| “ | Morty: What'ya say, Rick? Fly through space, come upon something, maybe I have a moral objection, stuff gets messy, and you ultimately bail us out?
Rick: Let's take it for a spin! Rick and Morty! We're back, baby! |
"Rickfending Your Mort" is the sixth episode of the seventh season of Rick and Morty. It is the 67th episode of the series overall. It premiered on November 19, 2023.[2] It was written by Cody Ziglar and directed by Jacob Hair. The episode is rated TV-14-DLSV.
Synopsis[]
When Rick asks for an audit on Morty's adventure receipts, it leads them to watch various clips of their adventures and other embarrassing moments shown by rock creatures known as the Observers.
Plot[]
Morty finds Rick in a drunken stupor on the floor of the garage, still depressed after defeating Rick Prime. Hoping to cheer him up, Morty decides to cash in on his Morty Adventure Cards again. Rick flips out upon seeing the number of cards Morty has, accusing him of faking stamps, and calls in an audit from a cosmic entity. A rock-like being known as the Observer arrives and begins cuing up "clips" based on Morty's notes of the adventures, finding ones that count as adventures, and ones that Rick claims don't: either because the adventure was aborted, he wasn't there, or Morty was just lying. Eventually, though, the Observer starts stirring conflict by showing clips from adventures that were not even requested, and offers to show them a montage of clips of them being rude to each other. Realizing the Observer is just trying to cause trouble, Rick and Morty step aside and agree to cash in some of the cards at a lower rate to stop the Observer from annoying them.
However, the Observer "observed" this conversation, and develops a grudge against Rick and Morty. He stands in front of their house and keeps showing more embarrassing clips: when Summer, Beth, and Space Beth show up and complain about it, it starts showing clips of them, too, to their annoyance. Only Jerry is unfazed, since he already knows he is embarrassing. Finally fed up, Morty goes outside to beat up the Observer: he ends up shoving it out into the street where it gets run over by a truck, breaking it into pieces and killing it. Rick suggests they get out of the street and pretend it never happened, only to wonder if it will get used as a clip to be played in front of a jury of more Observers... which is precisely what happens.
Put on trial by the Observers for killing one of their kind, the situation looks grim for Rick and Morty, until Rick points out they already did a trial of this kind: a court-appointed Observer defender proves this by showing their time in Giant Court. The Observers start showing more clips of Rick and Morty's misdeeds: Rick giving Morty guns but never being clear on what they do, only for Morty to find out in embarrassing circumstances; experimenting with burying both people and inanimate objects in Pet Sematary; Morty asking Rick to give life to his churro, leading Rick to create Churry, only for Morty to abandon Churry on another planet upon learning he is immortal–leading Churry to swear vengeance; and the time Rick killed "the versions of us that were in Space Jam".
Annoyed with the progress of the court, Rick tricks the Observers into giving him control of their technology by pretending to show a clip in his defense, allowing him to stop their execution. He proceeds to show clips of the Observers themselves engaging in various misdeeds: intentionally not helping a drowning victim, observing said-Observer not helping the drowning victim, selling bootlegs of movies that they observed, paying homeless beings into fighting for money, and having romantic affairs. The Observer court erupts into chaos as the Observers all turn against each other, allowing Rick and Morty to escape. Arriving back home, Rick admits he realizes Morty was just trying to cheer him up with the punch cards and appreciates it. They agree to pretend this adventure never happened and cash in on the cards, jumping into the Space Cruiser to go on adventures again.
In a post-credits scene, Morty is frightened at seeing a churro in his locker, mistaking it for Churry, only to be relieved to see Brad eat it with no trouble. However, upon looking at a lower shelf he is horrified to see a real message from Churry written in brown sugar, promising his revenge will come soon...
Characters[]
Major characters[]
Minor characters[]
- Summer Smith
- Jerry Smith
- Beth Smith
- Space Beth
- Birdperson
- Jacqueline (cameo)
- Principal Vagina
- Jessica
- Brad
- Tom Randolph
- Churry
- Whistler
- Temple Guardians
- Big Doug
- Apeborg
- Jeffrey Dahmer
- Ben Franklin
- Jimmy
- Space Jam Rick (corpse in a bodybag)
- Space Jam Morty (corpse in a bodybag)
- Observers
- Nancy
- Tom
- Dichotomous Daniel (pictured)
- Members of The Defiance (non-speaking cameos)
- Snuffles (pictured)
Deaths[]
- Big Doug
- Space Jam Rick
- Space Jam Morty
- Unnamed box woman
- Unnamed alien being
- Two Observers
- Audit Observer
- Judge Observer
Locations[]
- Parmesan dimension
- Earth
- Smith Residence
- Island
- Wes Anderson's Grand Royal Hot Tub Emporium
- Earth
- Temple
- Park
- Observer Court
- Pet Sementary
- Vampire dimension
- The Salty Rick
- Defiance ship
- Abandoned planet
Episode notes[]
Trivia[]
- In celebration of Season 7, Pocket Mortys' weekly updates coincided with new episodes, including new avatars for players to collect. With the release of this episode came The Observer as an avatar, plus Sailboat Morty and Apeborg Morty to catch.
- This episode is in many ways a spiritual successor to episodes such as "Total Rickall" and "Morty's Mind Blowers" in that it shows numerous "flashbacks" to prior events and adventures in the Smith family's life, which serves the purpose of expanding the world of the show without devoting an entire episode to each event. Series co-creator Dan Harmon employed a similar "fake clip show" device on Community in the episodes "Paradigms of Human Memory" and "Curriculum Unavailable".
