After this week’s episode of Rick and Morty, there’s little doubt that Rick’s past will come back to haunt him very soon.
The show is episodic by nature. Very few story arcs span throughout the entire show, a few prominent ones being Rick and Morty’s destruction of their original dimension and move to their new one, and Beth and Jerry’s divorce. The majority of the episodes are stand alone and rely little on information in past episodes to drive the plot forward.
This is what makes this week’s episode so special. A character from Rick’s past reappears and is presumably going to eventually make a reappearance in his life.
The episode starts with Rick and Morty preparing to go to Atlantis, when another Rick appears asking for donations to reconstruct the Citadel of Ricks that Rick destroyed in the first episode of this season.
Upon realizing this is the Rick that destroyed the Citadel, the two leave. Morty wonders what life is like on the Citadel, but Rick quickly gets his mind back on the adventure at hand, and the two head off to Atlantis.
We the viewers, however, don’t see Atlantis. We are brought to the Citadel, where we see the lives of those who live in the Citadel. This is interesting, because although there have been multiple episodes where Rick and Morty have been brought before the Council of Ricks, we’ve never seen how regular people at the Citadel live.
It’s much less glamorous than expected. There are Ricks, all super-geniuses, working at factories that construct wafer cookies, gangs of Rick-less Mortys that roam the streets causing trouble, unauthorized portal fluid and crooked cops.
During the episode, there is a race for a new leader on the newly democratic Citadel. The running is mostly Ricks as one would assume, but among them is a lone Morty who no one believes will win.
But this Morty is clever and well-spoken. He strikes a chord with the people and ends up winning the election.
As he is speaking to the city’s most prominent Ricks, they tell him they’re in charge no matter what his title is. The newly elected Morty promptly has them killed.
As the audience tries to figure out what this means, familiar music begins to play. Music that is played in season 1 episode 10, "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind" in which it is revealed that the Evil Rick, who was using thousands of Mortys as human shields, was really a robot controlled remotely by his Morty.
Then, photos reveal that this Morty, newly elected leader of the people, is the same Evil Morty that Rick dealt with in season 1. An excellent twist.
It can be assumed that Evil Morty wasn’t brought back without purpose. He clearly has a problem with our Rick as revealed in Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind when he attempted to frame Rick for murder.
Some fan theories suggest that Evil Morty is our Rick’s original Morty. There is evidence that Rick had a Morty before his current Morty because his memories reveal him holding a baby Morty when we know he didn’t come back into his current family’s lives until the start of the show when Morty is already a teen.
The entire theory can be read here.
Is Evil Morty Rick’s original Morty? Either way, it seems likely Rick will meet him before the season ends.
Rick and Morty airs every Sunday at 11:30 p.m. on Cartoon Network.
