Original air date: 8/8/2021
Rick attempts to save a beloved friend.
Tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A downplayed example. The garage AI's "betrayal" consists only of trying to find someone else to provide it with power after Rick seems like he might not survive the trip into Bird Person's mind, and isn't sure if Rick was lying about the longevity of the power supply. Rick seems to acknowledge that the garage was only trying to protect its own existence, and shows no resentment.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Rick admits to both his younger self and Bird Person that he's trying to save BP because he has feelings for him.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Of a sort. Rick and BP run into each other on Blood Ridge and instead embrace and fire over behind each other's back as BP flies them into the air.
- Bait-and-Switch: We're led to believe that Rick is so unenthusiastic about revisiting the Battle of Blood Ridge because it ended so poorly it traumatized even him. It turns out the battle ended in their favor; the reason Rick doesn't like remembering it is because it ended with him offering to take Bird Person on further adventures due to Rick having feelings for him, which BP rejected because he was put off by Rick's nihilist attitude about the battle they just won.
- Bittersweet Ending: Rick is able to resuscitate Bird Person, but Bird Person, despite thanking Rick for the rescue, is disappointed in him for only mentioning his hybrid daughter when BP was ready to die as a desperate measure to convince him to live, rather than just telling him right away, to keep his best friend from being too busy raising a child to still spend time with him. They part on civil enough terms, but it's pretty clear that Bird Person isn't exactly in a rush to come back again soon.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Tammy returns as several memories in this episode. It's asserted several times throughout the episode that she's still dead since the end of Season 4.
- Squanchy appears for the first time since the season 2 finale. Unlike Tammy, his fate still remains unknown.
- By Wall That Is Holey: During the Battle of Blood Ridge, the head of an AT-AT has a hole blown through it and then collapses to the ground. Rick is exactly where the hole is when it falls and pulls the memory of his younger self back so he doesn't accidentally get crushed running away.
- Call-Back: Watching a memory of himself and Tammy on a date, Bird Person, with tears in his eyes, says "Don't be gross, Tammy" in response to her joking about eating "seed."
- Cerebus Syndrome: Rick's journey to help Bird Person is played with little humor.
- Character Development:
- Bird Person has been shown to have sympathy for Rick at his worst, complete with asking Morty to cover for his grandpa. This episode has him setting boundaries with Rick, thanking him for saving him while calling him out for even considering hiding the existence of his daughter. Bird Person bids him goodbye civilly.
- Rick, who shows disdain for variations of himself, including throughout this episode, is suddenly civil to Bird Person's memory of him preserving itself by jumping into his mind. He tells him he doesn't have to be an enemy just for existing, and even offers to give him a physical body of his own.
- Concealment Equals Cover: In one memory, young Rick and Bird Person take cover behind a bar table during a lasergun shootout with some copies of Rick. The table offers sufficient protection.
- Continuity Nod: The whole episode is full of them, elaborating specifically on Rick and Bird Person's history, but it also has nods to other episodes:
- Rick mentions Pickle Rick in the Cold Opening, admitting that a new plot is possible after the rest of the Smiths leave him.
- In the season premiere, Morty asks Rick why everything has to be a fight with him. Here, he picks fights with his own self-built AI and his younger self.
- The Battle of Blood Ridge is shown.
- Through the exploration of Bird Person's memories, Squanchy, Tammy and Revolio Clockberg Jr return. The latter whose feelings Rick doesn't consider a true friend is likewise a nod to in-universe, with Rick mentioning the only reason any of them hung out with Gearhead, is because he was the little brother of their real friend Gear Dude. They felt obligated to hang out with him after Gear Dude died.
- The formation of the band Rick, Squanchy and Bird Person were in is shown.
- When they arrive at Bird Person's memory of Rick's garage, Rick finds Bird Person only remembered him having a Plumbus.
- Rick warns Bird Person not to clone his kid and send one off to fight in space because they take that badly.
- Rick has to use bad memories to get out of a jam.
- The Determinator: Rick is determined to bring back Bird Person by any means.
- Disney Death: Younger Rick seems to make a Heroic Sacrifice inside Bird Person's brain, but it turns out he actually leaped into Rick's mind to continue living as a sentient memory.
- Dream Apocalypse: When Bird Person bombs the representation of his own brain, his mental world begins degrading.
- Driven to Suicide: Bird Person wants to kill himself from the inside because of Tammy’s betrayal.
