Rick and Morty season 4, episode 6 recap: Never Ricking Morty

After over four months, the long wait for the second half of Rick and Morty The fourth season is over. Arrived during the ban, the new episode entitled Never Ricking Morty actually points to that Corona virusand joined the first wave of TV shows to reflect the current reality of social distancing.

The episode that fakes the title of NeverEnding Story takes place in one go – in space. The shot, as Rick notes, is a literal story device and shows us the course for a breakneck, self-referential anthology episode.

warning: This summary contains all spoilers.

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Rick’s enemies

The episode begins in the space train, where two travelers meet at the bar. One of them, who looks like an alien version of Wolverine, describes how he fought Rick on his planet Ramamama (it sounds like it was written that way).

The cartoon hero who looks like a hero is on the train looking for Rick to kill him. Everyone on the train, he says, is there to kill Rick. The other Clint Eastwood-looking traveler wearing one of these short wild west cloaks questions this “strange leap in logic”.

The space cowboy visits another section of the Rick-owned train and encounters extraterrestrials that describe stories that show how Rick saved “Space Christmas”.

However, one of them is that Rick disappointed the new character Goomby, a small, purple alien friend who helps Rick bring gifts to Morty and the Smith family, but is ultimately not invited to their celebrations, but left out in the freezing cold becomes.

All of this leaves the levels behind how personal this action is for Rick – and how meta it is for the show.

Rick’s lover

In another carriage, Morty, disguised as a blonde woman, meets a dozen of Rick’s ex-girlfriends who overrule having dated Rick as a rebound at a low point in their lives.

Leah, a space ice queen, reflects on Rick’s confusing behavior when he met her family: they were all sitting at the table while he was outside in the snow-covered tundra, fighting massive space wolves.

The train runs in a circle

The space cowboy turns out to be disguised Rick, and after his investigation, he finds that the train “has strengthened and linked unrelated narrative fields”.

He and Morty searched for the train’s engine, which is really a “literal literary device that literally contains us metaphorically”. No simulation, but “worse – an anthology”.

Rick refuses to have a “one-time”, “tight”, “overwritten” episode and threatens the old ticket inspector, who turns out to be torn and stamps on Rick’s shin. Morty, who shows more courage and loyalty than ever, immediately jumps on the ticket inspector, and Rick, who shows that he cares for Morty, refrains from shooting the inspector while holding Morty as a shield.

Instead, Rick shoots the window and creates a vacuum that pulls the top half of the inspector out of the train. The inspector wakes up in an arcade and asks Rick and Morty’s favorite existential questions: “Is this real? Is life real?” Then, back in space, we see it explode in blood and bowels.

The train represents the plot

We then come to a group of train officers who discuss with their instructor how to deal with the arrest of Rick and Morty to best maintain continuity.

Rick and Morty suddenly appear in the room and beat everyone up – traditional continuity is not a big priority for the show. Rick finds a “structural guide” for the train that shows the carriages in a circle – a reference to Dan Harmon’s creation Story circle used to structure many Rick and Morty episodes.

Rick discusses when to put on a pair of spacesuits that fail at just the right place in the story circle so they can “pay a high price” and get back on the equivalent train just before the story ends.

Rick is aware that this may be too meta and points out that Morty is watching videos of people on YouTube who are responding to YouTube.

Bird person

From now on, after Rick and Morty joke about the passing upper half of the ticket inspector, they decide to have good, old-fashioned fun, not rethink things and keep the rest of the adventure grounded and to the fullest.

We then see some clips of Rick and Morty’s musical moments with a cameo from Birdperson.

In the meantime, the ticket inspector, now known as Floaty Bloody Man, is becoming a new god. His followers believe that the entire universe is Floaty Bloody Man’s nightmare when he dies in a “time-widened” reality.

Rick and Morty then appear in space suits in front of the train and shoot the inspector until he is really dead.

