Rick and Morty season 6 episode 2 recap & review: Rick: A Mort Well Lived

Rick and Morty season 6 episode 2 — ‘Rick: A Mort Well Lived’ — sees Summer having to save the day in an alien arcade by reenacting Die Hard. The problem is that Summer has never watched Die Hard.

Recap

The episode kicks off with some classic film tropes being played out by several people who all sound like Morty.

It soon becomes clear why all the characters are sounding like Morty, and it’s because they all are Morty! Well, at least five billionth parts of him anyway.

The premise becomes clear — Rick, Morty, and Summer were in an alien arcade with Morty playing one of the games. However, things turned south, and following a power cut, Morty got splintered into five billion digital parts inside the video game — each part represented by an NPC.

Rick, who has entered the video game as the only playable character, starts to rescue him. To do so, he must convince every part of Morty, who all are now living as different non-playable characters, with their own set of coded lives and families and relationships.

Rick manages to gather a sizeable audience but they get behind him as parts of a cult that entails everyone in it believing they’re some divine entity called “Morty”. Rick continually tries to discard the notion of a cult to no avail.

Nonetheless, the NPCs do successfully convert about 92% of themselves into their “cult” and get behind Roy (Rick’s video game character’s name). However, problems arise when one prominent NPC called Marta has a change of heart.

The US president character in the game instills doubt in her — asking why are they even following this grandpa Rick if he can’t even, for once during all these decades (time flows extremely faster in the game due to dilation), profess his love for his grandson.

Rick, a generally walled-up guy who can’t be bothered by the sentimentality of a video game’s NPC population, isn’t on board with the whole expressing his love. Especially when he knows that the NPCs are all Morty who doesn’t remember the life beyond the game.

Anyway, the remaining eight percent of the digital Morty populace, which represents his doubts about Rick and is not gullible like the rest of him, doesn’t budge.

Marta wants to take them all with the rest but Rick isn’t too bothered by it. It rubs Marta and others the wrong way and they rebel, giving rise to inter-continental warfare. However, years later, she subsides and agrees to go with Rick to the digital horizon and cross it.

All this time, the alien arcade has been taken over by some alien terrorists in a situation hilariously resembling the plot of ‘Die Hard’. So Rick tells Summer to just “Die Hard” her way out of the shooting and killing aliens.

There’s a problem, though. Summer has never watched Die Hard. Despite her unawareness of the pop-culture classic, Summer forces her way through the aliens, shouting some hilarious mixture of Die Hard one-liners and references while shooting the henchmen.

The leader of the alien terrorists and the parallel to Hans Gruber (voiced by Peter Dinklage), actually reveals to Summer that the story of Die Hard is a myth known to races all over the universe and that he’s well aware of it.

By the end, Summer and alien Hans Gruber parody confront each other, with Summer now knowing a bit of the ending of Die Hard (where John Mcclane straps a gun to his back, and so does Summer).

However, before the shootout, Rick and Morty are back in the real world from the game. One of the henchmen ends up eating the leader and flies away, as one does in Rick and Morty.

The episode ends with the Rick and the Smith family heading out of the arcade, with Morty acting like an abiding robot. This is because the protesting parts of his personality are still inside the game, living out their lives until the game runs and eventually ends.

Review

Following the big canon installment that was Rick and Morty season 6 premiere, episode 2 moves back to the show’s usual one-shot episode format. It seems like this format will stick to most of, if not the entire run.

The second episode parodies Die Hard and the tropes and cliches of the cult movies. It does so with competent writing, even though it feels like a way less interesting affair after the first episode.

The bits with Summer not knowing about Die Hard and still getting it right through her sheer sense and experience of battles are some of the best parts.

Rick’s understanding that Morty’s parts that make him protest things and not a merely gullible child with a constant case of anxiety are worth acknowledging and preserving was great. However, he does end up separating them all at the end is hilariously ironic.

Peter Dinklage does a good job at spoofing late Alan Rickman’s classic antagonist Hans Gruber.

Although not nearly as good as the season premiere, Rick and Morty season 6 episode 2 is still a good time, with the usual goofs, gags, and references aplenty.

Rick and Morty season 6 episode 2 — Rick: A Mort Well Lived
Rick and Morty season 6 episode 2 recap & review: Rick: A Mort Well Lived 1

Director: Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon

Date Created: 2022-09-12 09:30

Editor's Rating:
3

Also Read: Who is Diane Sanchez? Rick’s deceased wife explained

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