Recap / Rick and Morty S5E10 "Rickmurai Jack"

Morty: Whoa… Dead wife?
Rick: Yes. Now everyone can shut up about it.

Original air date: 9/5/2021

A trip to the Citadel causes Rick and Morty to uncover a sinister conspiracy.

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Tropes:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: As a part of ditching his "Crow Man" persona, Rick gives his crow-themed robot horse free will and turns it loose. It immediately goes on an offscreen rampage.
  Submit to Crow Horse!
• Ambiguous Situation: With the revelation that the Citadel of Ricks have been cloning Mortys to meet their high demand, this brings up the question of whether Morty we know all this time was born and raised by his original parents, or if he is in fact a clone of the original one. This is followed up on in the next episode.
• Anti-Hero: Rick is referred to as this, word-for-word, during the Cold Open in his adventures with the two crows.
• Anti-Villain: Evil Morty is just a Morty living up to his potential, escaping the nightmare of a semi-infinite reality dominated by the Council of Ricks so that he can live free in the broader cosmos. He murders a shit-ton of people... but most of them were Ricks. Except for all the Morties. His hands aren't clean, but it's hard to blame him.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Morty to Rick as Evil Morty is getting ready to enact his plans: "Rick, did you really leave the crows for me, or did you come back because they dumped you?" Rick can only look away in shame.
• Astronomic Zoom: Rick's backstory sequence ends on such a zoom out.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Evil Morty accomplishes his main goal of escaping to a new multiverse where Rick is not the smartest man, all while destroying the Citadel, and is shown to be totally satisfied in having done so. The only aspect of his plan that goes awry is that the main Rick and Morty, as well as numerous other Mortys, survive the wormhole created by his escape route, even though Evil Morty clearly intended for all of them to die.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The "Rick and Two Crows" plot from last episode ends early when Rick discovers they are cheating on him with their enemy Crow Scare. He heads home to meet up with Morty.
  • At the start, Rick meets a much older Morty, implying that a couple of decades passed since they parted. It turns out Morty bought a faulty aging serum to become older. Part of the reason is to guilt-trip Rick into coming back.
• BFS: Crow Rick owns one of these.
• Big "OMG!": Morty shouts "Oh my fucking god!" in horror when he sees all of the Ricks and Mortys whose Phoenix Protocols rerouted them to clones in the Citadel being blended to liquid to power Evil Morty's machine.
• Blood from the Mouth: 26-year old Morty has blood running from his mouth after getting shot by a Guard Morty.
• Blood Magic: In addition to the Citadel's central drive core and all of their accumulated portal juice, Evil Morty's plan requires the liquified remains of who knows how many Ricks and Morties rerouted from their Phoenix Protocols.
• Both Sides Have a Point: While Rick is right that it's impossible for him to be responsible for every alternate-reality version of him and all the atrocities they've committed, and that he was against the creation of the Citadel and its Morty-market, Evil Morty is right that virtually all Ricks in the Central Finite Curve use their troubled pasts as a justification to blow off responsibility for anything altogether.
• Brain Bleach: As Rick and the crows are deciding to end their partnership, he states that their adventures together were only an allegory for a relationship, so this isn't a "real" breakup. Crow Scare, however, refutes this:
  Crow Scare: Speak for yourself. We immensely enjoy each others' bodies.
  Rick: What?! Ugh! No!
  Crow Scare: Sounds like the man's asking for proof. Let's show 'im, fellas! (he and the two crows proceed to engage in some kind of threesome)
  Rick: (Incredibly disgusted and trying to block the sight with his arms) I asked for zero proof! Zero proof!
• Breaking Old Trends: A minor example. As with his previous two appearances, Evil Morty's Leitmotif, "For the Damaged Coda", does play at the end of the episode as he succeeds in his plans; however, unlike the previous two examples, where the song continued playing during the ending credits, this time it ends right before the episode does, and the standard ending theme music plays for the credits. Also, this episode features an orchestral remix version of the song.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Plenty, thanks to this being a continuity-heavy episode, mostly from Rick but also a bit from Morty and Evil Morty too. References include this being called "a Citadel episode", noting that the Citadel "runs on canon", and mentioning that Rick hates "serialized drama" and wants to "keep it episodic".
• Briar Patching: As a part of his scheme, Evil Morty has a looping message of "Nobody leave, everybody stay!" broadcasted over the Citadel's PSA system. Since a fundamental part of Rick's character is really hating getting told what to do and refusing to follow orders, the vast majority of Ricks immediately attempt to leave the Citadel via their portal guns, oblivious to the fact that they have been tampered with, leading to their grisly demise.
• Brutal Honesty: Evil Morty's reaction to Morty's attempting an Armor-Piercing Question.
  Morty: And what are you doing about [Ricks' exploitation of Mortys]?
  Evil Morty: Jack shit. I'm leaving.
• Buffy Speak: After Rick and Morty escape from him, Evil Morty makes a brief ominous monologue about how tonight, his plan (to escape the Central Finite Curve) will be complete...except that he phrases it as such:
  Evil Morty: Tonight, the quality of dialogue stops mattering. Tonight...I do that thing I wanna do. With the Curve thing!
• Bullet Time: The scene at the inn goes into slow motion when Rick dodges an axe thrown at him.
• Call-Back: The Central Finite Curve was mentioned off-hand in both previous Evil Morty episodes.
• The Cameo:
  • Summer, Beth, and Jerry only have brief speaking appearances in one scene near the beginning in which Rick and Morty reunite. They appear later in Rick's and/or Evil Morty's flashbacks.
  • Diane also very briefly appears in Rick's flashback before she is killed.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Played with. Evil Morty gleefully accepts and acknowledges his title, and doesn't really try to defend his actions. However, he seems convinced that the Protagonist-Centered Morality of the series is the only reason he is considered evil, and doesn't actually take responsibility for his actions, deflecting the blame to the circumstances just like he said the Ricks do.
• Cassandra Truth: One of the deformed Mortys from the lower levels of the Citadel escapes and tries to warn everyone disaster is coming, but is killed before anyone can take him seriously.