Destroy the thematic seal

Rick and Morty walk across the outside of the space train until they find the “thematic seal”, large glowing gold rings with symbols similar to middle earth. To disturb it, they have to tell a story that has nothing to do with them. We then see Morty’s story – as improvised as the intergalactic cable episode.

You then have to tell a story that passes the Bechdel test. Morty loses his oxygen source, but Rick, who in particular rescues Morty, gives Morty his oxygen so that he can improvise the story. He tells one of Summer and her mother who defeat female space scorpions without talking about men.

This “feminist masterpiece” destroys the thematic seal and Rick and Morty find the control room where they discover that Story Lord is behind everything.

Break the fifth wall

Story Lord describes Rick at a discount: “No rules for you, whirl through the multiverse and belch a half-improvised dialogue about how nothing matters.”

Then he beats Rick and Morty together and hits them in different realities where “nothing is canon”, including Rick who decides “to help people now”.

Story Lord used Rick and Morty to fuel his anthology with its “limitless potential” and take it to the very last station: “Beyond the Fifth Wall” – which would have to include co-creator and voice actor Justin Roiland, referring to his previous reference takes works or real life outside of Rick and Morty.

We then come to a “human moment” where Rick, Morty and the Smith family see Summer at college.

You then encounter explosions from the past – “the good things” – including Abradolf Lincler, Tammy Guetermann, Phoenixperson, Snowball, Evil Morty, which looks like an Kaiser Palpatine version of Mr. Poopybutthole (a nice touch), an army of Roman Centurion Ricks (from the Citadel?), An army of Mr. Meeseeks and an army of Gazorpians. It reminds me of Doctor Who’s Pandorica conglomerate of favorite aliens.

A divine presence

Rick seems to have no way out and turns to his “best friend and personal savior, Jesus Christ”.

Rick and Morty rave about letting Jesus in their hearts and praying, doing something they would normally never do, which causes the Story Lord storyteller to break down with such a “terrible” story.

They defeat him and send Story Lord to spend eternity in “Every Writer’s Hell”. The Bible.

“We were literally saved by Jesus Christ. Tell me in some way how insulting it is,” Rick says when Morty worries if it’s too cynical and insulting.

The importance of everything

In the section “Changing” Harmon’s plot, Morty then tries to figure out the purpose of the “confusing” adventure: it brought them closer together and tested their demons.

“We got rid of all this meta-canon shit and now we can just be ourselves,” says Rick.

But when they try to get the train to the station, they find that it is not real. We zoom out and see the real Rick and Morty in the Smith family living room playing with a purple train Morty bought at the Citadel of Ricks gift shop.

Rick loves it because Morty did the “most important thing”. He has fulfilled his purpose in life, namely “to buy and consume goods”.

Story Lord and Jesus

Story Lord and Jesus reflect on their life in the toy train as it is enough to make them question their entire existence.

Jesus decides to leave and derail and break the toy train.

Rick asks Morty to buy a new one because “no one out there is buying this damn virus.”

Post credits

We’re seeing an ad for the Citadel of Ricks story train Morty bought, a toy aimed at Ricks who are fed up with Mortys’ dog shit adventures.

It comes car by car from enemies, lovers and Goomby, “who all grapple with nature for who you really are.”

Thanks to the anthology generator, the stories will never end. The characters live, but “in no way that matters”. The advertisement refers to the website story-train.com, which at the time of writing … does not lead anywhere.

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Exhausted?

The intense focus on the show itself is an interesting choice for this episode. It’s almost inaccessible to people trying to get more entertainment while the lock is on, Rick and Morty.

But for fans, Never Ricking Morty serves to put some of the arguments surrounding the show to bed. While the episode’s hard-to-follow jumps through space and time do not ultimately lead to a clear message, it deals with the term canon, fan service and the question of whether the show makes fun of Christianity.

Either you are exhausted, impressed or just for the fun ride.