- Emotion Bomb: Literally. Bird Person rigs up several bombs labeled with various negative emotions to commit mental suicide.
- Everyone Has Standards: Rick is used to abandoning dimensions and replacing people (such as Beth, Summer, and Jerry). He had considered replacing Bird Person in case his Journey to the Center of the Mind didn't work, but he sees his friend as an exception to the rule.note
- Everybody Knew Already: When Tammy does her Undercover Cop Reveal, Rick notes that everyone outside of Bird Person's mind knew about it already.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Discussed and invoked. Bird Person's race doesn't believe in having actual names, seeing them as another "cage", so when he first met Rick, he told him all his friends just call him "Bird Person".
- Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: Rick's terrible memory of Blood Ridge is about how he tried to act on his romantic feelings for his best friend and was rejected.
- Eye Cam: Rick's POV shot when he enters Bird Person's mind.
- Felony Misdemeanor: One of the Memory Tammys wants to arrest Rick for making her attend human High School for two years.
- Fictional Counterpart: Apparently, Rick and Bird Person met at Birding Man
. - Fighting Down Memory Lane: The episode is Rick traveling through Bird Person's memories to try and recover his consciousness while Bird Person evades him in an attempt at psychic suicide. There are a lot of memories of their time in the Resistance against the Galactic Federation along the way.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the memory scene of child Rick, there are framed pictures of Rick with his parents, who are barely visible through the glare; his father looks like him but with brown hair and a big handlebar mustache, while his mother is blonde with a beehive hairdo.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: The only reason Rick and others hung out with Gear Head was because he was the brother of the much cooler (and deceased) Gear Dude.
- Future Me Scares Me: Young Rick considers his future self to be a cynical creep & is horrified that he'll grow to be him.
- Heel–Face Turn: A posthumous one for Tammy, though it's acknowledged that it's a heavily idealized version of Tammy from Bird Person's memories.
- High-Five Left Hanging: When Young Rick saves Rick and offers him a high five, the latter rejects and walks off with a snarky comment.
- Ho Yay: Invoked during the memory of Blood Ridge. When Rick and BP bump into each other on the battlefield, they embrace and fly into the air... while shooting lots of Federation troops.
- I Don't Pay You to Think: One prison warden in The Stinger wonders why they would cram the violent ones into the same place which only increases the risk of a Prison Riot. His buddy reminds him that they were not paid to think.
- I Hate Past Me: Rick is very unhappy that the memory of his 35-year-old self is tagging along on his mission. He hates remembering he ever had a scrap of idealism... or thinking he could fall in love again.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Twice does Rick burst into a heartwarming memory of Bird Person with Tammy. Once while they were Watching the Sunset and again when they started to make out in Rick's garage.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind:
- Rick enters Bird Person's mind to retrieve his conscious mind from his unconscious mind.
- Rick does this to himself at the end when he realizes the memory of his past self hitched a ride.
- Just Following Orders: One of the Federation bugs rounding up Bird People says that he's only taking part in the destruction of their world because it's his job, then goes on to clarify that he loves his job.
- Killing Your Alternate Self: Bird Person accidentally crushes a memory copy of himself and Tammy with the truck.
- Let's Just Be Friends: Bird Person’s response to Rick letting out his feelings for the two of them to explore the multiverse and have adventures together.
- Little Miss Badass: The Stinger gives us a shot of BP's daughter in prison, getting in a fight, and utterly dominating.
- The Load: Discussed. When Young Rick saves Rick from some danger, the latter comments that his benefit-to-cost ratio is rising.
- The Lost Lenore: Despite her betrayal, Bird Person still loves Tammy. Her death is what drives him to suicide, even over his friendship with Rick. The revelation they had a daughter gives Bird Person a reason to continue living.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Bird Person doesn't appreciate how Rick did this to him with the knowledge of having a child with Tammy, suspecting that Rick only revealed it because his own survival depended on it. Rick is unable to make any counters or excuses, only giving a Touché.
- Makes Us Even: While Bird Person is grateful that Rick told him he had a daughter and a reason to live, he's not impressed when he asks point-blank if Rick would have told him with or without the suicide run. He leaves in peace, telling him, "Goodbye."
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Apparently Tammy and Bird Person had sex at the party where they met in the Smith family garage. Bird Person tries to argue that Squanchy was using the closet at the time, but Rick really isn't having any of it.
