6. Who’s really who?!
Episode: “Total Rickall”
Episodes of Rick and Morty are known for the randomness of their characters. No characters before or after “Total Rickall” were as odd-looking as the ones here. Rick put it best when he asked if he was in an episode of 90’s Conan (O’Brien). There’s Hamurai (a samurai whose armor was ham) Photography Raptor, Ghost-in-a-Jar, and dozens more. Why were Rick and the rest of the Smith family seeing them as real beings? Because Rick brought in an alien parasite on one of his adventures or heists in space.
This episode ends with the Smiths and Rick slaughtering all of the parasites (Summer seemed to be more uncaring than the rest of the family). They found out which of them were real because of a weird tell. If you never had a bad memory of them, you were fake. And, as viewers have seen, this family is dysfunctional. Maybe there’s a lesson here. Flawed relationships have their purposes. Or, maybe the Smiths need more therapy than most families.
5. Decoys
Episode: “Mortyplicity”
Rick had the idea to create decoys of himself and his family to protect his family from his enemies. What he didn’t foresee is his decoys creating decoys of his family. Then those decoys created decoys, and so on. What happens next? The decoys create squid disguises to kill the decoys without being discovered. More problems developed when the other decoy families have the same idea. Also, the more decoys that are created, the more disturbing they look.
Overall, this is just an episode of Ricks and Smiths killing each. In the end, you still have no idea who is and isn’t a decoy. The best parts could be Summers asking Rick to say decoy again and the random Highlander reference (THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE).