Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for Rick and Morty S8E5, “Cryo Mort a Rickver” (written by Nick Rutherford and directed by Fill Marc Sagadraca).
As they do, Rick and Morty are traveling through space and listening to morbid podcasts when the ship’s scanner picks up a Cryoship signal with the power still online. The duo quickly zoom over to board and see what specimens (and treasure) are in cryosleep—and some of those pods are nice. Like, gold-plated nice. A terminal indicates that the ship was fleeing planetary destruction. “This will be like taking candy from a baby…if that baby was in a coma.” They proceed to the end of the ship, where Rick notes an extremely fancy vault containing super-rare Hypercoal. Unfortunately, Rick is unable to breach the vault, even with a vault-breaching device. Hell with it, he’ll just blow the ship open and drag the vault home.
Morty disagrees, and the two struggle over the satchel of fast-countdown charges until they spill, causing them to count down even faster. Rick shields them from the explosion, but the damage to the ship begins the reawakening process for the passengers in hypersleep. Rick gives them ear disguises to match those of the species, identifies two pods with deceased passengers and instructs Morty to find one of them while he runs to the other one so they can blend in with the reawakening passengers. Rick strips naked, pulls the skeleton out of his pod, and climbs in. “Everything that happens after this is your fault!” Rick yells as Morty sprints off for the other pod. Finding it, he removes the skeleton, strips down and barely makes it in before the ship powers back on.
Once everyone is out of their pods, Rick is quickly approached by a couple referring to him as Jimmy and surmising that there must have been a malfunction in the pod as their young son has rapidly aged during cryosleep. Rick is forced to play along as their 13 11-year-old son (quickly correcting after they state Jimmy’s age), now grown into a grey-skinned, jaundice-eyed old man who, according to the ship doctor, will soon die given his rapid aging during the voyage.
While Rick’s pod was located in a brightly-lit and elaborate room, Morty steps out into a much less extravagant area of the ship with visible pipes, dingy floors and half of the exhausted-looking folks naked. Morty asks, “Aren’t Cryopwe like super rich?” which draws a roar of laughter from the floor. Morty is sent to toilet duty, and when he complains, he learns that these people have a Compliance Chip located at the base of the skull that shocks them when they are anything but subservient. Attempting to blend in, Morty quickly switches gears and proceeds to his task.
Upstairs, Rick still can’t access the vault. Jimmy’s parents show up and, with “Jimmy’s” impending death, inform Rick he has an upcoming Constellatio Celebratio, which will make him a citizen and with it, give him access to their knowledge…and a key to the vault. Rick quickly agrees. Below deck, Morty learns that the lower deck (Makies) exist for the benefit of the Takies (a name given by Morty) upstairs. We’ve got a full-on class system here, and it’s not at all subtle. The Makies are impressed that Morty hasn’t been shocked by his Compliance Chip, but Morty nervously explains that he’s learned to endure the pain.
Upstairs, Morty confronts Rick, who seems completely unconcerned by Morty’s predicament. He’s more excited by his own upcoming ceremony and access to the vault. Morty’s placement, he says, is his own fault. Morty proceeds to beat the sh*t out of his grandfather, impressing a couple of other Makies watching before they take Morty back downstairs. Morty’s earned the admiration of the Makies, who are in disbelief that Morty has gotten this far. Investigating Morty, they find that he doesn’t even have a Compliance Chip, inciting doubt, but Morty insists that he ripped it out, something that should be fatal. The other Makies try it, removing their chips and realizing that they’ve been lied to. Morty is now the face of the Makie resistance, fueled by his hatred of Rick benefiting from this situation while Morty is left to suffer below deck.
During the Constellatio Celebratio, Rick is gifted a ceremonial robe passed down through generations by his “parents” and pulled into a hug, something that Rick is uncomfortable with. Maybe he’s even starting to feel bad about it, too? Jimmy was apparently a huge piece of sh*t kid, and his tearful parents pull him into a hug and tell him they love him, which just makes Rick even more uncomfortable as he reciprocates, which just makes the parents even more emotional as this is apparently something Jimmy never said.