- Mugging the Monster: In the stinger, a prison inmate picks a fight with Bird Person and Tammy's Cute and Psycho child. Bad idea.
- My Future Self and Me: Rick teams up with a memory version of himself at age 35. Young Rick requests to be made into a real person, but then changes his mind when he sees the person he grows into.
- Naked People Are Funny: Rick is happy that he enters Bird Person's mind with his clothes because he expected to be naked to be something "artsy", only to have them burn off immediately, to his displeasure. He gradually has to acquire replacement clothing as he travels through memories.
- Never Trust a Title: Despite the "Rickless Mort" in the title, the episode is about Rick's adventures without Morty.
- No Prison Segregation: The prison in the stinger shows members of different age groups, genders and species mixed up in the same complex.
- Ominous Obsidian Ooze: The final stages of Bird Person's mind decaying takes the form of a viscous black sludge with a half-melted bird head emerging from it.
- Operation: [Blank]: Tammy calls hiding her and Bird Person's child "Operation: Blah Blah Blah", because obviously Bird Person doesn't know what it would actually be called and his version of Tammy is simply filling in the blanks.
- Out of Focus: The Smith family only appears in the cold opening and is never seen again. Hell, this is the first time in Season 5 that Morty hasn't been the main character in a Rick & Morty episode (or at least have a major focus plot point).
- Patchwork Kids: The daughter of Tammy and Bird Person mostly has her mom's face (human-looking, with similarly-shaped mouth, nose, and hairstyle), but her eyes and eyebrows are shaped like her dad's. She also has (seemingly-)human arms, hands, legs, and feet like Tammy's, but also has wings and feathers around her collarbone like BP's.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Tammy and Bird Person's daughter is not to be messed with, even if she isn't even a pre-teen.
- Portal Slam: Young Rick tries to portal out after talking with Rick, but runs into a solid barrier because Bird Person only knows what the portals are, not where they go. Young Rick later exploits this by using the solid portal wall to shield himself and Rick from gunfire.
- Retcon: Sort of, with the battle of Blood Ridge. The battle itself isn't retconned, it's exactly what we were told, it's Rick's attitude toward it that changed, from thinking of it with a certain fondness and considering Bird Person's most glorious moment in "The Wedding Squanchers" to something he doesn't like to think about.
- The Reveal:
- While Rick claimed that the "backstory" he showed the Galactic Federation goons in "The Rickshank Redemption" was totally fabricated, this episode reveals that it was accurate in at least one way: his original Beth died somehow, meaning that "our" Rick's native dimension doesn't even have its own Summer or Morty at all. It's unknown whether or not Diane, whom we already know from "Mort Dinner Rick Andre" is dead as well, died the same way Beth did, but Rick and Bird Person are shown in the latter's memories having a shootout with a bunch of alternate Ricks, with our Rick being on a "revenge kick" for "her" murder, implying that the alternate Ricks, possibly the Council, were responsible for the deaths of one or both.
- Rick's genuine care and feelings for his best friend Bird Person are more than just platonic friendship. Present-day Rick is well aware of it, too, and unlike many of the other complicated feelings he has for people in his life, he doesn't try to deny it to himself or to Bird Person.
- The reason Rick doesn't like to remember or think about the Battle of Blood Ridge isn't because of anything that happened during the battle itself; rather, it's because, after the fight was over, Rick, in a roundabout way, confessed to Bird Person that he had feelings for him and invited him to go on adventures together around the multiverse, only for BP to politely friend-zone him.
- Tammy had a daughter with Bird Person, a half-bird Half-Human Hybrid (or half Human Alien hybrid), who is being kept in a Galactic Federation prison. It's unknown if the child was conceived before or after Bird Person's death and conversion into Phoenix Person, just that she was definitely born post-Phoenix Person.
- Rewatch Bonus:
- The reveal from this episode that Rick has loved Bird Person for a very long time adds quite a bit of this to "The Wedding Squanchers". Rick being in such a foul mood at BP's wedding to Tammy was very likely at least in part out of jealousy, and his heartwarming best man's speech right before everything went to hell was probably his best effort at I Want My Beloved to Be Happy. It also adds another layer of tragedy to Rick's devastation when Tammy murdered Bird Person.
- The segment in "Never Ricking Morty" where Rick and Bird Person have a duet in midair also hits differently; it's much less of a one-off gag and more Foreshadowing for this episode's reveal.
