There's a lot going on in Rick and Morty, with its dimension-spanning adventures involving
Szechuan sauce and catchphrases like "wubba lubba dub dub.”
It's a complicated show to jump on board with from the get-go.
So to help newcomers and those who need a refresher, let's explain the otherworldly
story of Rick and Morty.
To be clear: We're going to spoil everything that's happened on the show so far.
So there's your warning.
"Uh-oh!
Spoilers!"
Meet Rick and Morty
Let's start with Rick Sanchez, the smartest man in the universe.
Rick only recently reunited with his adult daughter, Beth Smith.
Because she's desperate for her dad's approval and traumatized by him leaving in the first
place, Beth welcomes his dysfunction into the home she shares with her husband, Jerry,
a perpetually down-on-his-luck loser who Rick hates.
Beth and Jerry have two kids.
Their daughter, Summer, is in many ways the average American teenage girl.
She's worried about fashion, her friends, and the various boys she likes at her school.
What sets her apart from the rest of her peers is how utterly unfazed she seems to be by
her parents failing marriage and her grandpa's high-risk space adventures.
Then there's Morty, the youngest in the family and Rick's closest ally in his maddening adventures.
Prior to Rick's arrival, Morty was a troubled kid charting well below average at his school.
A big reason why could have to do with his crippling crush on a girl named Jessica.
After Rick shows up, well, none of that really changes, but Morty's life becomes very different.
"It's just Rick and Morty!
Rick and Morty and their adventures, Morty!
Rick and Morty forever and for 100 years, Rick and Morty's things!
Me, and Rick and Morty, runnin' around!"
Thinking with portals
The first episode of the series opens with Morty falling asleep at the breakfast table
after a drunk Rick kept him up the night before with threats to restart humanity with a neutrino
bomb.
Yes, that's the first thing that happens.
Morty's parents worry that Rick's hijinx with their son are having unhealthy affects on
him, particularly at school, where they acknowledge he may be developing slower than his peers.
But Rick nonetheless takes Morty out of school for an adventure using his famous portal gun:
a handheld device that allows him to travel anywhere in space.
It can also travel between infinite alternate dimensions.
So, while Rick can't travel in time, he can travel in different timelines.
The show doesn't shy away from the impact that traveling multiple universes can have
on even a super-genius' mind.
It's revealed in episode one that it's hard for Rick to relate to other people, even his
family, because he knows that the best and worst versions of himself exist in infinite
realities.
The adventure goes horribly, and it's pretty traumatic for Morty, who breaks his legs and
is forced to kill some alien officers.
When it's over, Rick explains to Beth and Jerry that traveling with him is the only
way a mind like Morty is going to catch up in school.
Of course, that's not really true.
"Holy cow, Rick!
I didn't know hangin' out with you was makin' me smarter!"
"Full disclosure, Morty: It's not."
The Cronenberg incident
Things go terribly awry when Morty's crush on Jessica becomes overwhelming.
He asks his grandpa Rick if there's anything he can create to make her like him.
Although Rick thinks his grandson is being creepy, he relents and gives Morty a love
potion of sorts.
But there's a drawback: it's contagious.
Morty uses it on Jessica at the annual Flu Season Dance, and it causes her to spread
an uncontrollable virus that makes people aggressively in love with Morty, regardless
of gender, age, or status.
So Rick makes two attempts to produce an airborne cure that not only makes it spread globally,
but it mutates everyone into hideous monsters that Rick offhandedly labels "Cronenbergs."
To escape the escalating problem, Rick transports Morty and himself to a nearly identical version
of that timeline where a parallel Rick and Morty both die in a freak accident after that
universe's Rick successfully solves the Cronenberg problem.
Together, our "heroes" bury their alternates' corpses and rejoin this alternate version
of Earth as if nothing ever happened.
"The answer is don't think about it.
It's not like we can do this every week, anyways.
We get three or four more of these, tops."
Dysfunctional dimension
The Smith family has a lot of problems, with deep-seated resentments in Beth and Jerry's
marriage.
