Rick and Morty Season 3 Episode 7: The Ricklantis Mixup

Rick and Morty’s latest episode is perhaps the strongest of the series to date. It juggles multiple story lines while completely abandoning the C-137 Rick and Morty characters that we traditionally follow every episode. Instead of an A-B story line about the Smith’s, we’re given a political drama mixed with a little Stand by Me and Training Day, all taking place in The Citadel.

It’s impossible to recap this episode of Rick and Morty, and attempting to do it has proven to be fruitless. So instead, I’ll simply comment on the things that made this episode so special, and why it will go down as one of the highlights of the series.

Our Rick and Morty, C-137 Rick and his Morty…Prime Rick and Morty..whatever you choose to call them, are going on an adventure to Atlantis in this episode. It is apparently a good time, although we don’t get to see any of it. Rick has fun, Morty gets laid, and they both want to go back by the end of the episode when they finally return.

Instead of following C-137, we are instead taken to The Citadel, the giant floating city in space that was founded by Ricks from all the other universes as a place to congregate. The Citadel has its own government now after C-137 killed the “Council of Ricks”, and the pending presidential election is one of our sub stories.

That’s the real brilliance of this episode. They take something as large as The Citadel, and fill it with things that are familiar, so that we can understand the narratives, and the story doesn’t get away from us while they build this world away from Earth, a world that is assuredly going to play a huge part in the remainder of this season.

Instead of telling one story to show us the situation in The Citadel, we’re treated to 4 different sub-stories. An idealistic Rick cop is partnered up with a jaded and potentially corrupted Morty cop, a Stand By Me style group of Rickless Morty’s who are about to graduate Morty-school, a worker drone Rick who snaps and kills his boss and holds his factory hostage, and the Morty party presidential candidate.

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Every character in this episode is a Rick or a Morty, but they all have unique things about them that help you differentiate between them. Every Rick is a genius, but not every Rick can be in a position of power. This leads to the factory Rick snapping and killing his boss. Every Morty is taught that they need a Rick, and without a Rick to guide them, they end up getting into drugs and crime in the Citadel. And the cops, who are almost all Ricks, treat the Mortys like crap, of course. But the Morty-cop is even more jaded and hates Mortys as much or more than the worst Rick cop.

You can start to see where this is going. You’ve got Training Day and Stand by Me playing out in front of you. There is a massive power vacuum now that the Council of Ricks has been killed, and then steps in the great twist ending. Evil Morty is back, he’s the presidential candidate for the Morty party, and he’s gaining in popularity. He speaks a message of unity and portrays himself as the candidate for change.

“I don’t see a divide between Rick’s and Morty’s. break for farts from the Rick candidates The division I see if between the Ricks and Mortys who like The Citadel divided…and the rest of us. I see it everywhere I go. I see it in our schools, where they teach Mortys we’re all the same because they’re threatened by what makes us unique. I see it in our streets, where they give guns to Mortys, so they’re too busy fighting each other to fight real injustice. I see it in our factories, where Rick’s work for a fraction of their boss’ salary, even though they’re identical and have the same IQ. The Citadel’s problem isn’t homeless Mortys or outraged Ricks. The Citadel’s problem is Ricks and Mortys feeding off the Citadel’s death. But I’ve got a message for them, for the Ricks and Mortys keeping it alive. A message…from the Ricks and Mortys that believe in this Citadel, to the Ricks and Mortys that don’t: You’re outnumbered.” – Candidate Morty

The problem is, as we come to find out, this candidate isn’t for equality between Ricks and Mortys. Evil Morty first appeared in season 1, and he was part of a Rick and Morty team that was capturing Morty’s and using their brainwaves (by causing constant pain) to block out anyone searching for their whereabouts. The Evil Rick and Morty team was going from universe to universe, killing Ricks, and framing C-137. At the end of the episode, however, it is revealed that evil Rick was being remotely controlled by Evil Morty, and Morty slips away with the other now freed Mortys to be taken to the Citadel to be assigned new Ricks.

We know that Evil Morty wants to kill all the Ricks. His plan was foiled by C-137 (our Rick and Morty) and he slipped away in the great Morty refugee train. Now those poor Rickless bastards are in The Citadel and are lost. In the aftermath of C-137’s destruction of The Citadel, Evil Morty has climbed back into a position of power. He didn’t break any laws, he didn’t use fake news, he just seized an opportunity and executed his plan.

Next: The Deuce Series Premiere

And now is the time for action. We probably won’t get much of Evil Morty in the next episode, as it’s this seasons “Interdimensional Cable” style episode, but we finally have an answer for what happened to Evil Morty, and we now have a new super villain for Rick to square off against.

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