The Makies, with the Compliance Chips removed and armed with the slogan “fresh planet, fresh start,” have christened Morty as their general and have gotten to work on weapons (including a wooden desk leg called a “bang bang”). Morty briefly appeals for peaceful talks, but opts instead to join the Makies for a violent takeover after some peer pressure from the incensed Makie rebels.
The Makies make like a much more violent Ocean’s 11 and infiltrate the Constellatio Celebratio disguised as waitstaff and armed with weapons. Morty gets cold feet and desperately tries to warn Rick and derail the plan, but it’s too late: it’s soon an all-out bloodbath as the Makies tear through the Takies, and Rick grabs his “parents” and appeals to them to get to the vault. Morty is faster, holding them at flamethrower-point to get there. Arriving, they open the vault to find it empty, with the Hypercoal pillaged entirely.
Both Makies and Takies show up at the mouth of the vault and immediately assume that Rick and Morty are responsible for the disappearance of the Hypercoal. Realizing that the rich kid and the janitor have put aside their differences to rob them, the Makies and Takies decide to do the same. “Mob justice!” screams one of the Takies, and the mob begins to move forward on them.
Jimmy’s parents move to shield them, and one of the Takies confirms that Jimmy was the last one to access the vault. Rick then sheds his ear disguise, and confirms that Jimmy died before cryogenesis, throwing Jimmy’s bones on the floor. However, the bones are those of a monkey and it was indeed a still-alive Jimmy that was the last person to access the vault, as that little bastard raided it with the janitor Morty was thought to be, made their escape, and jetted off to a casino planet 30 minutes after everyone else entered hypersleep. Makies and Takies alike are furious, and Morty’s attempt to appeal to everyone’s better nature fails, as everyone else’s greed takes hold, and they’re already gone in a frenetic race to the casino planet before he can even finish his speech.
“Space race, Morty! Let’s gooo!” The ensuing race is a blast—everyone, including a reporter on the scene, is racing to the casino planet to get rich. Jimmy and the janitor make their escape with the Hypercoal, with the Makies, Takies, and pretty much everyone else chase after them. This chase sequence is just more of the first race, but even more mayhem, with ships crashing into each other and buildings, set to a very entertaining song about pennies that appears to be an original composition. It’s so much fun.
Rick and Morty finally catch up to their prey, and after a brief scrap, Morty opens the cargo hold and ejects the riches into space. Rick is upset, but Morty declares that these people will never stop chasing their greed. Sure enough, everyone puts on their helmets to chase the ejected wealth outside of the ships and continue to fight and kill each other over it.
After everything has calmed down, the citizens climb into their cryopods and Rick says that he’s set coordinates for a new planet and given everyone Compliance Chips, equalizing the class system that was tearing them apart. Anyone with something negative or incendiary to say will get shocked, and the chips cannot be removed. Back in Rick’s old car, they discuss their adventure. Morty thinks they did all right, while Rick looks longingly at a photo of him with Jimmy’s parents. They messed up a lot of things, but maybe they helped, too? Maybe it’s better to not get involved someti—-a signal from a medical-class vessel suddenly pops up on the scanner and they jet off towards it, with Rick agreeing to not hog all of the drugs.
I guess some things never change.
Best Moments
- “Should I get him some clothes? His penis is big now.”
- With Morty taking them to the vault, Rick tells his “parents” that they were “really unreasonably trusting…maybe too trusting.”
- “Ha ha! I never believed in God!” yells the chaplain, ramming into Rick and Morty. Once he starts spiraling towards a crystal asteroid, he suddenly yells in a panic, “Oh, I do believe in God, I DO BELIEVE IN GOD!” before crashing and exploding.
- Rick and Morty smash through a chicken coop inexplicably located in the middle of space, and a panicked Morty asks Rick why he rolled the windows down. “I wanted the full experience!” Rick responds.