  Morty Mutant: Listen to me! Death is coming, and the Citadel is a weapon of mass destruct-! (Gets shot between the eyes)
• Casual Danger Dialogue:
  • Rick and Evil Morty, especially the latter, remain completely calm when the latter states he planned to hunt the former down, and Rick just rolls his eyes and pulls out his gun in retaliation, to which Evil Morty in turn just responds with a casual "Oh gee" without even looking up from his meal.
  • Evil Morty continues this as Rick and Morty are escaping, just giving a flat, sarcastic "Uh oh" when Rick breaks free of his bonds and shoots at him (since Evil Morty has a force field activated that blocks the shot), gives a satisfied chuckle when Rick figures out that Evil Morty was the one who hacked his portal gun in the past and has done so again, and isn't at all concerned when Rick steals the memory scan back from him, probably because he already has what he needs anyway.
• Character Development: Zig-Zagged Trope. Initially, Rick seemed to be making good on his development, engaged in a seemingly endless conflict with Crow Scare and rebuking Morty calling it "pointless", and refusing to return to Morty after reiterating how unhealthy their relationship is. After he finds out Two Crows were cheating on him with Crow Scare though, he returns home and returns to his usual self, completely forgetting everything he learned. With that said, when Evil Morty gives him a Hannibal Lecture after Morty reviews Rick's memories, Rick at least refuses to leave Morty behind and even urges him to save himself.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: The 26-year-old Morty created by the remains of the de-aging process is apparently this. He sees two security Mortys beating up a mutated Morty in the streets, and runs outside to help while shouting "Something unfair is happening!" Unfortunately, it immediately gets him killed.
• Cliffhanger: Rick and Morty manage to escape from Evil Morty's attempt to kill them, but are left stranded in Mortyburg with no obvious means of returning home, Rick's portal gun having been rendered useless and discarded. Evil Morty has also succeeded in his plan to escape the Central Finite Curve, in the process wiping out the entire population of Ricks and (most) Mortys at the Citadel.
• Close-Call Haircut: When Crow Rick dodges Pussifier's axe in slo mo, the weapon makes a distinct sound as it cuts a piece of Rick's eyebrow.
• Continuity Cavalcade: This is a Sequel Episode to no less than four other episodes, so naturally, continuity abounds (to Rick's displeasure, since he doesn't like serialization):
  • Rick and Morty return to the Citadel of Ricks for the first time since "The Rickshank Redemption", and discover that a Morty (whom, as they eventually learn, is Evil Morty) was elected President, which occurred in "The Ricklantis Mixup". We also see some of the changes that have been enacted since then, such as there being many more Mortys on the Citadel's police force (and they have different uniforms). Humorously enough, you can actually see Morty fitting the pieces together in his memory as he recalls the details of President Morty's election—which he also acknowledges the main cast aren't fully caught up on because they weren't at the Citadel when it all happened.
  • When Evil Morty hijacks all of the portals in the Citadel, one seems to lead to the Blender Dimension (which shreds anyone who enters into pieces), the same dimension that killed Simple Rick in "The Ricklantis Mixup".
  • Numerous references are made to "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind" once Rick and Morty learn that President Morty is actually Evil Morty from that episode, up to and including a Breaking the Fourth Wall moment where a Stan Lee-esque Rick directly advises viewers to watch this episode for context:
    • Rick and Morty mention having defeated Evil Rick, and realize here as the audience did then that he was a pawn of Evil Morty.
    • The brain scan that Evil Rick took from Rick C-137 reappears, and this is what Evil Morty uses to reveal his identity to them.
    • Evil Morty references that Morty already knows that Mortys are used by rogue Ricks as shields, something Morty did indeed learn in that episode.
    • When Rick becomes suspicious of the portal he just made to leave with Morty, he confirms it's a trap and notes that only one person has ever hacked his portal gun before: Evil Rick, who he knows is dead, which means that President Morty is Evil Morty and the one who actually hacked his portal gun. Indeed, "Close Rick-Counters" is the only time we've seen anyone do so.
    • Right before he departs to beyond the Central Finite Curve, Evil Morty re-dons the eyepatch he wore throughout "Close Rick-Counters".
  • The Phoenix Protocol, a cross-dimensional reincarnation device network for deceased Ricks and Mortys which appeared in season two's "Big Trouble in Little Sanchez" and season four's "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat", returns as part of Evil Morty's escape plan.
  • We learn that Rick's memory from "The Rickshank Redemption" is mostly accurate, specifically that Diane and Beth were murdered by another Rick for C-137 rejecting portal technology to be a family man while he helplessly watched from inside his car.
  • When Evil Morty exposits on the Central Finite Curve, we see unique universes as well as universes that depict previous episodes, namely "Auto Erotic Assimilation", "The Old Man and the Seat", "Mort Dinner Rick Andre", and "Star Mort: Rickturn of the Jerri".
  • As was hinted before, it is confirmed why Rick was so blasé about simply switching dimensions and abandoning his family in "Rick Potion #9"; that wasn't his original family and he had no attachment to them (save for Morty, probably) because his "real" family is long dead.
  • During Rick's flashback montage that Morty views, a couple of brief snippets from Rick's time with Bird Person in "Rickternal Friendshine of the Rickless Mort" are shown.
  • The Stinger reveals that, after Rick got Mr. Poopybutthole fired from his job as a university professor in "One Crew Over the Crewcoo's Morty", he still hasn't found another job. He's also grown apart from the wife he was shown to have in "The Rickchurian Mortydate".
  • Rick utilizes Phoenix Person's wings as part of his "Crow Man" costume.
  • When Rick returns home after being dumped by the crows, he greets Morty with his old Catchphrase, "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub", the first time he's been heard saying it since Season 2.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • The events of the (otherwise completely unrelated) previous episode happened to drive Morty back to the Citadel in an attempt at making amends with Rick, alerting Evil Morty to their presence and giving him the opportunity to scan the rest of Rick's mind and set his plan in motion. However, Evil Morty avoids Gambit Roulette by mentioning he'd been planning to hunt Rick C-137 down anyway, meaning the coincidence only saved him a bit of time and effort.
  • Seemingly by complete chance, the two random crows that Rick picked to be his new sidekicks in the last episode had also been going on wacky adventures across the cosmos in the past and were also using Rick as a rebound partner, just as he was with them.
