History Recap / RickAndMortyS3E3PickleRick

* ScoldedByAStranger: Dr. Wong proceeds to give a TranquilFury verbal beatdown to Beth and Rick for their self-destructive behavior. Note that this happened in their first therapy session with her.

!!Tropes:

* AirQuotes: Rick tries to claim that he wouldn't attempt to bail out of therapy, though as a pickle he couldn't do the air quotes.
* AirVentPassageway: Pickle!Rick is using the duct system to move through the building.
* AllForNothing: Rick turns himself into a pickle to avoid therapy, but the events of the episode ultimately force him to attend the therapy session anyway.
* 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.
* AnAesop: Fixing your familial or personal problems isn't some high-stakes adventure and the only way you can do it is to accept that it's banal and tedious.
* AntiVillain: Jaguar, a PunchClockVillain who is just doing what he can to save his daughter. When Rick finds out that the secret agency lied and Jaguar's daughter is dead, Jaguar quickly switches sides and seeks his freedom.
* BadassBoast: Rick declares he's coming for the man in charge.

* BigDamnHeroes: Jaguar saving Rick and Morty from Concerto in TheStinger.
* BlatantLies: Rick certainly did not turn himself into a pickle to get out of therapy, and the syringe full of fluid hanging directly over him attached to a pair of scissors attached to a timer set to go off after everyone else leaves is certainly not a cure for being a pickle.
* BoobyTrap: Rick built one which kills an agent who enters the room.
* BoxedCrook: The Russian boss employs the imprisoned Jaguar to get rid of Rick in return for the freedom of Jaguar's daughter. Or so he thinks.
* BrokenPedestal: The kids have started to realize that their mother might not exercise the best judgment in regards to Rick. On the car ride home, the kids also start to realize the full extent of their mom and grandpa's toxicity and how they'll do ''[[DrowningMySorrows anything]]'' [[NeverMyFault to avoid addressing it]].
* BuyThemOff: The leader of the Russians offers Rick $100 million worth of bonds if he let it go. Rick is not interested.
* TheChainOfHarm: Discussed by Dr. Wong. She quickly surmises that Rick equates [[LoveIsAWeakness showing emotion and vulnerability as showing weakness and stupidity]] and would dismiss or belittle Beth if she ever showed genuine emotion with him, so Beth learned to be caustic and guarded with her own kids, which caused Morty and Summer to act out in school due to not being able to talk openly about their feelings about the divorce at home.
* CharacterWitness: In TheStinger, Jaguar ends up saving both Rick and Morty when the latter two are tied up to oversized piano keys.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: 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).
* 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, 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. In 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.
* DidntThinkThisThrough:

* DramaticIrony: Beth deflects Dr. Wong's observation that she tends to keep her feelings closed off, by saying it's better than making your problems other people's problems. SmashCut to Rick shooting up a mansion he only wound up in because he refused to go to family therapy.
* 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 through several inches of low-density matter. He uses it to {{gorn}}ey effect as a weapon.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Rick fakes Jaguar's death, then tells the agency he wants money to be donated to Jaguar's daughter in exchange for their lives. When he finds out Jaguar's daughter is dead, he calls the agents liars with disgust.
* 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.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: The agent director calmly accepts his death just before the building explodes.
* FatalFlaw:

* ForcedTransformation: Rick purposefully turns himself into a pickle and initially has difficulty going places.
* ForScience: Rick initially tries to justify him turning himself into a pickle as just him wanting to experiment, though, in reality, it's just a way to get out of family therapy.
* FreezeFrameBonus: Just before Morty points it out, the syringe timer can be seen above Rick when Beth and Summer enter the garage.
* {{Gorn}}: This is definitely one of the bloodiest episodes yet. The scene where Rick slaughters an entire horde of rats is almost at ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' levels of brutal.
* HardOnSoftScience: Why Rick does not believe in going to see Dr. Wong. The latter then analyzes Rick's passion for scientific adventures and aversion to therapy 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.
* HeelFaceTurn: Jaguar, the super-soldier unleashed to deal with Rick, eventually ends up helping him escape. In TheStinger, he saves his life once more.
* 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 forget the whole session.
* IgnoredExpert: Beth and Rick don't attempt to take anything they were told by the therapist to heart, even though 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.
* InstrumentOfMurder: The giant piano in TheStinger.
* 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 counselling 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 some people 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.
* LameComeback: Dr. Wong manages to emotionally corner Beth and correctly analyze her and her father's toxic dynamic. As she's completely right, all Beth can do is swear at her. When Dr. Wong does the same thing to Rick, he notably has no witty response.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Rick's attempt to avoid therapy results in him getting his plan screwed up, forced to fend for himself in the sewers, fighting off Russians and a SuperSoldier, nearly dying and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking being forced to attend the therapy he was avoiding]]. On another level, he's forced to rely on others despite his wish to be in complete control of his destiny.
* LeParkour: Pickle!Rick reaches the elevator button by doing some of these moves.
* LikeParentLikeChild: 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 emotion and vulnerability is a weakness]], and she caustically belittles and dismisses her kids (just like Rick does) to deflect any blame from herself.
* LiterallyFallingThroughTheCracks: Rick turns himself into a pickle in order to avoid family therapy... only for his bad behavior to backfire when he ends up rolling out of his garage and into the gutter, where the rain washes him into the sewers - resulting in a bizarre adventure in which he ends up turning rats into a suit of bio-organic PoweredArmor.
* LoveIsAWeakness: Dr. Wong quickly and correctly surmises that a core component of the family's dysfunction is Rick and Beth internalizing that showing emotion and vulnerability is just a sign of weakness or stupidity -- that caustic indifference is a sign of strength and intelligence -- so the entire family has learned to redirect their negative emotions into unrelated outlets. (Like Rick turning himself into a pickle to avoid going to therapy, or the kids acting out in school due to being upset by their parents' divorce but being unable to talk about it at home.)
* 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 jerry-rigged 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.
* MeaningfulLook: Jaguar gives one to Rick in TheStinger before dashing away.
* MookHorrorShow: Pickle!Rick slaughtering the rats.
* MST3KMantra: {{Invoked|Trope}} by Rick, when Morty keeps asking why Rick would turn himself into a pickle. {{Subverted|Trope}} when it is revealed that Rick did it to avoid going to therapy.

