Rick And Morty Season 6 Episode 2 Recap: Planet Of The Morties

Contains spoilers!

After last week's backstory-heavy season premiere, "Rick and Morty" Season 6, Episode 2 keeps things contained to the space arcade Blips and Chitz for a high-concept "Die Hard" riff. Titled "Rick: A Mort Well Lived," this is the "Die Hard" parody the show's creators have been teasing in trailers.

We open on a group of teens loitering outside a convenience store. They're approached by a boy handing out flyers for a rally. "Did you know your grandpa is trying to get your attention?" he asks. One of the skateboarders dismisses it, saying, "He's one of those cult people. They worship some psycho named Roy that says he's everybody's grandpa." By this point, it's noticeable that everyone sounds like Morty, but lest we be confused for too long, things get explained at the rally.

Rick and Morty (Justin Roiland), along with Summer (Spencer Grammer) are at Blips and Chitz, the space arcade first introduced in the Season 2 episode, "Mortynight Run." As it turns out, Morty was playing the video game "Roy: A Life Well Lived," in which players live out an entire life as a guy named Roy, when the arcade was attacked by terrorists and the power went out. When the game rebooted, Morty got stuck inside of it, with his personality split between five billion non-player characters. Now, Summer is fighting the terrorists while Rick plays the game himself, using the avatar of Roy to round up all the Morty NPCs so he can get Morty back to reality. To get back, they will have to build spaceships and fly all of the Morty NPCs to the edge of the game map. Alright, is everyone on the same page? Good, because we're doing a "Die Hard."

Back in reality, with Blips and Chitz under siege by alien terrorists, Rick explains that Summer needs to buy time while he works on extracting Morty from the Roy console. Since every second in the real world is a month in the video game, he has to keep playing instead of help her fight. "Just do a 'Die Hard,'" he says. Summer objects that she's only 17 and thus hasn't seen "Die Hard," but Rick expects her to figure it out.

Meanwhile, the leader of the terrorists is looking for the arcade's safe. Summer quickly takes out one of the terrorists and steals his Furby-esque walkie-talkie. The terrorist leader (Peter Dinklage), acting as a Hans Gruber analogue, explains that every civilization eventually invents the story of "Die Hard," though each call it by a different name.

In last week's episode, we saw a glimpse of how much Rick has come to trust Summer. He might travel on adventures with Morty, but his granddaughter is the one with access to the emergency protocols. Now, he's entrusting her with his life while he's inside the game. It's a far cry from, "Keep Summer safe," and of the Smith family, Summer is the one who Rick seems to have rubbed off on the most.

The "Die Hard" parody is a simple but effective comedic conceit that keeps the B-plot straightforward in relation to the complicated events inside the game of "Roy." Speaking with Inverse, showrunner Scott Marder explained that the idea first emerged to fill in the episode's B-plot, saying, "We ended up tackling a really complex story for the A-plot of that episode. [Dan] Harmon was just like, 'What's left over?' We've got a sort of hostage thing. 'Just give me a 'Die Hard'!"

Back in the "Roy" game, Rick has found a devoted servant in an NPC named Marta and has convinced 92 percent of the five billion parts of Morty to come with them back to the real world on a fleet of spaceships. However, he finds himself annoyed that so many of them think of the movement as a religion. "While I do have a message from a world beyond this one, and while I do need the entire world to hear my message, what I do not need is any more songs about it," he fumes.

To reach the remaining eight percent of Morty NPCs, Rick and Marta meet with the in-game President of The United States. The president reveals that he already knows the truth but refuses to help Rick, who he believes only cares about Morty insofar as he needs help beating the arcade terrorists. He points out that Rick has been playing "Roy" for 50 years but hasn't once said, "I love you," to any of the Morty NPCs.

During an international meeting before launching, Rick opts to leave behind the last eight percent of Morty — "It's not your finest eight percent, Morty, and eight percent of anything is expendable," he notes. But when Marta refuses to leave without the remainder, Rick dismisses her. One of the Morty NPCs issues an ultimatum, refusing to have his country join the mission if Rick doesn't tell him, "I love you." When Rick pauses for too long, the meeting descends into chaos, with leaders of multiple countries declaring a "holy war."

