Top 10 Rick and Morty Things You Missed ep 7

This episode opens with a “previously on” segment to remind us of what’s been going story-wise with the show. This is a convention used by many shows to bring viewers up to speed on relevant plot threads/events before watching a given episode. Here we’re reminded of the two Beths' affair being revealed to Jerry, Rick restoring portal travel, Rick and Morty meet Jack the Ripper– wait, what? The show puts a spin on this trope as we’re suddenly introduced to events that we’ve never seen before such as Summer turning 18 and becoming pregnant and Beth apparently releasing a bunch of bees that end up stinging Jerry to death. It’s a wonderful twist as this episode takes us on a meta filled adventure.

When Rick and Morty first enter the meta layer Rick comments how their presence there erodes their credibility. Rick further likens every second spent to be the equivalent of 10 “Space Jam” cameos. This, of course, refers to the Rick and Morty cameo in the 2021 film “Space Jam: A New Legacy” where they return the Tasmanian Devil to the Looney Tunes after experimenting on him. It would seem that Rick wasn’t too fond of having to appear in the film since he considers it an affront to his dignity. We wonder how he feels about their cameo on “The Simpsons” or does that also erode their credibility?

Back in the show’s first season Rick crafted a tiny robot whose sole purpose is to pass butter. It’s a task that it completes with ease and it seeks a purpose beyond that. When Rick informs him that’s it's only purpose the poor robot very quickly becomes disillusioned with its life. When Rick and Morty go to free Brett Con, on the condition that Con makes it so that Rick and Morty never appeared at the fortress in the first place. Rick pulls out Butter Robot and prompts him to pull the lever when Rick tells him to. The robot can’t believe his life’s purpose is again for such a mundane task. We hope one day this little robot finds the greater meaning he deserves.

After Rick and Morty are saved from near death by Joseph Campbell, they use the power of Previous Leon to return home. During the sequence Rick works on building a machine to create a hole in the fourth wall. Since it will take a while to complete, Campbell offers to let them live in a shed of his but warns them not to open the door after dark. A drunk Campbell berates Rick and Morty and calls them “Back to the Future” ripoffs. This is a direct reference to the inspiration from which the two characters are based and also show co-creator Justin Roiland’s previous animated project, “The Real Adventures of Doc and Mharti”, a more explicit parody of the classic 1985 film.

As Story Lord moves to steal the motivation from everyone in the universe, Rick shows up to stop him. Right before they fight, Story Lord rips off his top revealing his jacked body. Rick is less than impressed, which is a markedly different reaction from when we first encounter Story Lord on the story train. In fact, Story Lord is taken aback when Rick rips off his top to reveal his jacked bod. It looks like Rick kept in form since having his night person to work out for him back in episode 4. We wonder if Rick and Morty are still releasing new episodes of their podcast.

This Jesus doesn’t not mess around. As part of Story Lord’s plan to escape into the real world, he has Jesus beat up Rick and Morty. He picks up Rick and breaks his back over his knee. The is similar to what happened to Batman when he squares off against Bane in the film “The Dark Knight Rises” and, of course, that moment takes its cue from the Batman comic book storyline of “Knightfall”. This isn’t the only Batman reference in this episode. When Story Lord confronts his creator, Jan, he reveals the inspiration behind the story train is based on an episode of “Batman: The Animated Series” where enemies of Batman swap stories about him.

For an episode dealing with meta textual, self-referential concepts there’s obviously going to be a ton of literary tropes thrown at you. Rick gives Morty a pair of goggles that let him see the meta layer of the show. In the Smith garage we see common tropes such as Chekhov’s gun, foreshadowing, ticking clock, and deus ex machina, among others. Later when Rick and Morty visit the Self-Referential Six, each character from that team is a common trope found in stories and they all act in accordance to the trope they represent. Being this densely packed with literary references, it’s almost as if it’s for TV critics who won’t enjoy this meta deep dive.

Campbell was a literary scholar known for his analysis on mythology and folklore such as the hero's journey and his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. The walls of his living space are adorned with many blank faces, a nod to his previously mentioned book. His ideas on story structure have been highly influential but also widely criticized. This is perfectly encapsulated here as Campbell mentions that certain elements are present in all stories such as an old man with soup and asks Rick and Morty to name a story without that. They name several just as critics of his work would point out that he relied on stories that fit his mold of a monomyth while ignoring ones that don’t.

Rick has made it very clear he is not a fan of overindulgent metatextual references. He prefers a few verbal asides to the audience only made by him, not like season 3 of the show “Moonlighting”. For those unfamiliar, it starred Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd as private detectives solving various cases. It was also known for its fourth wall breaks and would use cold opens to have the main characters address the audience directly. In fact, when the show was canceled the last episode deals with finding out the show is canceled and they’ll cease to exist.

As Story Lord sucks the motivation from everyone in the universe we see two workers at a factory that produces Rick plushies. During Rick and Stor Lord’s fight they end up in the factory and Rick throws the dolls at him and he notices the hair is the wrong color. When Jan has to put Story Lord out of his misery, Rick chimes in to say he has to do it with a brand new limited edition Rick plush that’s only available at rick-plush.biz. This sounds like a throwaway gag but if you visit that URL, you are presented with a page to purchase the doll for $29.99. However, it appears that it is unavailable in this reality. Bummer.