‘Rick And Morty’ Season 6, Episode 2 Recap: Five Billion Mortys

Rick and Morty’s season 6 premiere managed to dig deeper into a couple of throwaway jokes from earlier seasons, and the second episode, “Rick: A Mort Well Lived” does the same, putting a new spin on a memorable bit.

The now-legendary VR simulator at the Blips and Chitz arcade, where one can live a full life as “Roy,” has glitched, and Morty’s consciousness fragmented across the virtual planet, into 5 billion sentient bodies. Rick, playing as Roy, is tasked with convincing every single Morty on the planet to leave the game and become whole again.

As Rick says, it’s not a religion – but it’s a great metaphor for one! A promise of a life beyond our world, becoming part of something larger and borderline incomprehensible; it’s a clever concept, and of course, the world of Mortys soon finds itself divided on the new faith.

Marta, one of the early Morty converts, has an argument with her dad that echoes the eternal culture war between the young and old, as new identities and perspectives clash with rigid tradition. Despite everyone on the planet seemingly feeling like a Morty, there’s a fringe of non-believers stubbornly clinging to their individual identities, even if said identities are kinda hazy, based on Morty’s vague understanding of the real world.

As President Morty argues to Marta – whatever they are, they won’t really exist anymore once they’re Morty again. Maybe life inside the game isn’t so bad. Besides, Rick’s plan to blast them off to space, outside the confines of the game map, is openly suicidal, and the Rick hasn’t done a great job selling himself as a benevolent Messiah, or even as a loving grandfather.

Meanwhile, Summer is tasked with taking care of the situation at Blips and Chitz, in which a group of terrorists have attacked the arcade; as Rick says, Summer has to do “a Die Hard.”

And, well, that’s it – that’s pretty much Summer’s entire joke for the episode, other than a fun scene that frames Die Hard as a mega-myth that repeatedly surfaces through time and space, while acknowledging it as a faded cultural touchstone that today’s kids don’t really recognize. And the Jar Jar Binks creature is voiced by Peter Dinklage, so that’s cool.

In the game, Rick’s inability to show affection soon sparks a war, as the planet of the Mortys embrace a kind of crazed nihilism. But Marta isn’t a nihilist – just a disappointed believer, having come to value whatever kind of life she has, even if it’s artificial.

Decades pass, via time dilation, and Marta eventually finds herself having the same age-old conflict with her own child, who wants to join the singular Morty in the sky. Amusingly, Marta isn’t sure if the new generation are even part of Morty, a perspective her daughter finds outdated and offensive.

Parts of Morty have lived, died and come into being during his time inside the videogame, and Marta finally admits defeat, allowing her people to follow an old and apologetic Rick into the stars.

In the real world, Summer has successfully “Die Harded” the situation (honestly, Rick and Morty could do with toning down the meta commentary – there’s only so much fun they can squeeze out of a pop culture reference).

Hence, Rick and Morty resurface to safety, but Morty seems changed; he’s suddenly subservient, perhaps lost some of that hard-won character development gained over the last two seasons.

Did the countless Mortys who died in the game leave Morty’s rebellious side behind? Maybe this will be an opportunity to bring back some of Morty’s perpetually horrified innocence from seasons 1 and 2 – there was a lot of comedy in that dynamic.

Interestingly, Marta has chosen to stay inside the game, with Rick ensuring that the machine will stay switched on, where she will presumably exploit a hack to live forever, and turn evil or something.

Surely, there’s another story there – Marta seems like something Rick and Morty will return to, just like “Roy: A Life Well Lived.”

If you enjoyed reading, check out my recap of the season 6 premiere