* MundaneUtility: Rick invents a method to transform himself into a pickle solely to escape going to therapy with the family.
* NeverMyFault: Beth tries to deflect any of her problems the therapist shows her on her own children's problems (Summer was caught huffing pottery enamel while Morty peed himself in class).
* NinjaLog: When the henchmen storm the room and shoot the pickle, it turns out to be a dummy while Rick was operating out of another room via speakers.
* NoodleIncident: Whatever happened in TheStinger with Rick and Morty opposing Concerto that led to them being tied up and placed on a giant piano.
* NotSoAboveItAll: The agency director accepts that Rick is Solen'ya as he dies.
* ObligatoryEarpieceTouch: One agent does the hand movement to his ear when confirming to his boss that they killed Rick.
* OhCrap: The agency director once Rick announces he's coming for him.
* OneHitPolykill: After Rick turns a bunch of office electronics into a tiny laser cannon, the first thing he does is [[BoomHeadshot punch holes through the heads]] of three security guards at once.
* OneManArmy: Even starting as a limbless pickle, Rick can fend for himself, with his MacGyvering allowing him to work his way up from cockroaches, to rats, to special agents.
* OrganicTechnology: Rick originally has one made of cockroach bodies to move, but later constructs limbs made of rat parts. Concept artwork reveals the rat suit could have looked even more outrageous, akin to a Mech Suit.
* ProperlyParanoid: Morty spends a minute questioning why Rick wants him to pick up the screwdriver and turn over the pickle because it's entirely in character for Rick to set up a painful prank.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:

* RedHerring: It was believed before airing that the family therapy might have something to do with the divorce with Jerry, which is why Rick tried getting out of it (and may or may not have still thought this, [[ConsummateLiar it's always hard to tell with Rick]]), but it was actually about some problems Morty and Summer had at school. Later on, it also seems that Rick just didn't want to go to therapy in general, regardless of the subject.
* ReusableLighterToss: Rick tosses his cigarette from the helicopter onto a puddle of oil on the rooftop which in turn ignites a fuse and bang goes the villain.
* RubeGoldbergMachine: Rick's anti-pickle serum is suspended by a string through a pair of scissors connected to a timer. Later, he builds such a machine to decapitate a rat.
* 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. Beth has the same unfazed reaction to seeing her father as a pickle.
* SelfImposedChallenge: In-Universe, 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.]]
* SelfSurgery: Rick and Jaguar both graze each other in a firefight and seal their own wounds. Jaguar by [[HealItWithFire burning gunpowder in it]], and Rick by rubbing mustard on it and stapling on a pickle slice.
* SherlockScan: All it takes is an offhand comment from Summer that "grandpa turned himself into a pickle to avoid coming to therapy" for Dr. Wong to figure out the root cause of the family's dysfunction, and spends most of the session gently [[PullingTheThread pulling the thread]] to help the rest of the family see it too.
* ShoutOut:

* TheShrink: Dr. Wong is one, who does family therapy as well. Beth takes Summer and Morty to see her because Summer was huffing enamel and Morty peed himself by accident in class.
* SlashedThroat: Concerto's fate in TheStinger, courtesy of Jaguar.
* SnowyScreenOfDeath: The monitors at the Russians' control room go static one after the other during Rick and Jaguar's fight.
* SomewhereAnEntomologistIsCrying: Rick breaking a cockroach's neck causes it to go limp, and cracking its head open shows pinkish brain. Real cockroaches can keep moving for a while after their heads are ''entirely removed'', and their brain matter is [[http://labs.csb.utoronto.ca/tobe/dissect.shtml milky white]].
* SpikesOfDoom: A TrapDoor with spikes kills two of the Russian agents.
* SpoofAesop: Don't go to therapy, or you won't get saved by Jaguar from having your head crushed by a psycho pianist.
* StealthPun: Throughout Rick's adventure, he was in a pickle that whole time.
* TheStinger: Rick and Morty have [[NoodleIncident somehow]] been captured on one of their adventures by a villain named Concerto, who ties them up on top of a giant piano that will kill them by smashing their heads in when he plays the right notes. Just before he can do so, though, Jaguar pulls a BigDamnHeroes moment by slitting Concerto's throat from behind, saving the duo.
* StockScream: When Rick mauls a group of guards with a laser gun, one of them lets out a Howie Long scream.
* TaughtByExperience: Morty is rightly suspicious that Rick is up to something even before learning that he's a pickle, and quickly discovers that Rick has engineered this situation to get out of therapy.
* TherapyIsForTheWeak: Rick is not at all interested in therapy.
* ThreePointLanding: Pickle!Rick does this after jumping out of the toilet.
* ThrillSeeker: Why Rick would far rather go on adventures than go to therapy.
* ThroatSlittingGesture: The agent director uses this gesture to signal his men to bust Rick's hiding spot.
* ToiletHumor: Dr. Wong's two specialties are family therapy and Coprophagy. Beth, Summer, and Morty never seem to ''quite'' key onto this, and are constantly caught off guard by references to her other specialty.
* 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.
* YouDirtyRat: [[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.