Everything gets thrust out into the open in episode eight after Rick gets frustrated at
The Bachelor and upgrades the family cable box with wacky channels from every possible
dimension.
While that leads to some very funny alternate-universe ads...
"It's two brothers...and they're gonna...it's called Two Brothers.
Two Brothers.
It's just called Two Brothers!"
...it also gives them a glimpse into a world in which Jerry is as famous as Tom Hanks.
So while Rick and Morty sit on the couch and watch trashy TV, the rest of the family decides
to watch what alternate, seemingly happier versions of themselves are doing.
Jerry and Beth discover they could have lived their personal dreams in a world where they
never had Summer.
While her parents wonder if their continued marriage is a good thing for anyone involved,
Summer prepares to run away from home, having seen what her existence does to them.
However, Morty stops her by sharing the fact that he's her brother from a different reality.
Her existence, like everything else, is neither a burden nor an asset, it all means nothing.
Meanwhile, Beth and Jerry see themselves get back together in their otherwise happy alternate
timeline and agree to stay married.
Every Rick needs a Morty
A group of Ricks from various universes and their Mortys has gotten together to form a
society on a floating space citadel.
Our Rick, from universe C-137, isn't too much of a joiner, and he has rebuffed their invitation.
But the Council of Ricks comes calling when a Rick from another dimension frames C-137
Rick for the death of 27 alternate dimension Ricks.
C-137 is arrested by the Council for the crimes and subsequently escapes.
That's when Morty learns that Rick's genius gives off a very distinct brainwave pattern
that makes it easy for his various enemies to track him.
Traveling with Morty is a selfish necessity for Rick:
"Ricks have a very distinctive and traceable brainwave due to our genius.
The best way to hide from an enemy's radar is to stand near someone with complementary
brain waves that make ours invisible."
While C-137 Morty stages a Morty rebellion in light of that revelation, our Rick learns
about the frame-up and Evil Rick is killed.
The Council then learns that Evil Rick's Morty was controlling the situation the whole time.
C-137 Rick and Morty aren't privy to that information, and Evil Morty vanishes into
the crowd at the Citadel.
Rick's greatest enemy
The Galactic Federation, comprised of more than 6,000 Earth-like planets, is run predominantly
by a bug-like alien race known as the Gromflomites.
The Federation is a beacon of order, civilization, and stability within the universe.
Obviously, these principles are grating to the rebellious Rick, along with his friends,
Birdperson and Squanchy.
Birdperson invites the Smiths to his wedding to Summer's friend, Tammy.
There, he reveals that he and Rick fought many battles against the Federation and committed
many atrocities for which they're wanted.
"The galactic government considers us terrorists.
It's unwise of me to share these details, but I've become inebriated."'
And that's when the Federation launches an attack orchestrated by Tammy, a deep cover
Federation operative who kills Birdperson.
Earth is no longer safe.
The Smiths go into hiding, and Rick learns just how much of a burden he's been to his
relatives.
Under the guise of going out for ice cream, Rick reveals his location to the Federation
on the condition that his family will be allowed to go free.
The Smiths are picked up from their hiding place and return to Earth, which is thriving
under Federation rule.
Meanwhile, Rick is seen being locked away in the bowels of the Gromflomites' most secure
prison, with nothing but time working against him as they try to unlock his secrets.
Fall of the Federation
Rick finds himself inside a Gromflomite simulation generator as they attempt to trick him into
giving up the secret to interdimensional travel.
The machine uses Rick's memories against him and allows the Gromflomites to trigger thoughts
about how he invented his portal gun.
Instead of falling for their trick, Rick flexes his genius and fabricates an origin story
in place of an actual memory, thus hacking the machine and allowing him to switch bodies
with his interrogator.
Meanwhile, Morty and Summer are finding a Rick-less, Federation-controlled Earth too
much to bear.
Summer digs up the dead Rick from the Cronenberg debacle and uses his portal gun, which the
Council of Ricks flags.
When Morty and Summer explain that their Rick had been arrested by the Federation, the Council
dispatches soldiers to assassinate Rick C-137 once and for all.
Rick switches bodies again with one of the assassin Ricks and uses him to infiltrate
the Citadel.
