History Recap / RickAndMortyS3E7TheRicklantisMixup

* PragmaticVillainy: Evil Morty spares the members of the Shadow Council who don't believe he's just a puppet. He also at least creates the illusion that he's keeping his word to create a better world for the Ricks and Mortys, creating a new curriculum at the School of Mortys and changing the rules of the police force such that Cop Rick, who did the right thing in his storyline, isn't punished for it. Time will tell if the illusion has weight.

* SequelHook: If Evil Morty's line "It's time for action" wasn't enough, Rick [[TemptingFate dismissively saying that whatever's happening in the Citadel won't affect them]] gives a good hint that Rick and Morty may be dealing with Evil Morty sometime in the future.

* InnocuouslyImportantEpisode: A commercial for "Simple Rick's" wafer cookies offhandedly mentions a "Central Finite Curve" containing an iteration of a Rick who was more interested in quality time with his family than science. We won't know what the Curve is, or its importance, until the season 5 episode "Rickmurai Jack.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Slick Morty tells the others that the wishing well doesn't exist. He's right. It was a garbage dump.

* LotusEaterMachine: Simple Rick is a family man who chose his family over science. Then Wonka Rick captured him and stuck him in a repeating loop of his happiest memory to harvest his endorphins and turn them into snack food flavoring. In the end, the Rick who rebels against the system is tricked into thinking he's escaped, then shot and stuck in the machine with that thought being run through his head to produce the flavoring.

* TwoFaced: Reporter D716-C looks like the right side of his face has been burned off. The life of a RedshirtReporter doesn't seem safer at the Citadel than anywhere else in the universe.

* AnyoneCanDie: A large number of this episode's major cast bites the dust, including: All of the Mortytown Locos, Big Morty and his bodyguards, Cop Morty, Simple Rick, Slick Morty, Campaign Manager Morty, most of the Shadow Council of Ricks (including Wonka Rick) except for two of them, and Trenchcoat Rick. It's hammered home in the closing shot, which shows their corpses (and those of many other Ricks and Mortys) floating around the Citadel after having been ThrownOutTheAirlock.

* AtlantisIsBoring: A meta version. The writers don't bother following Rick and Morty on their trip to Atlantis, instead going to the Citadel of Ricks to find more interesting stories for the episode. Rick and Morty seem to enjoy their trip, though, and even managed to find a way around the MermaidProblem while they were there.

* FamilyFriendlyStripper: The Stripper Mortys at the night club are all fully dressed.

* FantasticSlur: Cop Morty calls other Mortys "animals" and "yellowshirts".

* FateWorseThanDeath: The original Simple Rick and his replacement, Factory Worker Rick, who are trapped in a LotusEaterMachine while their brain chemicals are harvested to make cookies. Though it's unknown if the latter is released from this after Evil Morty takes over as President.

* HeKnowsTooMuch: Trenchcoat Rick is shown to have been spaced at the end, presumably because he had knowledge of Evil Morty's true identity.

* LotusEaterMachine: Simple Rick is a family man who chose his family over science. Then Wonka Rick captured him and stuck him in a repeating loop of his happiest memory to harvest his endorphins and turn it into snack food flavoring. At the end, the Rick who rebels against the system is tricked into thinking he's escaped, then shot and stuck in the machine with that thought being run through his head to produce the flavoring.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Slick Morty sacrifices himself in the portal to wish for a change. At the end, his friends think that the wish came true. Of course given that it is Evil Morty in charge, BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor is in effect.

* ObsessiveCompulsiveBarkeeping: Downplayed. When the shootout starts at the night club, Bartender Morty is briefly seen cleaning a glass.

** In a twisted way, President Morty gets a minor one at the end when dealing with the Shadow Council of Ricks. He could have easily simply had the entire Shadow Council killed, with the reasoning that they were ''all'' part of the leadership that was making the Citadel life so awful, but he specifically asks who agrees with Garment District Rick's views that President Morty would just be a PuppetKing, and only kills those who agree with him, sparing the two Council members who don't raise their hands.

* RewatchBonus: Candidate Morty dodges any questions pertaining to his background and his absent Rick. That's because he's really Evil Morty.

