beth and Jerry stare at him in disgust)
Jerry: Father of the Year. - Sure, Let's Go with That: The Gromflomite ship sees Morty and the fire extinguisher floating next to him, being held by an invisible Summer. They ask if he has Mind over Matter powers, so Morty runs with it and gets them to surrender their ship when they assume he could just use his powers to kill them.
- Take a Third Option: It's revealed that, when Beth was faced with a choice in "The ABCs of Beth" of whether or stay or leave, she decided to have Rick make the decision, asking him if he wanted her to stay in his life or not. Rather than pick one or the other, Rick apparently decided to go with "both", making a clone of Beth and giving one of the two options to each of them, then made sure that he wouldn't know which one is the original Beth and which is the clone. As the writers put it, Rick, unable to handle the decision Beth put upon him, essentially made a non-choice and just doubled down on it really hard.
- Take This Job and Shove It: After Rick interrupts a session that Dr. Wong was having with Beth and Jerry (which was a bit awkward anyway due to Jerry's hand puppet) and then leaves her behind in her office after making a mess of it with his fight with Tammy, Dr. Wong glares at the departing family and bitterly says "I'm better than this job" to herself.
- Tan Lines: The male classmate of Summer's has tan lines on his upper body, which can be seen when he removes his shirt.
- Taught by Television: Jerry makes his own sock puppet to bring to family therapy sessions with Doctor Wong because he saw it on television. The thing is, she never wanted him to do that and makes a point to ask him to stop.
- Thinking Up Portals: Rick does this twice.
- First, he wipes out an entire armada of enemy space fighters by shooting the pilots through tiny portals opening up inside their cabins, even killing a pilot and co-pilot with just one bullet.
- Later he jumps Phoenix Person with a portal he creates overhead, which also redirects Phoenix Person's mouth-beam into his back.
- This Is a Drill: Phoenix Person has a drill that comes out of his face, which he uses to stab Rick in the heart. Armor immediately covers Rick's heart before the drill can do lethal damage.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!:
- Morty after successfully hunting down Summer while she's invisible:"Infrared goggles, bitch."
- Shortly afterwards, Summer after destroying Morty's goggles:"How do you like that, bitch?"
- Morty after successfully hunting down Summer while she's invisible:
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Rather than Rick, Morty, Summer, or even either of the Beths saving the day, it's Jerry that ends up being the hero by distracting Phoenix Person long enough to be powered down. Both Beths even give him props after the fact.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- The New Galactic Federation soldiers are about to arrest Morty when, thanks to invisible-Summer holding a fire extinguisher, they believe Morty has some kind of telekinetic powers. Rather than asking more questions or attempting to test this further, they immediately surrender on the spot, allowing the kids to go save the rest of their family and screwing up the G-Fed's whole plan.
- Just as Tammy is about to shoot Rick, invisible-Summer steals her gun and gives it to Jerry, allowing Rick to take Tammy hostage. He then orders "everyone" to drop their weapons, and has to hastily try (too late) to correct himself as Jerry somehow thinks this includes him and throws his own gun down, to Rick's exasperation.
- Took a Level in Badass: Space-Beth is now a legitimate threat to the galactic government and can go toe to toe with Rick. It's later downplayed though, when she and Earth Beth are casually incapacitated by Phoenix person whilst Rick put a decent fight against him.
- Tractor Beam: Rick notes that the beam that sucks Beth and Space Beth up to the mothership is quite impressive.
- Try Not to Die: When Rick sends Summer and Morty on the mission to disable the NX-5, he tells them not to die trying, because he doesn't want them giving their lives for an Earth they can abandon if necessary.
- The Unreveal: The entire episode keeps viewers guessing about who the real Beth is: the resistance fighter we see at the beginning of the episode who chose the option of leaving her family to start a new life or the one we have seen the entire season who chose to stay with her family. At the very end of the episode, Rick activates a Mind Blower (seen in "Morty's Mind Blowers") that takes us back to the moment in "The ABCs of Beth" where Beth says "I know what I want to do"; it turns out that she wanted Rick, for once, to be the one to choose her fate, asking him if he actually wanted her in his life or not. Rick simply didn't have the emotional capacity to handle that such a decision was left up to him, and so he decided to create a perfect clone of the real Beth, and have one of them stay and one of them leave. However, after a moment of contemplation, it is shown that he made his machine intentionally mix up the real Beth and the clone, with Rick turning around to prevent himself from seeing which Beth is his own, and subsequently erasing his own memory of the event just to be sure. Not even Rick himself knows who the true Beth is.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Dr. Wong's reaction to the reveal that Rick installed a flamethrower over her chair is a simple "I'd like to discuss that."
- Vehicular Turnabout: Morty mows down Tammy's mook army with the guns of their own dropship.
- Villain-by-Proxy Fallacy: Though the New Federation is searching for one of the Beths and takes them both until they can sort out the confusion, they initially see no other reason to capture/attack the rest of the family. Rick is surprised they're not really after him for once. Still, they do take any chance they get to retaliate to supposed "resistance", like when they smack Jerry around several times just for protesting with "Hey!" when Tammy hits Beth, and when Tammy reacts to Rick's angry retort of "You can't tell me what to do!" with "Great, he resisted, we can shoot him!"
- Voice Changeling: Space Beth imitates Rick's voice at one point.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Rick does a Spit Take after learning that Space Beth is wanted by the Federation.
- Weaponized Teleportation: During the Rick vs Phoenix Person fight, the latter, from midair, fires a laser at the former, on the ground. Rick uses his portal gun to make a portal on the floor that opens up behind Phoenix Person, causing the laser to hit him in the back and Rick himself to get the drop on him.
- We Need a Distraction: Pants-less Morty manages to lure the guards of the NX-5 away from their post.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The plot with the New Galactic Federation and their weapon capable of destroying planets is a reference to the Star Wars franchise. This is lampshaded by Rick, who is not amused at all by it.
- Wipe the Floor with You: During their fight, Phoenix Person presses Rick's head against the wall where it leaves a bloody trail as they slide along it.
- The World Is Always Doomed: Rick dismisses Space Beth for trying to save the galaxy from domination by the Galactic Federation because someone's always trying to conquer the galaxy. He says he's outgrown such idealism, and long since has decided to just do his best staying under their radar.
