"Promortyus" is the seventh episode of the fourth season of Rick and Morty, and the 38th episode of the series overall. It premiered on May 10, 2020. It was written by Jeff Loveness and directed by Bryan Newton. The episode is rated TV-14-DLV.
Synopsis[]
Face-sucking aliens cause issues for Morty and Rick, especially when after returning home they realize they left Summer behind in the aliens' world.
Plot[]
Morty is accidentally freed of a facehugger that had been controlling him and uses the chance to pry another off of Rick. Rick immediately understands the situation and kills their respective facehuggers. Neither know how they got to that point and Rick is dismissive of the parasitic alien species. That is, until they spot a shockingly developed city.
While trying to find Rick's car ship, they find out that Morty's facehugger was a celebrated leader, while Rick's was a political-soapbox-YouTuber that was largely looked down on contemptuously by the alien society.
The two find the space cruiser tied to a missle ship that would drop loads of the alien eggs on Earth. While they had originally tried to make a clean escape using the corpses of their facehuggers as disguises, they are quickly seen through. Rick and Morty manage to leave the planet after causing devestating destruction to the city and its people.
The two are in a good mood, high off of guilt-free murder. As they enjoy breakfast, Beth asks about Summer. The two stutteringly make excuses and head back to the planet to look for Summer who they'd completely forgotten about.
After causing more mayhem, the two find her being waited on and worshipped by the aliens. After having them arrested Summer goes to their prison cell and explains what happened after Rick and Morty stupidly got close to the facehugger eggs and got possessed. Summer, who's new "thing" was chewing on a toothpick, killed whatever facehugger tried to jump on her. She finds out that the facehuggers generally only lived about half an hour before laying eggs in their hosts and died an explosive death. Using that to her advantage, she reasonably coaxes a new way of life, where they didn't all have to die just for the sake of laying eggs.
Summer quickly becomes their ruler and appoints Morty's facehugger, Steve, as their inspired leader, using the technology from Rick's space cruiser to industrialise and create a technologically advanced society. Rick's facehugger, Bruce, grows jealous and leaves their growing government to make those anti-politic online videos. As things are going well, Steve and Summer chat in a friendly manner, talking about the missile ship with which they can spread eggs across the universe, before she brings up freeing her brother and replacing Steve as leader with Shane, a newly born facehugger. Steve realizes that all Summer wants is her family back and goes to Bruce to rant and complain.
Bruce resentfully gives Steve an I-told-you-so, but Steve is exasperated with his social stance against their species' progressive life. Bruce exclaims that he was angry that Summer had taken Steve away from him; revealing his jealousy.
“ | Steve: Why do you hate her so much?! Bruce: Because she took you away from me! |
Although awkward at first, the two makeup with a sizzling kiss and plan to runaway together. That's when Rick and Morty were freed.
Her story done, Rick and Morty are a little bewildered that Summer would know how that second half of the story went, but she dismissively waves it off. Everyone around the office knew about Steve and Bruce.
Summer's plan for escape is sentencing the two to death... by way of leaving in Rick's car. And of course, Summer had to go with them to make sure they died. The facehugger society is not stupid however and catches on that they're all just trying to escape. When they were jailed, Rick and Morty discover that Morty's terrible harmonica playing causes the aliens to combust. So, using the car's speakers they massacre even more of the aliens before finally leaving the planet.
When they reach home, Summer goes back to her room and Rick and Morty retire to the living room. For a moment they believe the aliens really had laid eggs in them and they were going to explode. But it just turned out that they both just actually shitted theirselves
After the end credits, Tricia watches Jerry keeping bees in the garden from Summers bedroom window, after she increasingly implies she’s sexually attracted to him to Summer, she finally says she wants to have sex with him to a bored and annoyed Summer; who sarcastically responds "Oh, really?".
Cast and characters[]
Main Cast
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Starring
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Non-speaking characters
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Unknown voices
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Deaths[]
- Many Glorzos
- Steve
- Bruce
- Council of Glorzos
- Aliens possesed by the Glorzos
- Many Resort Aliens
Locations[]
- Dimension C-131
- Glorzo Asteroid
- Earth
Episode notes[]
Trivia[]
- The episode's title is a reference to the movie Prometheus, the prequel to Alien.
- In celebration of Season 4, Pocket Mortys' weekly updates will coincide with new episodes, including new avatars for players to collect. With the release of this episode came: Glorzo Empress Summer as an avatar, plus Badass Suit Morty and Glorzo Disguise Morty to catch.