• Crazy-Prepared: Evil Morty sabotages nearly every possible escape route the Ricks might employ. All the portal fluid reroutes to hostile universes, the main source of portal fluid is shunted to Evil Morty's device so they can't access a clean source, and "Operation Phoenix" is rerouted to tubes with blenders in them. Their Mortys don't fare much better. He also remains consistently prepared for any of Rick C-137's attempts to attack him.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Rick C-137, thanks to both his tech and his own fighting skills, easily defeats all of the Rick guards that President Morty calls in to apprehend him without taking any damage whatsoever.
• Deadline News: The News Anchor Rick of the Citadel News is killed on-air when he tries to escape through a portal, only for a tentacle monster to emerge and pull him in to his death. The caption on the screen even says "We're F#%ked".
• Dramatic Thunder: A thunder rolls when Rick enters the inn looking for Crow Scare.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • When Rick returns to the Smiths at the beginning, 40-year-old Morty outright states that he's so desperate to have Rick back that he can't even bring himself to demand any concessions when Beth tells him to. Rick just states that this Extreme Doormat behavior is a by-product of Morty being aged-up to midlife crisis years, and he'll be less codependent once he's returned to normal.
  • Rick learns, to his own surprise, that he was pardoned offscreen for destroying the Citadel back in Season 3, as part of Evil Morty's plan.
  • Combined with Undying Loyalty: Morty 1) learns the truth about how and why Mortys in the Citadel (which Rick is revealed to have co-founded) are made, 2) finds out that the Central Finite Curve was created by Ricks to separate all universes where he is the smartest man in the universe from the rest, 3) is reminded of how many Ricks hurt or kill their Mortys and use their pasts to try to justify it, and 4) deduces that Rick only came back to him because the crows dumped him. Even when Evil Morty gives him the chance to leave with him beyond the Central Finite Curve and Rick basically gives his blessing, Morty still chooses to forgive and stay with Rick despite everything.
  • Right after, Evil Morty reveals that this offer was a lie anyway. Morty calls it a dick move but also notes that it was kinda cool of him to admit it, prompting Rick to lampshade how Mortys really are bred for forgiveness.
• Exposition Beam: The downloaded data from Rick's brain scan is used as this twice for Morty:
  • Evil Morty injects him with it to show him how the Citadel is used as a breeding and cloning factory to create Mortys to act as servants to Ricks.
  • Morty insists on injecting himself with it when Rick is being cagey about answering his questions, and learns of Rick's Dark and Troubled Past.
• False Reassurance: Evil Morty uses this when telling his Rick henchmen to allow the main Rick and Morty to leave. Rick quickly becomes suspicious that it's a trap, and confirms this by tossing one of the other Ricks into the portal, which promptly shreds him. From Evil Morty's smirk, it's pretty clear he wanted Rick to figure it out, and chuckles happily when he does.
  Evil Morty: It's okay, he's free to go. He's the Rickest Rick. We'll never see him again.
• Flashback: Morty finally sees one of his Rick's past, which is a silent (as in, no dialogue, just somber background music) montage of Rick's Roaring Rampage of Revenge for the death of his wife and daughter before eventually settling down to live with Beth and her family, including Morty.
• Flipping the Bird: The News Anchor Rick does this, with both hands, during his final broadcast.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Morty meets up with Rick during the latter's adventures with the two crows, he is now 40 years old, and claims to Rick that Jerry died of cancer and Summer is married to a junkie, giving the impression that Rick has been away from the family for decades. Viewers, however, will probably notice that Rick doesn't seem to have aged at all, let alone 26 years, and when Rick returns to the Smith family after his break-up with the crows, it's revealed that not much time has passed at all, and Morty just aged himself up to guilt-trip Rick into coming back. Given the episode title, it's probably a reference to the fifth season of Samurai Jack, where Jack has been roaming the Earth for fifty years without aging a day since he arrived in the future.
  • There is also the bartender calling Morty a "poser" for ordering rum and coke as a forty year old, at first this seems like a joke on Morty's immaturity until we find out that he actually is a poser who aged himself to forty while still having the mind of a fourteen years old.
  • When Rick returns home, he greets Morty with his old Wubalubadubdub catchphrase. Recall what BP told Morty, it means "I am in great pain".
  • Rick expected President Morty to be an "evil" Morty. It's not until encountering him at his office that Rick learns he's the Evil Morty.
  • Evil Morty has been shown to be a Boomerang Bigot towards his fellow Mortys, and outright states here that "sellout Mortys" who stick by their Ricks disgust him even more than Ricks themselves. So in the climax, it seems out of character for him to offer Morty, a Morty he particularly dislikes, to join him in journeying beyond the Central Finite Curve. Sure enough, after Morty refuses and chooses to stay with Rick, Evil Morty informs him that he was lying about this anyway.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The pictures of the proto-Citadel members include a Hellboy Rick, Klingon Rick, Borg Rick, Turkey Rick, and various other alien Ricks.
• Freeze-Frame Introduction: One-off character Pussifier gets introduced with a freeze-frame and character name.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: After Evil Morty reveals to his counterpart how and why Mortys are created and that what makes him "evil" is simply wanting to escape into a multiverse free of Rick's influence, he offers Morty the chance to join him in traveling beyond the Central Finite Curve to do so, which would mean leaving Rick behind to likely die. Rick actually admits that this is the most logical choice, but Morty chooses to stay behind with him, which Rick seems genuinely touched by. (Evil Morty then reveals that he lied about his offer anyway.)
• Genre Savvy: Rick wants to get away from the Citadel since it "runs on canon", and so an adventure there would have actual repercussions and not be just an episode. He is proven right in a major way.
• Gold-Colored Superiority:
  • All of the portal guns that we've seen in the series thus far, which were built by Ricks, use green portals and fluid. When Evil Morty escapes to a new universe beyond the Central Finite Curve and utilizes his own portal gun, the portal and fluid are instead gold.
  • Likewise, the display of the Central Finite Curve is colored gold, and it is such a tough nut to crack that even with an entire Citadel of Ricks at his disposal, Evil Morty needed the main Rick's brain scan to figure out how to unlock it and the power of the entire station to make a portal powerful enough to breach it once he had the information.
