Posted in: Adult Swim, Rick and Morty, TV | Tagged: rick and morty

Rick and Morty: A Look at S08E03: "The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly"

It's a whole lot of Ricks and Mortys and a Citadel return in Adult Swim's Rick and Morty Season 8 Episode 3: "The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly."

Welcome back to our weekly random real-time thoughts on Adult Swim's Rick and Morty Season 8, with S08E03: "The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly" set to offer us a look at what's been going on with the Citadel after everything went to shit and a whole lot of Ricks and Mortys being returned to their proper dimensions. Over the weekend, Ian Cardoni (Rick) and Harry Belden (Morty) teased that we could expect easter eggs and callbacks to previous episodes, which means we can expect a pretty heavy canon adventure. Since we're diving back into "overarching mythology" territory, we thought we would take a moment to re-pitch our idea for how to handle Evil Morty and a number of dangling plotlines (followed by our random thoughts on tonight's chapter).

Our Game-Changing Evil Morty Endgame Pitch

In S07E09: "Mort: Ragnarick," we learn that Rick was looking to tap into the afterlife for a lifetime supply of infinite power, something he's been very vocal about since the series pretty much started. But what if Rick was looking for an endless supply of power for a much more personal reason? We learned during S07E05: "Unmortricken" that Rick Prime had used the Omega Device to erase Beth from every dimension – could Rick be looking to reverse it? Of course, to do that, Rick would also most likely need to get his hands on the Omega Device – now in the hands of Evil Morty – which would mean defying Evil Morty's warning about not coming after him. Still with me? Good… because this is where it gets a little twisted.

Rick and Morty end up tracking down Evil Morty, resulting in some very cool fight scenes and some excellent debates about power and responsibility, with Evil Morty making some strong points about Rick being the last person to wield that kind of power. Seeing Rick and Morty as possibly the greatest threat to the universe, Evil Morty chooses to jump into the Omega Device. At first, Rick sees the move as erasing Morty from all of existence – before Evil Morty drops the bomb, he's enhanced himself with enough Rick genetics over the years to be the "best of both worlds." Unfortunately for Rick and Morty, the big reveal comes too late for them to do anything about it. Rick and Morty are wiped from all of existence.

Except… we think that maybe a contingency plan was in place.

We know that Marta-Morty was left alive in a constantly running Roy game at Blips and Chitz (S06E02: "Rick: A Mort Well Lived") and that Memory Rick (from S05E08: "Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort") was left behind in Jerry's mind in S07E02: "The Jerrick Trap." Could there be a "Booger AIDS" file out there that could turn those lives back into our Rick and Morty? On one hand, it closes the book on the Evil Morty saga – while on the other hand, we get a chance to see how Rick and Morty deal with being the only versions of themselves moving forward.

Rick and Morty S08E03: "The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly" Thoughts

Hmmm… no cold open. We went right into this after the opening credits:

It's nice to see "Cool, Hip Morty" every now and then.

Rick's final words turned out to be the segue into the bigger storyline, like we saw with "Tales from the Citadel" in S03E07: "The Ricklantis Mixup".

Holy shit, things have gotten even more dark and twisted since The Citadel fell. Mortys are being tracked and experimented on to figure out how to get back to cloning more Mortys to rebuild the Citadel.

Meanwhile, Farmer Rick was left for dead by the Scavenger Ricks who stole the Mortys  – and now he's looking for revenge (with two Mortys tagging along).

As much as we like the allegory, it's hard not to see the heartbreak (like when "Doctor" Morty mentions being back on an adventure with Rick again) and horror behind it.

Holy shit! Definitely didn't see Farmer Rick actually being the Rick who fronted the Morty cloning program.

Honestly? The best thing that our Rick and Morty could do at this point is just vaporize what's left of The Citadel and get the remaining Mortys somewhere safe. I mean, Rick could build them their own pocket dimension to keep them safe.

Farmer Rick is a man who faces his demons, realizing that what he is excellent at is something unholy and evil. He is looking to spend his final hours destroying any chances of his mistakes returning.

As nice as it was to see Arcade Morty giving the other Mortys chances to start their lives fresh, it was countered by how heart-crushing it was to see him return to Farmer Rick's, tragically unable to take his own advice. Having our Rick and Morty appear at the end was a nice move to demonstrate just how much our dimension-hopping duo has changed for the good while offering viewers a cautionary tale showing how it could have all gone so wrong.

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