- Running Gag: Young Rick enthusiastically referring to the Battle of Blood Ridge as "Our Vietnam."
- Saw It in a Movie Once: In the opening scene, Rick questions Beth's comment about leaving emergency numbers on the fridge. Beth admits she doesn't know what that actually means but remembered the line from the numerous movies where parents leave in the opening scene.
- Sex for Services: Rick's garage A.I. twice offers a blowjob, once to placate Rick and once to get a neighbor to bring power equipment.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: The Smith family is only seen briefly in the opening, as they all go off to enjoy a cruise. This leaves Rick alone to work on reviving Bird Person.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode's title is a reference to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
- Memory Rick's outfit, with a long-sleeved shirt and a black vest, seems based on that of Han Solo in A New Hope.
- One of the Smith's neighbors compares the A.I. in Rick's garage to J.A.R.V.I.S. from Iron Man. They even reference the movie.
- The real Rick and memory Rick have a small conversation about the Shrek movies and the real Rick even says that they might be making a fifth one by now.
- Sins of the Father: BP's and Tammy's daughter is in prison because her father was a terrorist.
- The Stinger: Bird Person's imprisoned daughter is bullied in the prison cafeteria and responds by kicking ass before being dragged off.
- Take Off Your Clothes: Rick barges into the memory of his battle with Phoenix Person and demands his other self take off his clothes. Realizing the truth of his situation, that Rick sighs and says he figured he'd die that way.
- Tempting Fate: When Rick first enters Bird Person's mind, he's thankful to find himself fully clothed, figuring he would have been stripped naked as part of the premise. As soon as he dives toward Bird Person's unconscious mind, his clothes burn off.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Rick shoos his family out of the house to their vacation before he starts his revival of Bird Person. This means they avoid the episode's antics.
- Try Not to Die: Rule 2 handed down from Rick to his younger self stipulates "Don't die."
- Two Beings, One Body: For a minute, Rick and Bird Person share Bird Person’s body when Rick talks Bird Person into returning to the real world. Once Rick realizes what's happening, he transfers himself back into his own body.
- Unreliable Narrator: Bird Person's memories make some conflicting points, such as still thinking that Tammy may have really loved him and how some points are unknown to him because he didn't know in full.
- Wham Episode:
- Rick goes into Bird Person's mind to save him and reveals he has an imprisoned child. Bird Person finds a reason to live and goes off to rescue her.
- This is the first episode to give us a clear, definitive look into Rick's past through his memories, specifically when he was 35. Young Rick admonishes his older self for becoming one of the Ricks that go "moving in with abandoned adult Beths" and living with a version of "our dead daughter." That coupled with Young Rick not knowing who Morty is means that Rick's original Beth died before she was able to have kids. One memory also shows Young Rick and Bird Person fighting other Ricks for revenge over the death of an unspecified woman who could be his wife Diane or Beth. This also gives credence to the idea that the deaths of Diane and Beth shown in "The Rickshank Redemption" may not have been completely fabricated by Rick. Two episodes later, "Rickmurai Jack" confirms these things to be true.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Once saved, Bird Person calls out Rick for withholding knowledge of his child until absolutely necessary because he didn't want Bird Person to "grow too busy child-rearing to hang out" and only revealed his daughter's existence at the last possible moment when Rick's own life was on the line.
- Worth Living For: Bird Person is determined to finally die until Rick reluctantly admits that he has a daughter, giving him to will to keep on living.
- Would Hurt a Child: The Galactic Federation reveals once more how vile they are by imprisoning Tammy and Bird Person's elementary school-age child in an adult prison. Fortunately, she seems to have inherited her parents' combat abilities.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Based on how old Beth and Jerry were when the latter got the former pregnant with Summer, and how old Summer is now, Beth and Jerry are 34 or 35 years old. Rick has been stated in past episodes to be about 70, which would indicate he himself was around 35 when Beth was born. This episode, though, shows Rick's 35-year-old self, and makes it clear that this is a point in his life when he'd already lost his version of Beth, who appeared to be somewhere between 6-10 years old when she died, which would mean Rick was actually in his 20's at the time of Beth's birth.
- You Are Worth Hell: Garage points out that Rick could do what he always does and use the infinite universe to find a version of Bird Person who is alive and healthy. Rick nods, but says that this is different.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Bird Person's destruction of his own mental world has the real risk of killing him, and Rick will die if he's still inside Bird Person's brain when that happens.