* SequelHook: If Evil Morty's line "It's time for action" wasn't enough, Rick [[TemptingFate dismissively saying that whatever's happening in the Citadel won't affect them]] gives a good hint that Rick and Morty may be dealing with Evil Morty some time in the future.

* WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture: Downplayed. Working-class Ricks perform menial labor in the Citadel, despite this being a society of super-geniuses. Having robots handle the unpleasant jobs would make more sense, but of course it would also undercut the Citadel being used as a parody of present-day society.

** To a lesser extent, seeing all of the Ricks and Mortys who were killed during the episode floating through space serves as this, especially since we see Trenchcoat Rick (Campaign Manager Morty's informant) among them, since it was [[KilledOffscreen never shown until now that he was killed]].

* AnyoneCanDie: A large number of this episode's major cast bites the dust, including: All of the Mortytown Locos, Big Morty and his bodyguards, Cop Morty, Simple Rick, Slick Morty, Campaign Manager Morty, most of the Shadow Council of Ricks (including Wonka Rick) except for two of them, and Trenchcoat Rick. It's hammered home in the closing shot, which shows their corpses (and those of many other Ricks) floating around the Citadel after having been ThrownOutTheAirlock.

* CrapsackWorld: This episode makes it easy to see why Main Rick does not like the Citadel. Those who run the place are corrupt megalomaniacs who do not give a damn about those in lower ranks than them, while its general citizens are left miserable and often living in the ghetto.

* GoodCopBadCop: Cop Rick and Cop Morty respectively.

* TokenEvilTeammate: In contrast to Cop Rick below, Cop Morty is plain scummy, because he doesn't respect the laws, threatens and needlessly kills people, takes bribes from a mob boss and finally betrays Cop Rick's trust. He's also a BoomerangBigot against Mortys.
* TokenGoodTeammate: Deputy Cop Rick is one of the nicest and most moral of the Ricks, being a stickler for laws, compassionate to his victims and honorable to his partner and his service.

* RealityEnsues:
** In a society that normalizes around two [=IQs=], even one where everyone is more or less the same, there's still going to be class division and someone is still going to have to do the unfulfilling working-class jobs.
** Political assassination is a skill like any other, and if you are an amateur, you are a lot less likely to know how to effectively kill a target so that he will die immediately of gun wounds.
** While "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick-Kind" suggested Rickless Mortys could lead normal and satisfying lives, this episode shows a number of them living in squalid conditions and doing awful things. While those in the school have it better, they still have to do what they're told. As the classroom scene noted, all of these Mortys have been raised to be sidekicks; without a Rick, they have no purpose or way to go back to their families, so they have to eke out a living however they can.
** "Is your uranium-powered cellular matrix making you sick? The answer may not surprise you: it's yes. It's uranium."

* UnflinchingWalk: Cop Morty doesn't look back when the Loco Mortys' house disintegrates behind him.

** Subverted (maybe) when Factory Worker Rick frees Simple Rick and sends him through a portal. You think it's because of what the factory's been doing to the poor guy, but then it's revealed the portal led to the blender dimension. Factory Worker Rick says that that's the oldest trick in the book and that he's a Rick, implying he knew it would happen, but it's unclear and he looks shocked when it happened.
** Subverted again immediately afterwards when Wonka Rick decides to set Factory Worker Rick free. If you read the rest of this page, you know what really happens to him.

* AtlantisIsBoring: This is probably why we never see Rick and Morty C-137's adventure. Besides, happy adventures don't tend to have much plot.

** The entire episode deals with the fall-out of Rick killing the entire Council of Ricks and indirectly destroying the Citadel of Ricks in "The Rickshank Redemption", and it's outright discussed in the beginning.

** Dumb Rick first appeared in the comics, in which he killed his Morty, explaining how he ended up alone on the Citadel.
** Not necessarily a call back per se, but Lizard Morty is reminiscent of Lizard Rick seen in The Citadel in the background of one of the scenes in "[[Recap/RickAndMortyS3E1TheRickShankRedemption The Rickshank Redemption]]".
** One of the dancers at The Creepy Morty is Cowboy Morty from [[Recap/RickAndMortyS1E10CloseRickCountersOfTheRickKind "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind"]].

