After a two-year hiatus, Cartoon Network’s Rick and Morty is back with new episodes for a shorter season. In Rick and Morty Season 4 Episode 1, Rick took Morty to gather death crystals, proving that knowing one’s fate can lead to disastrous consequences.
Death Crystals
Rick took Morty to Forbodulon Prime to gather death crystals. The crystals show whoever touches them how they’re going to die based on that exact moment. Crystal poachers attacked them, and Rick taped a crystal to his forehead, which allowed him to see the moment the poachers reloaded. After killing them, Rick had Morty help pack up the crystals he gathered, and Morty pocketed one.
One version of Morty’s death was as an old man with his crush, Jessica, telling him that he loved him. Morty preferred that death to the million other ways he could die. He started directing his body to move toward the destiny of dying with Jessica. Unfortunately, this caused Rick’s death. When a Rick hologram appeared to Morty as part of a contingency plan, Morty opted to not complete the Rick-cloning process.
Clones and Fascism
Because Morty hadn’t listened to the hologram Rick, a failsafe triggered so that a clone of Rick would be routed to the basement of a Rick in a different universe. Unfortunately, Rick kept getting routed to fascist realities and dying. Finally, he made it to a wasp universe that wasn’t fascist. The wasp Rick of that universe took the new wasp Rick clone to the prime universe, where Morty had raided Rick’s weapons cache. Hologram Rick explained everything.
Akira Morty
Morty’s use of the death crystal started out small, but things escalated quickly when he used Rick’s weapons to attack a bully. He went on a rampage and gave himself up to the police. During his sentencing, he used the death crystal to figure out what to say to the judge, who forgave him and let him go. Jessica met him outside the courthouse and invited him to go skinny dipping with her and her friends. The death crystal made Morty decline and walk away. Morty went to a desolate area and resigned himself to living in a cocoon of ferrofluid until he died with Jessica.
Newly bipedal Rick, wasp Rick, and hologram Rick freed Morty from the ferrofluid and the death crystal. When he touched the residual ferrofluid, hologram Rick gained mass and sentience, and wasp Rick killed him.
Permission
The episode bookended with Beth’s insistence that Rick ask Morty about helping him first, instead of just forcing him along. When Morty overheard Jessica talking about her aspiration to be with the elderly when they died, it explained the vision he received from the death crystal. Morty no longer cared where Rick wanted to take him.
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