• Go Out with a Smile: Non-lethal version, when Evil Morty launches his space pod out of the Citadel towards the wormhole created to escape the Central Finite Curve, he closes his eyes and smiles as he's about to pass through.
• Half the Man He Used to Be:
  • The Build-a-Morty store fixes Morty's accelerated aging by splitting him into thirds head to toe, reconstituting two of the pieces into children, and then mushing them together into Morty's normal age, with the leftovers becoming a 26-year-old Morty. It's probably best not to think about the logic of it too much.
  • Rick cuts an owl soldier in half with his Phoenix Person wings.
• Hope Spot: One Rick-and-Morty duo commit suicide, hoping the Phoenix Protocol will help them escape the collapse of the Citadel and return to their homes safely. Unfortunately for them, they soon discover that they were rerouted and are immediately liquefied by the blades below them upon finding out the protocol was sabotaged. This is shown happening to many other Ricks and Mortys who apparently had the same idea.
• Human Resources:
  • The reveal that the Citadel treats Mortys this way, both engineering situations where Beth and Jerry meet and/or drugging them with love potions in order to create more Mortys, and having a massive cloning facility that mass-produces them like cheap, disposable cattle, creating an infinite market of Mortys to supply to Ricks who need them.
  • Evil Morty's escape plan starts with baiting the residents of the Citadel into trying to escape, at which point it's revealed that all of their portal guns have been rerouted to dimensions that kill them instantly. Why? Well, it turns out the Phoenix Protocol has also been rerouted into a network of clone chambers with blender blades at the bottom, grinding their newly reincarnated selves into tons of viscera to power the portal mechanism.
• I Lied: Morty rejects Evil Morty's offer to come with him beyond the Central Finite Curve and chooses to stay with Rick. Evil Morty then reveals that this offer wasn't genuine anyway, and his "extra seat" in his ship is really just a toilet.
  Morty: Oh, super dick move. But, weirdly kind of cool of you to admit it.
• Implied Answer: When Morty asks Rick the Armor-Piercing Question if he returned because he wanted to be with Morty or if the crows dumped him, Rick doesn't answer but his facial expression makes the answer perfectly clear.
• Internal Reveal: Morty and later Rick learn first that a Morty was elected President of the Citadel, and then the two discover together that President Morty is Evil Morty, as well as the fact that Evil Rick was actually his pawn.
• Irony:
  • Rick originally used the two crows as rebound from Morty. The two crows then turn out to have likewise been using Rick as a rebound from Crow Scare.
  • The Citadel of Ricks built the Central Finite Curve to protect them from universes with beings more powerful than them. They would still end up getting outsmarted and (mostly) killed... by a Morty.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While Evil Morty is an absolutely despicable human being and well-deserving of the title, he is right that one of the reasons he is identified as "evil" by the series is just a case of Protagonist-Centered Morality (even though he is mistaken in thinking this is the only reason). C-137 Rick himself slaughtered countless other Ricks for personal revenge, and while he didn't do the deed himself he was well aware of how Mortys were bred, cloned, and sold as a commodity (and possibly even helped to start it all), and he is implied to somewhat be the most moral of the Ricks. He also has a point in criticizing Morty for how easily he goes back to Rick and forgives him, since in the end it makes him just an enabler.
• Jumping the Shark: Invoked by Rick, who defines that reading his memory would be this.
• Just Between You and Me: Evil Morty reveals that he has ill-intentions for Rick when he doesn't need to, and in fact fully expects Rick to try to get free of the restraints on the chairs. He also makes a parting quip to Rick that makes him suspicious of using portals, which saves his life.
• Just One Man: In the cold open, one of the owl-people says that he doesn't understand how Crow Rick can be so dangerous when he's only one man.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Rick C-137 was never able to find the Rick that murdered his wife and daughter, eventually giving up and winding up at that Rick's house after a bender.
  • Evil Morty ultimately accomplishes his goal to escape to a multiverse where Rick isn't the smartest. The only thing that doesn't quite go as planned is how Rick and Morty, plus a few other Mortys, survive the destruction of the Citadel. But he still gets away with the countless other deaths of Ricks and Mortys he is responsible for.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: With the massive revelations about Citadel's Ricks, the ones that aren't C-137 all suffer this as Evil Morty kills them in revenge for their actions.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: The deformed, hunchback Morty at the Citadel gets killed with a Boom, Headshot! by a Security Morty while shouting "...the Citadel is a weapon of mass des—-".
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The page quote. When Morty learns, together with the audience, about Rick's backstory, Rick notes that now "everyone" can shut up about it. Rick's wife and what happened to her has been a major source of speculation among the fandom for years.
• Leitmotif: Evil Morty's, "For the Damaged Coda", shows up once again (as an orchestral version this time) near the end of the episode as he's escaping the Central Finite Curve into a new multiverse.
• Let Them Die Happy: When 26-year-old Morty is about to die, he asks Morty if he was influential, and Morty claims that he was, and that he had 7 blogs.
• Light Is Not Good: President Morty has switched to wearing a white shirt with a turquoise tie. He is, of course, actually Evil Morty, and switches to black once he begins his plan.
• Meaningful Echo: Of the previous episode, in which Rick's two crows had become enhanced and had the opportunity to kill him, with Rick fully acknowledging they have every reason to do so, but instead decided to side with and rescue him, impressing him with how empathetic crows are. In the climax of this episode, Evil Morty offers Morty a chance to come with him through the Curve and escape the Citadel while leaving Rick behind to die^note (he's actually lying, but Morty doesn't know this), and Rick again admits it's the most rational decision. Morty, too, chooses to save and stand by Rick, leaving him sincerely touched.
• Meet Cute: Invoked by Citadel Ricks between different versions of Jerry and Beth in different dimensions to ensure that they meet, fall in love, and give birth to Morty (and Summer before him). We see two examples:
  • Beth and Jerry are in a library facing opposite bookshelves; a Rick reaches through a portal to tap Beth on the shoulder to make her turn around, see Jerry, and think it was he who tapped her, prompting them to shake hands and introduce themselves.
