Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for Rick and Morty S9E9 “Salute Your Morts” (written by Garrick Bernard and directed by Brian Kaufman).
Morty and Summer are in trouble. In Principal Vagina’s office with their parents, their sci-fi antics (obviously inspired by Rick) are outlined and Vagina expels them. Upon being berated by their mother, Summer uses a device to mute her, which makes her even angrier. Rick suddenly appears wearing a farmer outfit and looking very irritated, and fires a beam at Principal Vagina to turn him into a giant sentient carrot. Upon being returned to normal, a naked Principal Vagina un-expels the kids and collapses into a traumatized mess underneath his desk. Beth points out that the kids are spoiled because Rick always bails them out. Rick gets her point, and decides to send the kids to an off-world sleepaway camp to teach the kids a lesson (although Beth points out that Rick is doing this instead of handling it himself).
En route, Rick and his grandkids are in conflict, starting with them insulting him and Morty kicking his seat, and Rick responding by locking the two into a chamber that rips them apart before healing them and dropping them into Camp Shergale. They’re immediately greeted by two guys who militantly drag them to the doors of the camp. Morty and Summer are terrified of what they’ll be subject to at the camp, but they are suddenly shown that the camp has been taken over by the kids: it’s now a never-ending party, with everyone doing whatever they want with no repercussions.
Arriving home, Beth and Jerry realize that they have the house to themselves for the first time since before the kids were born…and immediately raid Summer’s room for drugs. They finally come across an eclectic collection of alien substances, and Beth immediately locates a joint. They smoke it, and become extremely high. I loved the effect of their eyes expanding and turning blue, a visual that does not get old for the remainder of the episode (as well as an ethereal vocalizing female voice). Wondering what the strain is, Beth scans the packaging with a translator app and reads: “High Forever.” Uh-Oh.
At Camp Shergale, Morty and Summer learn that the anarchy at the camp began when the kids murdered all of the counselors because they were “lame.” They make the kids dedicate their lives to partying, and we’re shown a montage of them raging with everyone else at camp, although each day their enthusiasm starts to give way to fatigue and reticence to continue.
Beth and Jerry are weathering their trip, still in Summer’s room, and Beth googles how to end their high: it’s going to be a specific medication, Darcan, located on Planet Mart. Beth, having learned from Rick, knows how to hail an alien cab to get there. The only obstacle: getting down the stairs. They figure it out, and get to the garage and manage to hail the taxi: it’s a giant sentient slug that they simply get sucked into, and the interior morphs into the limo they took to prom back in the day. Jerry starts to panic, but Beth manages to calm him down, and they share an intimate moment, remembering how much they love earth other. Against the pleading of the taxi, they decide to poke out of the “Moon roof” (there isn’t one) and declare their love to the universe, which causes them to be sucked out. They hold on for dear life onto the taxi, and it veers down to crash land on Planet Mart.
Morty and Summer are starting to tire of the constant partying at the camp, hitting a breaking point when one of the attendees gives birth and everyone else tries to force the two into giving the “Fart Baby” beer. Realizing that things have spiraled wildly out of control, they try to excuse themselves to step away and call Rick, but are denied: they’re “lame” now—which means they’re in danger. They end up running away to the nearby town.
Beth and Jerry are starting to panic from the High Forever, but make their way to the pharmacy. Rather than waiting for an employee to open the Darcan from the case, Beth smashes the case and they consume the drug. With security in hot pursuit, the two escape to a warehouse. Unfortunately, according to the packaging, the Darcan is only for those with two hearts.
Jerry admits that he called Rick for help. Beth is furious at feeling that she’s “a baby” for utilizing the “cosmic safety net” as Jerry describes it, but Jerry placates her by saying that “we should all get a turn” at being a baby. They admit that they had fun being high. Rick shows up, probably even more high then they are, and immediately topples off of a balcony.
Morty and Summer make it to the bar near the camp and call Rick, but their grandpa is no help in his obliterated state. The bartender overhears from the kids that the camp is overrun by unsupervised rich kids and sets off to hold them ransom and make some money. They get there and tie up all of them, including Morty and Summer, in a shipping container, beginning to make phone calls to demand ransom money from the parents. Beth, Jerry and Rick at Planet Mart are trying to get to them, but Rick can’t even program his portal gun correctly. He does eventually figure it out, but upon arriving at the shipping container, realizes he left his portal gun back at Planet Mart and therefore has no way of getting them out of the container.
Summer immediately calls the three out on smoking her High Forever, and declares that the reason she and Morty have been acting out is because Beth, Jerry and Rick are terrible role models. She rallies the campgoers, saying that Rick, the smartest man in the universe, isn’t going to bail them out this time, so they have to do it themselves. Their plan: get to the archery range to be able to fight back, and as a distraction, unleash the zooted Rick on the armed townspeople. While Rick absolutely massacres the guards with the various weapons his body is equipped with, Morty, Summer and the campers make it to the archery range, and mayhem ensues as they use their bows and arrows, as well as a multitude of other improvised implements of destruction, to take out the rest of the townspeople. The bartender surrenders, and when the campers are ready to execute her, Morty manages to calm them down, reminding them that they’ve won.
When all is said and done and Camp Shergale is practically in ruins, the campers are reunited with their parents and Space Beth shows up to retrieve her family. On the trip home, Beth (still high) kicks her clone’s chair and angrily laments that they haven’t had a threesome with Jerry in a while. Summer tells her parents that the “High Forever” only lasts a few days, and Rick calls out for some Del Taco.
Living with my old roommates, I got high a lot. It was usually fun, but I know the feeling of getting too high, so I can kind of relate to what Beth and Jerry went through, but I’ve never been that high (although I was forced to deal with roommates that have). I miss it sometimes, but it was definitely funny to see Beth and Jerry struggle through their trip, and even funnier when Rick joined them. Their plot was a lot more entertaining than that of Morty and Summer at camp: it just wasn’t as engaging following them, and the camp plot got old after a while. I did like how it all came together, and the episode as a whole still ranks in the upper echelons of Rick and Morty like the rest of the season. I think we have one more episode left, and I am very excited to watch it.