- This is the first non-linear episode of Rick and Morty.
- Writer Jeff Loveness described Rick and Morty as the "bad guys" in this episode.
- A mind-controlled Rick made online videos on a parody of YouTube, called "U-Host".
- Rick mentions how Morty has made an account on the popular porn website "Pornhub".
- The episode makes a reference to both "9/11" and "Pearl Harbor".
- Morty sings a line from "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen", a song originating from the time of American slavery.
- The scientific term for the facehugger's lifecycle of dying right after laying an egg is called semelparity, the thing in Earth's fauna known among salmons and insects. Also this race exhibits total fertility rate of exactly 1 which might be problematic given how Rick and Morty's visits call for repopulation.
- Tricia Lange's monologue at the end of this episode became a popular soundbyte on TikTok in 2022. Tricia's voice actor Cassie Steele later posted a reaction to the sound on her own account.
Series continuity[]
- The facehuggers are first mentioned in the episode "Auto Erotic Assimilation", where Rick mentions the facehugger eggs, claiming they are worth more than an entire spaceship.
- The cracks around the Smith house from "Ricksy Business" are still visible.
- The Resort Aliens from "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy" and "Never Ricking Morty" return as a number of Glorzo hosts.
- Additionally, several Four-armed aliens from "The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy" can also be seen as Glorzo hosts, albeit with several different color schemes.
- Rick mentions Purge Planet and Gear World as previous worlds he and Morty damaged and never returned to, which were last seen in "Look Who's Purging Now" and "Mortynight Run".
- Rick and Morty refuse to terrorise the Glorzo Twin Towers may be a callback to "Lawnmower Dog" when Rick attacked Goldenfolder's plane.
- Rick and Morty use special suits to fight, similar to how they used battle suits in "Look Who's Purging Now".
- Rick mentions that this episode is 'full circle' from the pilot.
- This is referencing the fact that Rick had Morty shove seeds up his rectum in "Pilot", and how Rick and Morty believed they were laying eggs at the end of "Promortyus".
- Rick's Microverse Battery makes a return, being used to power the new Glorzo vessel, which was last seen in "The Ricks Must Be Crazy".
- A number of glass bottles drop out of the Space Cruiser when Rick and Morty opens the doors upon returning to the Glorzo Asteroid, which often happens the doors on the Space Cruiser is opened such as in "Pilot".
- Rick and Morty start watching Interdimensional Cable at the end of the episode, which they also did at the end of the previous episode, "Never Ricking Morty".
- Both Rick and Morty defecated on the floor at the end of the episode, which might be a callback to the line "Shit on the floor" from the song "Get Schwifty".
- In the end credit scene, the graves of the Rick and Morty of the Replacement dimension from "Rick Potion No. 9" are visible in the backyard.
- It should be noted, however, that Summer disturbed Rick's grave in "The Rickshank Rickdemption".
Cultural references[]
- The title of this episode is a pun on Prometheus, a prequel to the Alien franchise which features Facehuggers.
- The episode's tagline indirectly references the Facehuggers, the initial forms of the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise.
- Dan Harmon also cited Starro from DC Comics as inspiration; a starfish-like alien that attaches itself to its hosts' faces and controls their bodies.
- Rick and Morty mentions Star Wars while destroying/escaping the asteroid.
- When Morty drops into a gunner seat underneath the Space Cruiser and shoots targets, is another reference to Star Wars, as the Millennium Falcon also has a gunner seat underneath it.
- Rick tells Morty to do a "yeehaw" afterwards, which some of the Star Wars characters have said after using the gunner seat.
- The armor used by Rick and Morty appear to be inspired by anime, such as Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Voltron, and Ronin Warriors.
- The way the Space Cruiser drills a hole in the ground is similar to a scene from Man of Steel.
- The Facehugger’s weakness to harmonica may be a reference to Mars Attacks as the weakness of the Martians was music as well.
- Rick saying, "Sum-Sum, come with us if you wanna live..." is a reference to a line from The Terminator.
- The podcast Summer was likely listening to is a parody of the podcast "Serial", in which the host said she would call the subject in prison, but kept pushing it off to the next episode. It could also be a parody of The Black Tapes, in which the host is considering summoning a demon, but similarly continues to push it off.
- The post-credits dialogue could be a reference to the dialogue in American Beauty, where Angela Hayes admits that she is sexually attracted to Jane Burnham's father.
Transcript[]
View a full transcript of this episode here.
Gallery
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References
https://twitter.com/DanManShow/status/1249766859370569728