  • After both of them are shot from behind in the necks with darts by Ricks, teenage Jerry drops his lunch tray in the cafeteria, and Beth leans down to help him pick up the things he spilled. The way their pupils dilate when their hands touch implies that the darts were spiked with pheromones that made them instantly feel attraction to each other.
• Never My Fault:
  • Evil Morty calls Rick out on this when Rick denies any responsibility for the behavior of his alternate selves. Evil Morty states that all off them use that excuse to pretend that they aren't collectively responsible for enabling each other's misanthropy. Gets Played With in that, while that argument works for most Ricks, Rick C-137 goes out of his way to avoid other Ricks and couldn't care less what they do so long as they leave him alone.
  • Evil Morty goes into a Motive Rant, pondering the question of What Is Evil?, during which he concludes that he is being labeled as "evil", simply because he is fed up with Rick's behavior and wants to get away from him.
• Ninja Log: Rick defeats Pussifier using this trick.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: President Morty invites Rick C-137 and his Morty to come dine with him. They don't get too far into the meal before President Morty casually reveals to them who he is (Evil Morty), the fact that he'd been planning to hunt C-137 down, and what he wants from them, and restrains them in place.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Cunning and Crazy-Prepared as he may be, Evil Morty is still a Morty, a 14-year-old boy surrounded by numerous versions of his ass-kicking adult grandfather, and as such, he doesn't even try to physically fight against the main Rick and Morty, ordering his Rick minions to take care of it instead.
• Non-Action Guy: Normally, Morty isn't this, but since the main physical enemies the duo face this episode are other Ricks (in the form of guards who show up to arrest them), whom Morty knows he has no chance against, he, like Evil Morty above, doesn't even attempt to fight them, and just hides under the table on Rick's orders so he won't be in the way while Rick fights them.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The Central Finite Curve itself is the "Tiny Pond" for The Multiverse: a specific subset of universes carefully cultivated by all of the Ricks in order to separate them from the other universes where Rick isn't "The Smartest Man" living there.
• Not So Similar: Despite trying to pull a "Not So Different" Remark, Evil Morty, thanks to being The Sociopath with a massive Lack of Empathy, doesn't seem to understand that what truly makes him "evil" is how he has tortured and/or murdered a multitude of Ricks and fellow Mortys without batting an eye, sometimes to the point of major overkill and even when it wasn't necessary for his plans. By contrast, though our Morty has gotten incredibly fed up with Rick to the point of being willing to kill him or let him die, he has otherwise only been complicit in the deaths of Ricks who were trying to kill him or his family, and has never knowingly gotten involved with hurting other Mortys, even showing horror when he has inadvertently done so. Indeed, what makes Rick the Rickest Rick is that he never abandoned his family, and what makes Evil Morty the Rickest Morty is that that's exactly what he's doing.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Not only does Morty now know that he wasn't Rick's original Morty — because Rick's original Beth died as a child — the episode ends with the Citadel destroyed for good, with the only survivors being Rick C-137 and Morty, the Mortys that came with them, and any Ricks and Mortys already in Mortyburg when Rick detached that section of Citadel. Rick's sabotaged portal gun is useless for now, and Evil Morty leaves with his golden portal gun to the wider multiverse.
• Now You Tell Me: Right before engaging the de-aging machine, Science Morty reveals that it's gonna break all of Older Morty's bones. The latter is instantly terrified but it's too late to stop the process.
• Manipulative Bastard: It is revealed that the Ricks of the Central Finite Curve have done this to gain a near unlimited supply of Mortys for themselves. They have manipulated the Beths and Jerrys of various dimensions into meeting and falling in love with each other so they will eventually give birth to Morty (and Summer too to an extent). But because that's not enough, hey also steal the genetic material of each Morty so they can clone them in large masses, and instantly replace one if they are killed.
• Once More, with Clarity: While Rick's backstory from "The Rickshank Redemption" was true, it didn't exactly happen as Rick had shown the Federation. In the version he showed the Federation agent, he was acting laid-back and indifferent when he rejected the other Rick's offer; in reality, Rick acted openly annoyed and stand-offish towards the other Rick and gave him a much more firm and emphatic refusal. Then, rather than figuring out the portal gun equation instantly after his wife and daughter's deaths, Rick had gone into a deep depression for an unknown amount of time before eventually figuring out how to make the gun and going off in search of the Rick who had murdered his family.
• On Second Thought: Rick is unwilling to pay for the disposal of the 26 years left over from Morty's de-aging process. He quickly changes his mind when 26-year-old Morty exits the machine with the line "I'm almost ready to sell out."
• On the Rebound: During Rick's breakup with the crows, they admit they were using him as a rebound for Crow Scare, and they get the feeling that Rick was likewise using them as rebounds for Morty (which the previous episode basically confirmed). Rick doesn't deny it, instead just noting that this realization renders what they've been doing together meaningless.
• Other Me Annoys Me: When Morty apologizes to Rick for convincing him to have dinner with the president of the Citadel, which gets them captured, Evil Morty states his disgust for "sellout Mortys" like him.
  Evil Morty: You sellout Mortys kill me. I'd hate you more than the Ricks you worship if there were any point. But you can't help it. You were bred for it. Wanna see?
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Rick actually reveals a vulnerable side of himself to Morty, no strings attached, and doesn't use it to manipulate him or anyone else. He instead uses it when Morty demands the truth, and carries Morty while the latter is reliving his memories.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Evil Morty goes out of his way to give hints to Rick that help him avoid the fate of the other Ricks, even if he isn't particularly nice about it, and while the Citadel's destruction might have killed Rick and Morty anyway, it's a greater chance than he gave any other Rick or Morty.
  • Rick and Morty help evacuate the deformed Mortys and save a handful of them from the Citadel's destruction. It seems Evil Morty's Hannibal Lecture about Ricks not caring about Mortys helped open Rick's eyes.
• "Pop!" Goes the Human: The owl soldier bursts into pieces after numerous crows swarm through his mouth into his belly.
