History Recap / RickAndMortyS3E3PickleRick

** Not to mention that Beth could have just easily dragged his helpless, limbless pickle body along to therapy, which Rick himself even points out. Beth was simply too frustrated to do so.

** Had Rick not called Morty into the garage to brag about turning himself into a pickle, Morty, Summer and Beth wouldn't have known Rick was a pickle (though it's possible that one of them may have picked up the pickle on his desk, and possibly taken a bite out of Rick if they didn't see his face). They would likely have just assumed he wasn't home and would have gone to therapy without him. Because Rick blabbed, Morty figured out his true intentions and Beth took away his syringe of anti-pickle serum, leaving him in his pickle form, completely unable to move or do anything but talk.

** Not to mention that Beth could have just easily dragged his helpless, limbless pickle body along to therapy.

** Had Rick not called Morty into the garage to brag about turning himself into a pickle, Morty, Summer and Beth wouldn't have known Rick was a pickle. They would likely have just assumed he wasn't home and would have gone to therapy without him. Because Rick blabbed, Morty figured out his true intentions and Beth took away his syringe of anti-pickle serum, leaving him in his pickle form, completely unable to move or do anything but talk.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Even discounting the fact that Beth stole the syringe which would turn him human again, Rick failed to consider that something might move him from his unsecured position on the desk, screwing up his whole plan. All it takes is a stray cat to send him on a wild adventure.

* BalefulPolymorph: Rick purposefully turns himself into a pickle and initially has difficulty going places.

* AbsenteeActor: Jerry doesn't make an appearance here but is mentioned. Instead, Creator/ChrisParnell voices security agents at the embassy.

* AbsenteeActor: Jerry doesn't make an appearance here but is mentioned. Instead, Chris Parnell voices security agents at the embassy.

* CompletelyMissingThePoint: Throughout the episode, Beth remains convinced that Summer sniffing pottery enamel and Morty peeing in his desk is the ''only'' issue, and Dr. Wong is a quack for not talking about it. She firmly denies any observations that the kids act out because they live in a family where showing emotion and vulnerability is, well, [[{{Understatement}} not rewarded]], so they've learned to channel their negative emotions (like their upset over the divorce) into unrelated destructive behavior (like desk-peeing or pottery-sniffing).

* FatalFlaw: Dr. Wong points out that Rick's adrenaline-junkie need for adventure shows that he has little regard for his life, in that he'd rather put himself in a dangerous situation than do something BoringButPractical, like therapy. Rick's silent DeathGlare shows that he knows this, but he refuses to shed that flaw or change in any way.
** Beth's is revealed to be [[NeverBeHurtAgain her guarded behavior]]. That she emulates a father who views [[LoveIsAWeakness emotion and vulnerability]] as a sign of [[GoodIsDumb weakness and stupidity]], who would belittle and dismiss her if she ever expressed genuine emotions to him, so she learned to become guarded and caustic. She continues the ChainOfHarm by belittling and dismissing her own kids rather than open up or validate their feelings because she's learned to equate opening up with being hurt.

* LikeFatherLikeDaughter: This is the first episode we really see that Beth isn't the best mother, even without Jerry around, due to internalizing her father's belief that [[LoveIsAWeakness showing

* BrokenPedestal: The kids have started to realize that their mother might not exercise the best judgment in regards to Rick.

Rick turns himself [[Main/{{Transflormation}} into a pickle]] in order to get away from family therapy. He eventually ends up in the sewers where he constructs himself limbs with rat parts. He accidentally winds up in a secret facility where he fights his way out. Meanwhile, Beth, Summer, and Morty spend time at therapy to discuss Morty and Summer's issues at school, only for it to end up talking about Beth's problem with her father.

