History Recap / RickAndMortyS3E4Vindicators3TheReturnOfWorldEnder

* PromotedFanboy: InUniverse, Morty becomes this when Vance gives him an official Vindicators jacket. By the end of the episode, he's no longer a fan.

* CosmicDeadline: Invoked. Blackout Rick, tired from a long night of activity, makes a third "trap" that simply challenges the heroes to sink five 3-pointers in five minutes. Also, instead of taking the time to accurately measure the contents of the punitive neutrino bombs, Rick "eyeballed" them, probably making them powerful enough to destroy the whole star system they're in rather than just the planet.

* EvilerThanThou: By the time the Vindicators get to World Ender he has already been defeated offscreen and is nearly dead. They conclude whoever did this to him is an even bigger threat than he was, and shortly afterwards discover that Rick, while he was blackout drunk, was the one who killed him. Whether or not Rick is a villain is debatable, but "Drunk Rick" certainly proves to be far superior to World Ender not just by having killed him, but also with the traps he made for the Vindicators getting almost all of them killed.

** Rick and Morty have gone on an adventure with the Vindicators before, and Morty is disappointed that the Vindicators have gone on a second adventure without them in the time between the first one and this one.

* RedBaron: Vance Maximus- Renegade Starsoldier, and Rick Sanchez- Tinkerer of Terror.

* ShoutOut: ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' is referenced by name as being the source of Drunk!Rick's series of tests.

--> ''Rick''': W--Dude, Morty, what happened i-

* SeenItAll: Morty is shown to understand what Rick was thinking in his extremely drunken state of mind and easily solves the puzzles Rick set up. He notes that Rick always babbles about defense budgets and Israel when drunk and has gone through "too many" neutrino bombs, facts not even Rick himself was aware of. The only thing he was shocked by was that the one thing the Vindicators had that Rick claimed to value was Noob-Noob instead of the two other guesses, nothing or Morty himself. He isn't pleased when he finds out.

* EvilerThanThou: By the time the Vindicators get to World Ender he has already been defeated offscreen and is nearly dead. They conclude whoever did this to him is an even bigger threat than he was, and shortly afterwards discover that Rick, while he was blackout drunk, was the one who killed him. Whether or not Rick is a villain or not is debatable, but "Drunk Rick" certainly proves to be far superior to World Ender not just by having killed him, but the traps he made for the Vindicators getting almost all of them killed.

* DirtyCoward: What does [[PhysicalGod Supernova]] do when confronted by a partying crowd that would possibly witness her killing two people? One a child? She immediately flees the scene without a second thought.

* Dirty Coward: What does [[Physical God Supernova]] do when confronted by a partying crowd that would possibly witness her killing two people? One a child? She immediately flees the scene without a second thought.

** Rick declares Crocubot to be "half cold-unfeeling machine, and half cold-unfeeling reptile". Crocodiles are actually more bird than reptile.

** The deaths of several Vindicators who were obviously CaptainEthnic, is a clear jab at ''Film/SuicideSquad'', where the only squad members to die were [[spoiler: the Native American Slipknot and the Latin American El Diablo]].

* TheStinger: Gearhead (who took Morty's Vindicator vest at the party when the latter didn't want it anymore) is boasting to some cute Gear-girls about being a Vindicator when they all hear an alarm sound. Rather than going to help, Gearhead [[DirtyCoward leaves his vest in a trash bin in the alley and runs away]], only to trip up and [[LaserGuidedKarma break into a punch of little gear-pieces]].

* FallenHero: Supernova, by the end of the episode, is driven off the edge by the deaths of 3 of the vindicators, that she tries to kill Rick and Morty, whom she blames for their deaths (though Morty wasn't the one responsible for any of them, and in fact tried to prevent them, while Drunk!Rick was arguably only directly responsible for 2 of them), and murders her lover, Million Ants, when he tries to talk her out of it (though she was already well on her way to becoming one anyway, after destroying an entire planet to take out one shapeshifting villain).

* MyGreatestFailure: When faced with a DeadlyGame where the answer is a location they never speak of, Crocubot deduces the answer is Dorian 5 due to the Vindicators exterminating the planet's population to weed out a shapeshifting villain named Doonomitron. Unfortunately for Crocubot, the real answer was Israel due to it being a recurring subject of Rick's drunken rants.

* OhCrap: When the Vindicators fall into the trap Drunk Rick made, Rick realizes he forgot his portal gun and can't just leave.

* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Zigzagged. Drunk Rick is just Rick while he's blackout drunk and not actually another version of Rick from the Council of Ricks, but Rick refers to him as a completely different person, never addressing him as "I". He also comments on the poor work he did with the neutrino bomb, stating it is a miracle he was ever able to destroy anything.

** Morty gets to choose the adventure for every other ten adventures he goes on, a deal they made in "Meeseeks and Destroy".

'''Rick:''' I will say, we ''are'' getting some good licks in while choking to death.
* ContinuityNod: Morty says he is invoking his right to be in control of one in every ten adventures. This is the stakes of the bet that is made between he and Rick in episode "Meeseeks and Destroy".

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Rick was not invited to the Vindicator's last gathering, which ended with them killing an entire planet's population to get one shapeshifting villain. Rick points out he could have easily found the guy without such desperate measures. Of course, Rick may have refused to go even if invited, and when he comes along this time, he proves they had very good reasons to leave him out.

* DarkerAndEdgier: In Vindicators 2, the one Rick and Morty weren't a part of, at least three heroes are killed, and the surviving ones destroy an entire planet to stop a shape-shifting villain.

* DefiantToTheEnd: As Supernova chokes Rick and Morty intending to kill them, they begin bantering about her "keeping the galaxy safe" speech.

* EasilyForgiven: Rick doesn't mind inviting Gear-Head despite his betrayal, and Gear-Head accepts even though their last encounter ended with Rick feeding him his own balls (in a manner of speaking). Rick lampshades this, pointing out that he winds up getting high with half the people he calls enemies.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Supernova and Million Ants allegedly had a baby that died in the womb... which was half a dying star and half a million ants.[[note]]It's your guess whether it means that the baby was partially made of 500,000 ants or one million ants that were half dying star.[[/note]]

** The OverlyLongGag of Vance's death is interspersed with two shots of the rest of the group watching in jaw-dropped horror.

* OverlyLongGag: Vance get mangled various way in the vent for about 10 seconds... then his severed legs fly around for about 5 more (at least until Crocubot decides to cut it short by disintegrating them mid-flight).

* OverlyLongGag: Vance get mangled various way in the vent for about 10 seconds... then his severed legs fly around for about 5 more.

** {{Deconstructed|Trope}} with Rick. Morty does admit Rick was right about the true, unsavory nature of the Vindicators, but [[DiscussedTrope further points out]] that he's such an asshole that no one wants to give him the satisfaction of being right. Rick simply responds that he knows people would rather listen to someone they like, even if that someone is stupid, [[InsufferableGenius over someone they hate, no matter how smart they may be about things]].

** {{Deconstructed|Trope}} with Rick. Morty does admit Rick was right about the true, unsavory nature of the Vindicators, but [[DiscussedTrope further points out]] that he's such an asshole that no one wants to give him the satisfaction of being right.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Even Rick is sort of worried that he might regularly go on anti-Semitic rants while drunk, and is relieved when Morty states all he does is ramble about defense budgets.

** The Vindicators may be self-absorbed assholes, but they weren't wrong on how Rick is difficult to work with.

* TheLoad: Inverted. Rick is the one who put everyone in danger and does little to actually help them afterwards, and the Vindicators are at each other's throats too much to get out. As a result, Morty is the the only person who consistently helps the group escape, despite being written off by both the Vindicators ''and'' Rick as a useless hanger-on who's only around for the press.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Rick's tests for the Vindicators is supposed to be one long point about their flaws, with the solution to each puzzle being to admit terrible things about themselves, such as their lack of originality or pathetic-ness. Except Rick's so drunk that after the second test, the others rapidly devolve into nonsense. Morty then reverses it on Ricky by summarizing his intentions in equally blunt terms.

* ShoutOut: ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' is referenced by name.
* EurekaMoment: During the second test (involving picking the one place where evil is that the Vindicators ''never'' mention), hearing Drunk Rick say "C'mon, guys, we're all thinking it. Don- (cough) Don't make ''me'' say it." has Morty realize (albeit somewhat reluctantly[[note]]"Oh. O-okay. This again?"[[/note]]) that the intended answer is Israel.

* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: During the second test (involving picking the one place where evil is that the Vindicators ''never'' mention), hearing Drunk Rick say "C'mon, guys, we're all thinking it. Don- (cough) Don't make ''me'' say it." has Morty realize (albeit somewhat reluctantly[[note]]"Oh. O-okay. This again?"[[/note]]) that the intended answer is Israel.