• Pop-Up Trivia: After Evil Morty reveals his identity to the main Rick and Morty and they remember kicking Evil Rick's ass, the screen briefly pauses and goes gray while a Rick modeled after Stan Lee informs the audience that they should watch "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind"^note though he actually mis-numbers it, referring to it as episode 9 instead of episode 10 from Season 1 for the necessary context, adding a "Rickcelsior!", before returning to the show.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Evil Morty powers the device to break through Central Finite Curve by using the blood of countless Rick and Mortys that are rerouted by his hack of Operation Phoenix and blended up into soup.
• Precision F-Strike: After seeing footage of how the Mortys are bred and mass-produced, Morty immediately says "What the fuck?!" to Rick.
• Properly Paranoid: Rick is not keen on the idea of having dinner with the President of the Citadel, partly because the Citadel "runs on canon" and he doesn't want to stick around longer than he has to, but also because, as he lampshades, he previously destroyed the Citadel, but was apparently pardoned for it despite there being no apparent reason to do so. Rick is sure that the Morty President will inevitably turn out to be evil, and sure enough, soon learns that he is indeed Evil Morty.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: The Citadel is destroyed, for good this time, but thousands of innocent Ricks and Mortys get killed as a consequence. Evil Morty successfully escapes to the rest of the multiverse, and essentially got a world where Rick isn't on top. The portal fluid is also corrupted, meaning it won't be easy to get home as usual. But Rick manages to get a dozen Mortys out, and his Morty chose to stick by his side. Morty has also admitted he understands Rick more, realizing that he never wanted to abandon his family in the first place.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Given by Evil Morty to Rick and Morty about Rick.
• Regional Riff: A yanqin (Japanese string instrument) plays during Rick's adventures as Crow Rick.
• Reset Button: Rick left at the end of the previous episode after having apparently understood how abusive he was, and was planning on trying to learn to do better. Within the first few minutes of the episode, he and the crows end their partnership, and he returns home, gets back together with Morty, and seems like he'll go back to being the usual Rick. Adult Morty even lampshades the trope by suggesting to Rick to "hit the reset button".
• The Reveal: A plethora:
  • Evil Morty finally reveals the truth to our Morty behind the relationships between Ricks and Mortys: the Ricks of the Citadel literally engineered the existence of Mortys in the first place by ensuring that Beths and Jerrys in various dimensions met each other so they would eventually fall in love and reproduce, creating Summer and later Morty. They then would steal genetic material from these Mortys to clone more, creating an infinite supply of them who exist mainly to serve a weak-minded, shitty old man who can't help but need them.
  • The "Central Finite Curve" that most Ricks originate from is actually a walled-off section of the multiverse where the Ricks are the smartest living being in every universe. Evil Morty was interested in Rick C-137 to gain information from him about how to open access to it; his plan is to escape from it to a part of the multiverse where Rick either doesn't exist or at least is no longer the god-like smartest being in it, and he intends to burn the Citadel down on his way out and kill all the Ricks and Mortys there.
  • While much of his memories were fabricated during his interrogation in "The Rickshank Redemption", the one with Diane and Beth (as a child), being murdered by an alternate Rick bombing them, is confirmed true. He spent decades trying to hunt down the Rick responsible, killing countless Ricks and even creating the Citadel of Ricks in the process, but could never find him, and finally just gave up and spiraled into cynicism. During one of his portal jumps to an alternate version of his home, he was spotted by that dimension's now-adult Beth (who was abandoned by her Rick) and chose to stay with her, seemingly adopting her Morty as the titular Morty of the series whom we know and love.
• Revenge Before Reason: Rick's quest for revenge against the Rick that murdered his family only led to numerous Ricks dying (none of whom were the Rick he was looking for), Rick falling into a drunken depression, numerous other Ricks trying to kill him, and the Citadel of Ricks emerging from the ashes.
• Rewatch Bonus: Many, due to the episode revealing so many critical lore details about Rick's past.
  • When looking back at "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind", it becomes clear that the reason Rick C-137 was the prime suspect in Evil Morty's Rick-murder spree was because of his earlier Roaring Rampage of Revenge against many alternate Ricks. If there was a single Rick that could kill so many of them, it would be him.
  • Also, the shocked murmurs that ripple through the courtroom when Rick decries the very concept of the Citadel are almost certainly in part because C-137 was the one who established the Citadel (or at least the most recent version at the time).
  • Rick's catchphrase, "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub" meaning "I am in great pain, please help me." is first interpreted by Morty as just a silly one mocking his surroundings. This episode reveals Rick never quite got over the fallout of his wife and daughter's death in the first place and fell into depression and nihilism after failing to avenge them, and was behind the Citadel of Ricks just to leave him alone, and Birdperson most likely knew all this.
  • Rick's deep contempt of the Citadel and declaring himself "the Rickest Rick" makes sense when looking at his backstory — unlike all the other Ricks at the Citadel, C-137 didn't want to dedicate his life to science, instead opting to spend more time with his family. He was forced into science when one of the Ricks killed his family, and C-137 was determined to get revenge. The other Ricks learned of C-137's Roaring Rampage of Revenge and made unsuccessful attempts to assassinate him, eventually leading into the establishment of the Citadel just to get them to stop. Lastly, C-137 also created an alliance of alternate versions of himself that have endlessly manipulated the daughter he loved into hooking up with Jerry, just for the sake of giving them the perfect sidekick. And he's the "Rickest Rick" because he is the most ruthless, determined, smartest of them all, able to casually kill untold legions of Ricks without resistance.
  • The episode puts Rick and Jerry's relationship in a whole new light. Rick could easily Kill and Replace Jerry with a better pick for Beth, but he knows the latter is a victim of the Citadel. Particularly his rant in "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy" where he says Beth had options: he's talking about how Beth's been manipulated to fall in love with the same loser and have her life shackled to him for the purpose of breeding.
    • When looking back at "Big Trouble in Little Sanchez", you'd realize that Glaxo Slimslom was unknowingly right in so many ways when he said that the marriage between Beth and Jerry is the single worst marriage he's ever witnessed and more importantly, that this marriage shouldn't exist. The Ricks of the Citadel pretty much brought this marriage into existence for the sake of breeding the perfect kid sidekick (Morty).
    • To say nothing of his cloning Beth. He wants his family to choose their own path, but when Beth asked him to make that choice, Rick buckled not just because he couldn't handle a choice that big, but because she, unwittingly, was asking him to manipulate her life again.
