Rick And Morty Season 6 Episode 8 Recap: An Extraordinarily Yellow Misadventure

Rick Sanchez finally goes to therapy in the latest episode of "Rick and Morty." After years of turning going to extremes to avoid confronting his own flaws (such as turning into a pickle), Season 6, Episode 8, entitled "Analyze Piss," follows the smartest man in the universe as he turns over a new leaf, and the resulting episode might be the show's best in years.

Sick of being pursued by "'90s style goofball supervillains," Rick finally decides to look inward in search of answers. But when his attempts to be a better man lead to unintended consequences, turning Jerry into a superhero, can the smartest man in the universe put his pride to rest, or will he revert to his usual nihilistic self? Not only does "Analyze Piss" plumb heartbreaking emotional depths for Rick, but it's also a sequel to Season 3's "Pickle Rick." For fans who want classic "Rick and Morty" episodes, Christmas has come early.

We kick off with a cold open in media res, with Rick and Morty (both Justin Roiland) battling Rick's Namor-like nemesis Mister Nimbus (Dan Harmon). The water-dwelling villain hip-thrusts away into the ocean, and our exhausted heroes are ready to head back to the car when another villain, Cookie Magneto, appears. His attempt to explain his powers (can he also control cookie ingredients?) is cut short when Rick melts him into goo on the spot and tells Morty he's sick of these weirdos showing up to try and battle him. Morty responds that there must be something Rick is doing to attract so many enemies. As if to emphasize his point, yet another would-be nemesis appears, this one a tiny, floating, green alien named Mister Calypso who calls Rick an "ugly drunk."

"Okay," Rick relents. "I might look into it."

Roll the title credits.

We pick back up with Rick visiting Dr. Wong, the therapist first seen in "Pickle Rick." Voiced by Susan Sarandon, she's just as much of a treat this time around, patiently dealing with Rick's hostility as he explains, "I'm a walking target for a never-ending sea of angry nerds that think getting in a fight with me is some kind of...platform." Wong suggests that Rick simply ignore the cavalcade of weirdos who show up to battle him. When Rick resists, she wisely appeals to his scientific side, telling him to compile data by ignoring his would-be foes for a week. Surprisingly, Rick agrees to give it a go.

Back at home, Rick sticks to the therapist's plan. When a weird, pee-themed supervillain called PissMaster (voiced by guest star Will Forte) shows up on the front lawn of the Smith-Sanchez house, spraying (what else) urine everywhere and demanding to fight Rick, the scientist doesn't bat an eye. Even when PissMaster makes a crude comment about wanting to pee on Summer (Spencer Grammer), Rick refuses to take the bait. But that enrages Jerry (Chris Parnell), who goes outside to tussle with PissMaster himself. Jerry may be Jerry, but PissMaster's bag of tricks begins and ends with his ability to spray urine, so after some slap-fighting, Jerry takes him to the ground and uses a lawn flamingo to land his finishing blows. 

By the end of the fight, a crowd of people has gathered and recorded it, which leads Jerry to trend online (according to Summer, he's getting "a lot of hand clap emojis on white Twitter's impression of Black Twitter"). Rick warns Jerry that beating PissMaster will draw more opponents out of the shadows, but the family is happy Jerry is finally getting his 15 minutes, so Rick backs off.

In fact, the next beings to show up at the house aren't spoiling for a fight. Rather, they're immortal aliens who run a Green Lantern-inspired group of interstellar heroes who recruit the pure of heart into their ranks. They give Jerry an orb of unlimited power and invite him onto their council.

Jerry is thrilled to take the offer but can't figure out how to use the orb. So, after a bit of cajoling, Rick agrees to build him an Iron Man-style suit of armor to harness its power. Jerry now has the power to destroy entire planets with a single blast from his wrist cannons, which makes Rick understandably nervous, but Jerry immediately heads off in search of evil to defeat.

Jerry quickly identifies his first mission. A gathering of "space Hitlers" from different dimensions are gathering on a remote planet to plot a galactic takeover. Jerry blasts into their meeting but is overwhelmed when they start shooting at him. He retreats back into space, where he fires his nuclear wrist cannon at the planet and destroys it. In another stroke of luck, it turns out the planet was otherwise uninhabited, making its destruction a further act of heroism for Jerry.