- The first Observer is described as being especially annoying, with a grating voice. As revealed by series co-creator Dan Harmon in this episode's featurette, said-Observer was voiced by him.
- Principal Vagina returns in this episode for the first time since Season 3's "The ABC's of Beth".
- The notes Morty presented to Rick are, as follows:
- Zorbulox Death Race
- Memory Planet!!
- Memory of Memory Planet
- Labradoodle Brain Heist
- Isle of the Mortysaurs
- Beanie-Baby Zombie Apocalypse (x2)
- Dark Brunch
- Regional Plumbing Convention
- Takes One To Know One
- Getting Good at Yo-Yo Tricks
- Chicken Sandwich Waffle
- Soda Can Grenade Business
- Truth or Dare (not shown on notes)
- IRL FNAF Simulation
- Late Night Western (written as Western Bacon Burger)
- Maximum Overdrive with Clothes
- Whistlering Dixie (not shown on notes)
- Leg Day (not shown on notes)
Series continuity[]
- Rick is in a drunken stupor in the garage in the beginning of the episode, referencing the events of the previous episode "Unmortricken".
- Morty pulls out adventure cards previously seen in "Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender" and "Rattlestar Ricklactica" that allow him to choose every 10th adventure after winning a bet with Rick in "Meeseeks and Destroy".
- Rick also mentions the trial with the giants in the Fantasy World. A clip of the trial from the episode is shown by one of the Observers with Rick’s voice being redubbed by Ian Cardoni instead of Justin Roiland.
- Rick's vehicular transformation implants for Morty from "The Ricks Must Be Crazy" return, this time with Morty becoming a boat.
- Rick's board of methods of embarrassing Morty includes a checked-off option for marrying Mr. Poopybutthole. This references an extracted memory from "Morty's Mind Blowers".
- Rick turned himself into a leg, twice. This is not the first time he turned himself into something for his own amusement such as in the episode "Pickle Rick".
- The Observer asks if Morty will beat him up "like that piss guy" referencing the events of "Analyze Piss".
- The Defiance, and all of its members, from “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri” is seen once again. Birdperson has apparently joined it in the interim.
- One of the flashbacks shows Morty on a date with Jessica. After having a first real date in "Mort Dinner Rick Andre", Jessica ultimately told Morty that they should just be friends due to becoming a "time god" through the events of that episode. The existence of the events from the flashback suggests that either the events of "Mort Dinner Rick Andre" never happened in the Parmesan Dimension, she was mind blown to remove the memories of her ordeal in the Narnia Dimension or that she simply recovered and changed her mind about staying just friends with Morty. Additionally, both the same flashback and the post-credit scene also show that Morty no longer has a photo of Jessica taped to the inside of his school locker door which was last seen in "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat".
- Rick and Morty have to jump in a massive vat of whale semen, referencing how they did same in "The Vat of Acid Episode" with a fake acid vat and "A Rick in King Mortur's Mort" with a fake vat of the sun's flames.
Cultural references[]
- The episode's title is a reference to the film Defending Your Life.
- The Observers are a reference to the Guardian of Forever from the Star Trek franchise.
- The adventures on Morty's list contain multiple cultural references:
- "Beanie-Baby Zombie Apocalypse" references the stuffed toy line of the same name.
- "Truth or Dare" references The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its sequel The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom as the dungeon that Rick and Morty visit in the memory with the door guardians appears to be modeled after the Shrines from those games.
- "Late Night Western" shows Morty getting a Western Bacon burger from Carl's Jr. for Rick, due to the latter being banned for unknown reasons.
- "IRL FNAF Simulation" references the Five Nights at Freddy's video game series.
- "Maximum Overdrive With Clothes" references the Stephen King film of the same name and features Rick and Morty in a story identical to the plot of the film but obviously with clothes instead of machines.
- "Whistlering Dixie" contains multiple references to the Marvel Comics character Blade such as Rick and Morty dressed as the character fighting vampires and the Whistler being a parody of Abraham Whistler.
- Rick mentions 9/11 and Twitter when discussing about what qualifies as an "adventure".
- Apeborg is a parody of the DC Comics character, Ultra-Humanite.
- Apeborg powering up references the Saiayans from the Dragon Ball manga series.
- Summer's parody is about Hottie Snatchers, a reference to the novel and subsequent 1956 and 1978 movie adaptations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
- Rick and Morty have an adventure in a Pet Sematary, from the Stephen King horror novel and film adaptations of the same name.
- Morty uses one of Rick's guns to summon serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
- Some of the tubs in Wes Anderson's Grand Royal Hot Tub Emporium that Morty and Churrie visit are replicas of the ones from various Wes Anderson films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
- Rick proudly announces having killed his and Morty's counterparts from Space Jam, referencing the pair's infamous cameo from Space Jam: A New Legacy. Rick previously mocked their cameo in "Full Meta Jackrick".
- During a flashback, one of the Observers is seen selling DVDs from currently unreleased or unplanned sequels from movies like the Avatar sequels, Babylon, Amsterdam, the canceled Batgirl movie, Black Adam, The Social Network, X-Men: Days of Future Past and Oppenheimer.
- In the post-credits scene, Brad is seen picking up a churro and exclaiming "Nice, free churro". This is possibly a reference to the episode of another adult animated comedy series BoJack Horseman, which has a critically acclaimed episode titled "Free Churro".
Transcript[]
View a full transcript of this episode here.
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