  • Between the "dome of Mortys" that Evil Rick and Evil Morty had to protect themselves, and a dedicated school at the Citadel for Rickless Mortys, there seem to be a lot more Mortys than Ricks out there, even accounting for an infinite multiverse. The reveal that Mortys are cloned and mass-produced at the Citadel confirms there are more Mortys than Ricks.
  • Any mention of the "Central Finite Curve" in earlier episodes becomes this given The Reveal about what it is here.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Rick C-137 went on one trying to find the Rick who killed his wife and daughter. He murdered countless Ricks in his quest for revenge, only for none of them to turn out to be the one he was looking for, until he eventually gave up and subsequently went to live with a grown-up adult Beth who'd been abandoned by her Rick.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!:
  • Evil Morty's ultimate goal is nothing more than to escape to a multiverse where Rick isn't the smartest man. To accomplish this, he turns the Citadel into a giant Portal Gun to break through the "Central Finite Curve" that leads to that ideal multiverse.
  • Numerous Ricks and Mortys attempt to leave the Citadel with their portal guns as soon as shit starts to hit the fan, and fail due to the portal network being sabotaged.
• Season Finale: Together with "Forgetting Sarick Mortshall", this is the second episode of the two-part finale to Season 5.
• Sequel Episode:
  • Since this is a two-part finale episode with "Forgetting Sarick Mortshall", it picks up where the previous episode left off, with Rick going on adventures with the two crows. Though this only lasts for the first five minutes before it's dropped and Rick and Morty reunite.
  • The third in a trilogy with "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind" and "The Ricklantis Mix-Up", as the third episode to feature Evil Morty and directly following up on his plots in both of them.
  • To a lesser extent, for "The Rickshank Redemption", which only hinted at Rick's past. We get confirmation that Rick's wife Diane and his original Beth were indeed killed in the same way that flashback showed, and see what Rick did about it afterwards.
• Series Continuity Error: A couple of minor ones:
  • In the brief Breaking the Fourth Wall moment, meta-Rick tells fans to check out "Season 1, Episode 9" for context about Evil Rick and Evil Morty. However, said episode was actually "Something Ricked This Way Comes", which had nothing to do with them; the episode he really means is "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind", which is episode 10 of the first season.^note This mistake was probably because "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind"'s production code is 009 ("Pilot"'s is 000), which the writers might have mistaken for the ninth episode. This error has been fixed in recent broadcasts and on the website.
  • In "The Rickshank Redemption", Rick was supposedly able to trick and escape from the Gromflomites when they invaded his "memory" of his wife and daughter dying, despite the fact that he's not supposed to be able to hijack a memory, because he claimed it was a "totally fabricated backstory" that he thus had total control over. Here, however, it's revealed that said backstory was actually true for the most part, meaning that it was a real memory that Rick just repurposed as part of his gambit. This is something of a soft error, however, as the best lies tell the truth for the most part, so by claiming it was false and showcasing how he could control the memory, Rick was able to pass the whole thing off as a false backstory.
  • The scene of Rick crashing into the garage and running into Beth seems to be set in the same dimension as, and not much earlier than, the events of the pilot, yet the crack around the house from "Ricksy Business" is there.
• Shooting Superman: After trying to shoot Evil Morty once and failing, Rick does it again as Evil Morty is talking. When Evil Morty lampshades that Rick shouldn't have expected it to work the second time, Rick snaps back that he was expressing disapproval of Evil Morty's dialog.
• Shout-Out:
  • Rick's Crow outfit is basically him cosplaying D.
  • The title is a fairly obvious play on Samurai Jack.
  • Hunchback Morty is obviously lifted from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  • The flashback to Rick's past self eating noodles at a Cyberpunk sushi bar.
• Slave Race:
  • More like, slave person. This episode reveals that Mortys are specifically bred, cloned, and then mass-produced to be servants to Ricks who need them.
  • More specifically, the underground portal fluid-related project that Evil Morty is using to enact his plans exclusively enslaves mutated, hideous versions of Morty for the manual labor. Since all of the deformed Mortys look the same, it's likely that one of them was used to clone the rest so there would be a large supply of them.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Evil Morty always keeps a calm, composed demeanor throughout the episode, whether he's stating that he was planning to hunt Rick C-137 down, noting that he thought he might have to kill every Rick in the Citadel to get the info he wanted, giving a pleased chuckle when Rick figures out the portal gun trap that would have killed him, or breaking through the Central Finite Curve and leaving all the Ricks and Mortys of the Citadel to die there.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Apparently Crow Rick is able to verbally communicate with his crows.
• Special Edition Title: Rather than the usual Rick and Morty intro, this episode features an Animesque intro sequence (complete with Japanese vocals) for "Rick and Two Crows", carrying over from the previous episode.
• The Stinger: This becomes the third season finale, after seasons 2 and 3, to feature Mr. Poopybutthole talking to the audience as the stinger. He reveals that he still never got his job back after Rick got him fired from the university and he's grown apart from his wife, and ruminates on how the people in our lives would probably be horrified if they could see us for who we truly are rather than who we pretend to be. He ends by encouraging the audience to be honest with our loved ones and allow them to love us back since we don't have as much time on Earth as we think.
• String Theory: Past Rick seeking revenge for the killing of his wife and daughter keeps a wall of photographs of potential targets connected with red strings.
• Take That!:
  • When the security Mortys gun down the Morty mutant and accidentally kill 26-year old Morty, Rick quips that they'll be "suspended with pay" and wants to leave before things get political, a jab at lenient handlings of Police Brutality in the US.
  • The newscaster Rick brags taking money from the drug companies shortly before trying to escape and getting killed. His replacement then tells the viewers to buy more drugs, a likely reference to pharmaceutical companies being allowed to advertise on news channels.
• Tempting Fate: Rick agrees to go with Morty on a simpler, "episodic" adventure. Unfortunately, things get complicated when they head to the Citadel.
• Touché: Rick scoffs at the notion that President Morty is running a "squeaky clean operation" as leader of the Citadel, citing the deformed Mortys emerging from the sewers who warn that something bad is going to happen. President/Evil Morty calmly responds with "Fair point". Though Rick and Morty soon learn that he doesn't actually care about running the Citadel honestly or improving the lives of its residents anyway, and is just using them all as a means to an end for his own plans.
