History Recap / RickAndMortyS4E8TheVatOfAcidEpisode

** In the mountains, on seeing that his girlfriend can't stomach ImAHumanitarian and runs off crying, he prepares to kill himself, not bearing the thought of living without her. But then she sees what he's doing and is even more horrified than at the thought of eating people, so he resolves to try and save them instead.

* BodyHorror: We get to see the flesh falling off of Morty's frostbitten finger as he tries to dial 911.

* DrivenToSuicide: When Jerry accidentally resets Morty's entire relationship with his girlfriend, Morty tries to woo her while apparently warning about their impending plane crash, but scares her, and she maces him in the face; when Morty falls over because of this, he accidentally presses the save button, thus repeatedly resetting himself to the point in time right after she rejected and maced him. He's so miserable about this that he goes to the zoo, sets a save point, then repeatedly jumps into a pit with angry gorillas and gets torn apart.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Watching someone, even your enemies, commit suicide by vat of acid would be pretty traumatic. The alien mob boss is very freaked out by it, especially because he thinks Rick took his grandson with him. He needs to be consoled by his two henchmen, resulting in them all hanging around and discussing the complexities of the vat of acid and what it does to people.
** When you do nothing but heckle and badger someone for a favor or do nothing but complain towards them, ''especially'' if the person you're complaining towards is dangerous in some way, the end result won't be pretty. Morty wouldn't stop heckling Rick about his fake acid vat and the invention HE wanted, so Rick purposefully designed the device to give Morty the worst possible consequences as payback.

* TheStinger: In a BrickJoke, the SWAT team member who got covered with Rick's fake acid and mistakenly came to believe he was immune to its effects goes on ''Series/TheTonightShowStarringJohnnyCarson'' to prove it, and gets boiled alive in real acid.

* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Morty’s reaction upon realizing the whole scheme was to force Morty to use the fake vat of acid to escape the consequences of his actions.

* NWordPrivileges: As mentioned above, some of the African-American protesters implied that Morty used his remote to say the n-word.

* {{Meganekko}}: Morty's girlfriend wears glasses.

** Rick mentions how Ant-Man and the Wasp can time-travel, like in ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse''.

** The other, more straightforward lesson that Rick wanted Morty to learn was simply, "''Don't ever make fun of me again. (Ever)'' ."

** Rick had installed air hose systems into his fake vats of acid so he'd be able to breathe, as well as hidden compartments on the bottom. One contains weapons specifically for blasting ladles meant to test the "acid", the other contains spare bones just in case people try to test it on another body. He even has a radio system to listen in on witnesses so he'd know when they leave.

* TheOneWith: The episode title says it all.