* AllTherapistsAreMuggles: Rick obviously sees Dr. Wong as this. While she only witnesses Rick in his pickle form, she's still able to [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight calmly]] deconstruct his view of his intelligence as both a blessing and a curse, and sums up the act of turning himself into a pickle as a general aversion to whatever he finds to be dull or mundane, even at his own personal risk.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Discussed. Beth and Morty immediately figure out that Rick turned himself into a pickle to get out of family therapy (though the former outwardly denies thinking this for most of the episode), and Beth takes the syringe that Rick claims he doesn't need. When Rick has to show up at therapy anyway, so as to get the syringe with the anti-pickle serum, Dr. Wong asks why he was trying to get out of seeing her. He responds that he doesn't believe in therapy. She concludes that it's because therapy isn't thrilling like the adventure of turning into a pickle and enduring a HumiliationConga to change back, and that ultimately he has to decide if he wants to put in the work to heal his family. At the end, Rick hasn't taken her advice; he takes Morty on another adventure that nearly gets them killed, if not for Jaguar. ''Then'' he claims that you don't go to therapy because you need a DeusExMachina like Jaguar.

* DualWielding: When Pickle!Rick gets his new FrankensteinsMonster body, he straps on a pair of bracers that shoot screws and exacto blades. The blades can be used as swords instead of launched too.
* EnergyWeapon: Inside the secret facility, Rick {{MacGyver|ing}}s a camera and several other electronic bits into a powerful laser that cuts though several inches of low-density matter. He uses it to {{gorn}}ey effect as a weapon.

* EverythingIsRacist: Beth tries to knock Dr. Wong down a peg by calling her ''surname'' racist, as if her having a Chinese surname is somehow an offensive thing that Wong ''chose'' to call herself.

* HeelFaceTurn: Jaguar, the super soldier unleashed to deal with Rick, eventually ends up helping him escape. In TheStinger, he saves his life once more.

* IgnoredExpert: Beth and Rick don't attempt to take anything they were told by the therapist to heart, despite the fact that she understood them and their struggles perfectly. While driving home they both mock her and ignore Summer and Morty, who enjoyed the session and want to go again. Rick then takes Morty on a high-stakes adventure in TheStinger, which leads to Concerto nearly killing them in a DeathTrap. After Jaguar rescues them, Rick claims that meeting someone like Jaguar is why you don't go to therapy.

* IronicEcho: When left drying out in the sun as a pickle Rick states that it's the super genius equivalent of [[UndignifiedDeath dying on the toilet]]. Later on Dr. Wong compares his boredom with therapy to the boredom she'd have using the toilet, because it's tedious and not exciting.
* JerkassBall: Beth is aggressive and surly at the counseling session, [[PrecisionFStrike cursing]] at the therapist when she runs out of excuses and again at both her kids when they call her out on it. This is justified in that Beth makes it clear she didn't want to take the kids to therapy and had to because their school made her.
* KirkSummation: The therapist gives what seems to be a non-aggressive one to both Beth and Rick, basically boiling down to telling both of them that maintaining healthy relationships may not be as ''exciting'' as scientific adventures, [[BoringButPractical but it ultimately will pay off for people who put the time in]]. The therapist then goes on to admit that there are some people who would [[AllergicToRoutine literally rather die than be bored]], and Beth and Rick's interactions on the ride home imply that both of them are indeed this.

* MacGyvering: Rick uses his teeth to kill a cockroach, manipulate its brain with his tongue, and [[OrganicTechnology fashions it and others of its kind into crude limbs]]. In this form, he jerryrigged a whole assembly line to nail on rat limbs manipulated using the brain of a fresh kill, returning him to a quasi-humanoid form. And in ''this'' form, he flies a JetPack (also made from rat corpses and sewer junk), then takes out a heavily-guarded mansion of government agents using office supplies fashioned into a portable laser cannon.

* OneManArmy: Even starting as a limbless pickle, Rick is able to fend for himself, with his MacGyvering allowing him to work his way up from cockroaches, to rats, to special agents.

* OneManArmy: Pickle Rick!

* FrickinLaserBeams: Inside the secret facility, Rick {{MacGyver|ing}}s a camera and several other electronic bits into a powerful laser that cuts though several inches of low-density matter. He uses it to {{gorn}}ey effect as a weapon.

* IgnoredEpiphany: There are hints that Dr. Wong got through to Rick as he sincerely apologizes to Beth and is wearing a seatbelt (one of the only times he does so). However, he and Beth quickly resolve to get drunk and forgot the whole session.