• Trash the Set: The Citadel of Ricks is once more destroyed, seemingly for good this time.
• Triumphant Reprise: A triumphant orchestral version of "For the Damaged Coda" by Blonde Redhead plays at the end of the episode.
• Unreliable Narrator:
  • A lot of what Evil Morty says becomes questionable due to certain contradictions, not helped by Evil Morty openly admitting to lying about certain things, making it hard to trust the validity of anything he said and whether or not he's just lying to further his goals and potentially turn Morty against Rick, which would make it less likely either of them would survive his plot.
  • Lampshaded by Evil Morty after Morty learns Rick's backstory. He claims all Ricks go out of their way to cast themselves as the underdogs, using their pasts to paint them in a sympathetic light while blaming atrocities committed on other Ricks without having to ever admit fault.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Morty having used the aging serum on himself to attempt to guilt Rick into returning is ultimately responsible for all the disaster that occurs in the rest of the episode. They have to return to the Citadel to de-age him, and once they're there, Evil Morty is able to finish the memory scan he did on Rick in Season 1, allowing him to kick-start his plans, while also preventing them from escaping the way they arrived via hijacking Rick's portal gun.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Thanks to the Once More, with Clarity montage of Morty reviewing Rick's memories, we see that, even in his quest for vengeance, Rick still took the time to contemplate the multiverse, albeit with melancholy. It took some time for him to become a Badass, then an Anti-Hero, then a Death Seeker.
• Villain Ball: Played with. Evil Morty had no reason to reveal his plans to Rick, and could have simply allowed him to leave peacefully without a hint that his sabotaged portal gun would blend him into soup. Instead, he shows his true colors, which allows Rick and Morty to escape and not only to survive all of his attempts to kill them, but also save a few additional Mortys (and possibly Ricks). Evil Morty still succeeds, but he could have taken out Rick and Morty if not for his need to gloat and not risk them going against him.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Evil Morty successfully breaks the Central Finite Curve and escapes into a dimension without a god-like Rick.
• Villain Respect: Evil Morty hates Rick C-137 as much as all the other Ricks, maybe more (because that Rick's the one responsible for the Citadel of Ricks and the Central Finite Curve), but he also appears to respect Rick C-137, at least enough to give him a fighting chance to get himself and Morty C-137 off of the Citadel. He drops little hints about how he plans to kill Rick C-137 and destroy the Citadel before enacting those steps... but not with enough time to prevent his ultimate success. Rick C-137 is the one who created the Citadel and the Central Finite Curve (if only to get the other Ricks off his back), but he's also the only Rick who never gave up on fighting for his family. So, y'know, mixed feelings.
• We Hardly Knew Ye:
  • Played for Laughs. When Morty is de-aged from 40 to 14, the years that were taken off get compressed into a 26-year-old version of him. This older Morty exists for less than a minute before he's killed by two cop Mortys for interfering in police matters.
  • On a more serious note, the Central Finite Curve, mentioned in the previous two episodes of the Evil Morty arc, is finally introduced and shown on-screen, only to be destroyed by Evil Morty in his escape plan.
• We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Rick is surprised to see Hunchback Mortys used as mining slaves in the lower section of the Citadel.
• Wham Episode: And how:
  • The Citadel has been manipulating Beths and Jerrys to get together and make Mortys. And to meet supply-and-demand, they also have a whole cloning facility to clone Mortys that treats them like mass-produced and disposable livestock.
  • Evil Morty's plan has been to escape the corner of the multiverse where Rick is the smartest man in every universe. He succeeds and is revealed to have his own unique yellow-colored portal tech, which he uses to explore the wider multiverse.
  • Rick's entire backstory is revealed, and it ultimately confirms what we saw in "The Rickshank Rickdemption". To elaborate: a Rick from an unknown dimension killed Rick C-137's wife and daughter, so he went on an anti-Rick killing spree until he established the incarnation of the Citadel we first saw, then left to rejoin a version of Beth that had been abandoned by a Rick.
• What Is Evil?: Evil Morty claims the reason he is called "evil" is because Ricks function on Protagonist-Centered Morality, and as such, anything that goes against them is considered "evil". He says he's just a Morty who got fed up with his Rick, and that any Morty can become "Evil Morty" the moment they get fed up with their Ricks too. His speech gets undermined, though, due to the fact he's not "evil" because he opposes Rick, he's "evil" because he is no better than the Ricks if not worse due to going out of his way to be as callous as possible to both Ricks and Mortys, while also being willing to screw everyone and everything over for his goals.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After Evil Morty reveals to our Morty about how Mortys are literally bred and cloned countless times to have an infinite supply available for Ricks, Morty gives an angry "What the fuck?!" and demands to know from Rick if this is true. Rick tries to claim it's more complicated than that, causing both Mortys to retort in unison with "Liar", and then just avoids answering the question in favor of breaking out of his restraints and escaping. He later does, however, remind Morty that he's not personally responsible for the actions of every Rick in the multiverse, something that Evil Morty disagrees with since not only is C-137 responsible for building the Citadel in the first place, but because literally every Rick uses that line and the idea that they're the underdog to justify every horrible act they do.
  Evil Morty: There aren't infinite versions of our grandfather, Morty; he's an infinite smear of one shitty old man. And he's attached to us infinitely through his weakness and our forgiveness. This is why we're with him; this is why we're alive.
  (…)
  C-137 Rick: Morty, I'm not responsible for every fucked-up Rick out there.
  Evil Morty: They literally all say that. They all have that excuse. It's all part of their system: None of them have to be responsible, they're all victims of themselves. "Oh, it's so hard to be a Genius!" (Hand on his heart) Couldn't you just die?
• Xanatos Gambit: Evil Morty was so thorough in his plan, even the survival of the main Rick and Morty couldn't stop his escape. The latter two had to settle for escaping by the skin of their teeth, without a lick of portal fluid. That's how much of a win Evil Morty scored against them.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Evil Morty uses up all the Mortys and Ricks on the Citadels after making superficial reforms for them.

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