Rick's inability to show affection for those he loves has caused problems before. This time, it causes a world war. After negotiations to return all the parts of Morty to the real world fall through, the world of "Roy" devolves into global conflict, with Rick's devotees fighting Marta's faction of Morties who want to stay in the video game. Rick begs Marta to give up her fight, saying that, if he didn't love his grandson, he wouldn't be trying so hard to save him and asking whether he cares that Summer is fighting for her life in the real world. Though Marta refuses to acquiesce, she seems shaken, asking another Morty NPC if he thinks she "jinxed" Summer.

While it's only been a few more minutes in the arcade, many years pass inside the game of "Roy," and Marta grows old while leading her rebellion. Eventually, her own daughter defects to Rick's side and her father dies of illness while begging her to reconsider. Rick and Marta's final talk is another example of the work Rick has done to improve himself recently. He says the time dilation of the video game has given him an opportunity to reflect on his behavior. He's more than willing to stick around to save Morty, and tells Marta, "You're a good grandson, you know that? I'm proud of you, Morty." Marta tells him the remaining Morty NPCs will go home with him on one condition, the details of which come as a twist in the final moments of the episode.

But first, there's a "Die Hard" to finish.

Back at Blips and Chitz, the terrorist leader finds Rick and Morty hooked up to the "Roy" machine and use them as hostages to draw Summer out of hiding, telling her over the intercom that she is "a genuine McClane." Unbeknownst to him, Summer has brushed up on the plot of "Die Hard" while hiding in the bathroom. However, she continues to feign ignorance when he asks whether she's got a gun taped to her back, which she most certainly does.

Meanwhile, in "Roy," the Morty NPCs are launching ships that will take them out of the game. As Summer reaches for her gun, the ships take off, causing Rick and Morty to wake up. Rick immediately takes out two of the remaining terrorists while Summer draws on the leader, who surrenders to her. Summer has been picking up a lot of Rick's personality traits over the years, and her level of improvisation is not only "Classic Tower Man," as Rick puts it, but also the kind of on-the-fly thinking Rick regularly utilizes.

Meanwhile, Morty is now acting a bit strange. He's sycophantic toward Rick, telling him, "I trust you implicitly." As Morty leaves with Rick and Summer, a Blips and Chitz employee takes the broken "Roy" machine to storage. His coworker explains that Rick paid to have the game kept on a loop, centered around "some old lady living a full life." It seems that, while Rick and all the other Morty NPCs escaped the game, Marta stayed behind to live out her days. And since Marta was the part of Morty that doesn't trust Rick, that explains Morty's newfound level of trust toward his grandpa.

Whether that change is temporary or permanent remains to be seen in next week's episode.

"Rick and Morty" Season 6, Episode 3, "Bethic Twinstinct," airs on Adult Swim on September 18, 2022, at 11 p.m. 

With a title like that, we're most likely looking forward to an episode centered around Beth (Sarah Chalke) and her clone, first created in Season 3's "The ABCs of Beth." While it's unclear which of the two is the clone, one version of Beth remained on as the family's mom, while the other set off on outer space adventures of her own. When last we saw the two versions of Beth in last week's Season 6 premiere, they had reconciled their differences and decided to spend more time with each other, which was probably a way of laying the groundwork for next week's episode. On top of that, the official description for "Bethic Instinct" reads, "Gotta love yourself or no one else ever will, broh," which is most likely referring to the two versions of Beth.

So far, this season has focused on the dynamics between Rick and his family as they've grown to accept his zany, sci-fi lifestyle and everything that comes along with it. These characters have come a long way from the first few seasons, with Morty becoming more comfortable as Rick's voice of conscience, Summer as the Oracle to his Batman, and Beth as the emotional glue holding them all together. Even Jerry (Chris Parnell) has learned to be less of a Jerry. Considering how emotional "The ABCs of Beth" ended up being, another Beth-centric episode is an exciting proposition, not to mention an overdue one.