** After getting flushed into the sewers via storm drain, building a suit of [[PoweredArmor power armour out of rat body parts and various mechanical bits]], [[CurbStompBattle and carving his way through a horde of rats]], Rick is in [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown the process of brutally beating a larger albino rat to death.]] All the while, Rick ruthlessly gives the rat one of these, stating that despite the things that made the rat special, Rick never considered giving the rat a unique name because to Rick, the rat isn't special, nothing more than another enemy to die at his hands.

Rick turns himself into a pickle in order to get away from family therapy. He eventually ends up in the sewers where he constructs himself limbs with rat parts. He accidentally winds up in a secret facility where he fights his way out. Meanwhile, Beth, Summer, and Morty spend time at therapy to discuss Morty and Summer's issues at school, only for it to end up talking about Beth's problem with her father.

* SeenItAll: Morty's reaction to Pickle Rick is to immediately start looking for the motivation behind this transformation, rather than be impressed by Rick's feat of science.

* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]]. A behind-the-scenes interview reveals that the rats were intentionally made to look gnarly and rabid so the audience wouldn't feel bad about Rick massacring them.

Rick turns himself into a pickle in order to get away from family therapy. He eventually ends up in the sewers where he ends up constructing limbs with rat parts. He ends up in a secret facility where he fights his way out. Meanwhile, Beth, Summer, and Morty spend time at therapy to discuss Morty and Summer's issues at school only for it to end up talking about Beth's problem with her father.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Discussed. Beth and Morty immediately figure out that Rick turned himself into a pickle to get out of family therapy, and Beth takes the syringe that Rick claims he doesn't need. When Rick has to show up at therapy anyway, so as to get the syringe with the anti-pickle serum, Dr. Wong asks why he was trying to get out of seeing her. He responds that he doesn't believe in therapy. She concludes that it's because therapy isn't thrilling like the adventure of turning into a pickle and enduring a HumiliationConga to change back, and that ultimately he has to decide if he wants to put in the work to heal his family. At the end, Rick hasn't taken her advice; he takes Morty on another adventure that nearly gets them killed, if not for Jaguar. ''Then'' he claims that you don't go to therapy because you need a DeusExMachina like Jaguar.

* HardOnSoftScience: Why Rick does not believe in going to see Dr. Wong. The latter then analyzes Rick's passion for scientific adventures and aversion as an [[AllergicToRoutine aversion to routine]], and that while therapy may not be as deep or entertaining, [[BoringButPractical it is safer and more immediately beneficial]] to those who work at it.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: After getting flushed into the sewers via storm drain, building a suit of [[PoweredArmor power armour out of rat body parts and various mechanical bits]], [[CurbStompBattle and carving his way through a horde of rats]], Rick is in [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown the process of brutally beating a larger albino rat to death.]] All the while, Rick ruthlessly gives the rat one of these, stating that despite the things that made the rat special, Rick never considered giving the rat a unique name because to Rick, the rat isn't special, nothing more than another enemy to die at his hands.
** Subverted with Dr. Wong's assessment of Rick's influence on his family. While she clearly has his number, she's not attempting to provoke or judge him, simply advising him. This galls Rick all the more.

* SelfImposedChallenge: Rick proclaims the reason he turned himself into a pickle was to challenge himself. Obviously [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial the completely unrelated syringe hanging above him which contains something other than an anti-pickle serum has nothing to do with this.]]

* ThrillSeeker: Ditto.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Rick walks through Dr. Wong's door as a pickle with prosthetic limbs fashioned from rat carcasses, and she simply greets him and continues with the therapy session. The planet had recently been occupied and visited by hundreds of alien races with even weirder public events happening before that, so it's certainly possible she's been desensitized to random weirdness.
** She also counsels people who eat poop, so she’s likely capable of dealing with all kinds of bizarre subject matter.

* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]]. A behind-the-scenes interview reveals that the rats were intentionally made to look gnarly and rabid so the audience wouldn't feel bad about Rick massacring them.

* {{Transflormation}}: Rick turns into a pickle. He changes back by the end of the episode.

** Pickle Rick making a triple headshot with one laser beam references ''[[Film/{{Deadpool 2016}} Deadpool]] making a triple headshot with a single bullet.

** Pickle Rick making a triple headshot with one laser beam references ''Film/{{Deadpool 2016}}, making a triple headshot with a single bullet.