He teleports the citadel into the same space as the Federation prison, launching a massive
battle between his two greatest enemies.
He then reunites with Morty and Summer before executing the final part of a plan that began
when he turned himself in after the wedding.
Rick hacks into the Federation mainframe and reduces the value of its currency to zero.
Chaos ensues, and the Federation falls within minutes.
Defeated, they leave Earth, and Rick returns home safely.
Family fractured
Rick toppling the Federation has an extremely negative impact on Jerry, who was thriving
under a government that valued thoughtlessness.
He realizes that things have gotten much worse for him now that Rick has replaced him as
the family patriarch and makes a "him or me" ultimatum.
It doesn't work.
"Jerry's going to spend some time...divorced."
Having just defeated the Gromflomites and the Council, an arrogant Rick confesses to
Morty that this was his grand plan all along.
Jerry and the Federation wanted him gone, so he made them both go away.
Jerry tries his best to not let his depression get the better of him, including a messy rebound
with an alien huntress that he meets on an interdimensional dating app.
Beth, meanwhile, can't seem to find her place in her now fully broken family.
Evil Morty returns
The Citadel is not some perfect utopia: it has a sizable class and wealth divide among
the various Ricks and Mortys that live there.
Some versions of Rick wind up doing menial tasks to keep the Citadel running, and some
Mortys take a dark turn toward crime while others thrive without Ricks.
Evil Morty has been consolidating his power during the rebuilding of the Citadel following
the battle with the Federation, adopting a working-class hero persona that's made him
popular enough to run for president.
Although his candidacy is first considered a joke due to the fact that he's a Morty,
Evil Morty gives an impassioned speech about the class divide in the Citadel.
"The division I see is between the Ricks and Mortys that like the Citadel divided, and
the rest of us."
With that speech, he becomes the first democratically elected Morty president.
However, when it's revealed that a shadow government exists within the Council, Evil
Morty promptly dispatches all of the Ricks that threaten his power.
Evil Morty morphs the Council of Ricks into a dictatorship.
Rick's power struggle
C-137 Rick's propensity to see past traditional labels and power dynamics puts him directly
in the crosshairs of the president of the United States.
Always one for an adventure, Rick routinely takes calls from the "most powerful" man in
the world because he feels like Morty is enamored with the idea of helping his country.
However, when even Morty realizes that they've basically become the president's intergalactic
exterminators, they bail on a mission from the commander-in-chief in favor of playing
Minecraft.
"Notify the president."
"What do I tell him?"
"Tell him the truth.
Tell him Rick and Morty just blew off America."
The president is desperate to prove that he doesn't need Rick and Morty, but he keeps
coming up short and becomes increasingly erratic as he constantly loses to Rick.
Things devolve into a literal fist fight with the president that ends in a draw when Rick
has family issues arise.
Realizing that staying with his C-137 family on Earth means he can't be a threat to national
security, Rick tricks the president into thinking things are good between them.
Rick surrenders his place
In light of Beth's personal struggles, Rick offers her the chance to travel the galaxy
on her own terms, while a clone version of herself stays behind to take care of the family.
"You could be gone a day, a week or the rest of your life, with zero consequences.
The moment you decide to come back, I flip a switch, and the clone's job is done."
Unfortunately, this doesn't help with her identity crisis, as now she has no clue if
she's physically herself or a clone.
Without meaning to, Rick pushes Beth right back to Jerry, because he's the only one that
can help her understand if she's really herself.
Jerry uses the opportunity to talk about the first time that he told her he loved her.
Realizing that his unconditional love is part of who she is, she takes him back and endeavors
to rebuild her family, without the manipulative influence of Rick.
The only way to do that, however, is to go into hiding.
Unfortunately, none of the Smiths are smart enough to hide from Rick, who arrives at their
hideout ready to outright kill Jerry.
But Beth puts her foot down with her father for the first time.
Rick tries to explain that Beth's feelings are meaningless in a limitless multiverse,
but he relents and yields his position as the patriarch to stay with his family.
"We're a real family now.
In many ways, things will be like season one, but more streamlined."
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