Frustrated by this turn of events, Rick returns to Dr. Wong, who tells him that he's complaining about positive developments. He is stunned by her reframing of the situation and agrees to stay the course.

Shockingly, Rick sticks to Wong's treatment plan. When Jerry gets sponsored to drive a Mitsubishi spaceship and doesn't include him in the bridge crew, Rick remains nonchalant. And when an anthropomorphic green bean shows up spoiling for a fight with him, Rick ignores the mustachioed legume until someone else steps up to fight it.

Rick is thrilled to realize Wong was right. He's out of the game. So, with nobody left to fight, Rick heads for a bar where he overhears a conversation between two girls watching the viral clip of PissMaster's fight with Jerry. "He's got to be the biggest piece of s*** in the galaxy," they say of the urine-spraying alien. Clearly, Rick can relate, and the conversation seems to touch something in him. He drunkenly drives to PissMaster's house, showing up at the door with a six-pack of beer, perhaps yearning to connect with someone who can relate to him.

But when he enters, Rick finds urine cascading down the stairs. He follows it up to the bathroom, where he finds PissMaster dead in the bathtub. Rick tries to revive him but it's too late. Just as Rick is about to leave, there's a knock at PissMaster's door. It's PissMaster's daughter, coming to check on him because he hasn't been answering her calls.

Rick's first instinct is to duck out through a portal, leaving the woman to find her father's body, but when says she'll never stop blaming herself if PissMaster hurts himself, Rick can't bear it. He puts on PissMaster's helmet and impersonates him, telling the daughter he's okay and promising not to do anything. Back inside, he finds PissMaster's suicide note, which blames the humiliation of losing to Jerry as the reason he took his own life.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Rick decides to rehabilitate PissMaster's image, so he upgrades his suit and embarks on a campaign to fashion him into a hero. With an assortment of urine-themed gadgets, Rick takes on the persona of PissMaster and saves women from muggers, cats from trees, and cities from erupting volcanoes. To cap things off, he plants a bomb in a town of orphans, which he plans to fly into space and detonate, faking a heroic death for PissMaster. He's in the middle of using pee to stop a volcano when Dr. Wong calls to ask why he missed their session. Rick explains his plan, and Wong says it sounds healthy, surprising Rick.

Meanwhile, at the orb council, Jerry is seething at PissMaster's public rehabilitation. He's even more upset when the council decides to recruit the newly heroic PissMaster and forces him to deliver PissMaster's orb. But Rick is in the middle of flying the bomb into space when Jerry arrives, and Rick rebuffs him. Jerry fights Rick, ruining his own public image and knocking off Rick's helmet in the process.

The aliens who gave Jerry the orb return to take it back, ending his superhero career, and Rick pretends to have been PissMaster all along so that it seems like he orchestrated Jerry's rise. But back at the house, he can't resist showing PissMaster's suicide note to Morty, who immediately shows it to Jerry.

Ultimately, the episode leaves it up to the audience to decide whether Rick has really changed. In a behind-the-scenes video from Adult Swim, showrunner Scott Marder explained, "If Rick can't right his own wrongs, he'll right [PissMaster's] wrongs...Is he putting on the suit for himself, or for PissMaster? Maybe a little bit of both."

Rick and Morty Season 6, Episode 9, entitled "A Rick in King Mortur's Mort," will air December 4 at 11 p.m. on Adult Swim. The title is a clear reference to Mark Twain's satirical 1889 novel, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." Sure enough, the teaser video for Episode 9 shows Morty being gifted a sword by some very Arthurian-looking knights.

After the brilliance of "Analyze Piss," it's clear the showrunners and writers are trying to take the show in a new direction. So, where does that episode leave us as we look ahead to Episode 9? As noted in our recap of Season 6, Episode 1, this season is focused on exploring how Rick and his family have progressed as characters. Rick has had the most growth. Not only is he less jaded, but he's also willing to admit his wrongs. For once in his life, he's trying to do the right thing, even when it's not the smart one.

Within minutes of "Analyze Piss," it's clear how far Rick has come. In the fan-favorite "Pickle Rick," he was willing to go to extreme lengths simply to avoid being in the room for therapy. By contrast, in this episode, he's not only seeking out therapy on his own but is willing to try and take Wong's advice, even if he can't help himself from backsliding into his old ways. That, dear viewer, is character development.