** One of the campaign messages among Candidate Morty's supporters is ''[[Recap/RickAndMortyS1E8RixtyMinutes Nobody Exists on Purpose. Vote Morty]]''. Not exactly an inspiring campaign message, admittedly.
** In the portal-fluid drugs den, you can see [[Recap/RickAndMortyS2E5GetSchwifty "Get Schwifty"]] written on one of the walls.
** The Cop Morty and Cop Rick are quite similar to the Detoxed Rick and Morty from [[Recap/RickAndMortyS3E6RestAndRicklaxation the previous episode.]]

** The unofficial title of the episode is a reference to ''Literature/TalesOfTheCity''.

** The wafer factory owner, Rick D. Sanchez, III is attired like Willy Wonka from ''Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory''.
** The factory rebel Rick and his fate as the next Simple Rick is one to ''Film/{{Brazil}}''.
** One of the Rick politicians is dressed like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_McMillan Jimmy McMillan]], of the "The rent is too damn high!" meme.

-->-- '''Rick'''. [[TakeThatAudience He is unknowingly referring to the audience, as we learn throughout the rest of this episode.]]

* CampfireCharacterExploration: Slick Morty reveals his own background to Glasses Morty, Reptile Morty and Fat Morty during a campfire.

* TheDogBitesBack: The ''Film/StandByMe'' Mortys are chased away from a Mega-Fruit farm by Farmer Rick. After Evil Morty takes over, they've joined the Citadel security force and are happily carting off an entire wheelbarrow full of fruit while other security Ricks restrain the farmer.

* FacialHorror: The Rick D716 series that serve as anchors/reporters. D716-A looks normal, D716-B has a large scar over his right eye, and D716-C looks like the right side of his face is melting.

* AnyoneCanDie: A large number of this episode's major cast bites the dust, including: All of the Mortytown Locos, Big Morty and his bodyguards, Cop Morty, Simple Rick, Slick Morty, Campaign Manager Morty, most of the Shadow Council of Ricks (including Wonka Rick) except for two of them, and Trenchcoat Rick. It's really hammered home in the closing shot, which shows their corpses (and those of many other Ricks) floating around the Citadel after having been ThrownOutTheAirlock.

'''Candidate Morty''': (looks at self in mirror) I don't know... (turns around; pointedly directed to the remaining Shadow Council Ricks) ''Is it?''

* FantasticGhetto: Morty Town, the slum area of the Citadel full of cast off Mortys.

* StepfordSnarker: Slick Morty was introduced as cracking a joke in class and is generally shown to be fun loving. Then you get to his last scene and see how unhappy he really is.

* WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture: Downplayed. Working class Ricks perform menial labor in the Citadel, despite this being a society of super-geniuses. Having robots handle the unpleasant jobs would make more sense, but of course it would also undercut the Citadel being used as a parody of present day society.

* BondOneLiner: Discussing the results of the election, one of the Bodyguard Ricks sends Campaign Manager Morty out an airlock by saying, "It was a blowout."
* BorrowedCatchphrase: When Cop Rick starts asking questions about The Creepy Morty, Cop Morty tells him "What is it your kind is always saying? [[IronicEcho Don't think about it."]]

* MusicalSpoiler: Just in case the viewer hadn't guessed, Evil Morty's theme, "For the Damaged Coda," starts playing immediately before his identity is revealed.

* AssholeVictim: Most of the board of Ricks who purposely keep life crappy in the Citadel for the majority of Ricks and Mortys meet their end. Wonka Rick in particular dies after spending years profiting off Simple Rick.

* MythologyGag: Garment District Rick gives a speech about the Shadow Council not caring who sits on the throne, even "a goddamn Jerry". In the comics, Jerry from dimension J-19ζ7 (Doofus Rick's dimension) previously usurped the Citadel temporarily.

* LandfillBeyindTheStars: The Wishing Portal turns out to be where the Citadel dumps its garbage so it presumably leads to one of these.

* HopeSpot: For Factory Rick when Wonka Rick escorts him out of the building and into a new life. However, once outside, he gets hi-jacked and made to replace Simple Rick in a LotusEaterMachine.