Original air date: 5/10/2020
Rick and Morty wake up on a facehugger colony. After an amazing escape, they realize they left Summer behind and have to go back.
Tropes:
- Alone-with-Prisoner Ploy: Summer gets Rick and Morty locked up so she can talk to them in private.
- Artistic Licence – Biology: The parasites have one child and then die so they'd never be able to increase their numbers. Some would inevitably get killed before they had a chance to breed, meaning their numbers would gradually decline.
- Bad Liar:
- Morty's attempts to pretend that the dead facehugger whom he's wearing across his face like a mask is still possessing him are not very convincing. Rick pretty quickly gives up on continuing the façade and just tells Morty to run.
- Morty claims Summer is upstairs sleeping when Beth asks where she went. Rick criticizes him for the obvious lie, but Morty shoots back that Rick couldn't manage anything better on the fly.
- Big Sister Instinct: Summer helping the facehuggers develop their society is in large part so they won't just kill Morty and Rick after 30 minutes by forcing them to defecate eggs the way they usually do with their hosts. Later, Summer directly and seriously tells Steve, the parasite possessing Morty, that he needs to give her brother back.
- Black Comedy: Rick and Morty agree that pulling a 9/11 on the facehugger version of the Twin Towers would be a bit much. Bombing their version of Pearl Harbor, on the other hand, is acceptable.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The face-hugging parasites do take over the bodies of other aliens and soon thereafter kill them by forcing the hosts to defecate eggs, but from their perspective, since their "Glorzo" society is otherwise peaceful, they see it as assimilating other, more violent beings to their more peaceful ways, especially after Summer encourages them to evolve as a society rather than just immediately shitting an egg and dying. They lampshade this at the end when, as Morty apologizes for killing them and states that they (Rick, Morty, and Summer) did so because they thought the aliens were evil, the aliens retort by demanding to know why they would think that when the facehuggers have a tower that repeatedly says "Glorzo is Peace".
- Briar Patching: Rick plays along with Summer's "punishment" of putting him and Morty in their car (with the pretense of it being an execution) by begging his captors not to follow the order (in a flat, dull tone that almost sounds like sarcasm).Rick: No, no, this is like torture! I hate being in my car!
Summer: You deserve it! You pieces of shit! - Brick Joke: Jerry's only speaking scene in the episode has him state that he's been into beekeeping lately (and the honey that the family is using for their breakfast was apparently produced by these bees). In The Stinger, we see him actually tending to his bees, as Summer and Tricia watch from the window.
- Brown Note: Morty's harmonica playing causes the facehuggers to involuntarily birth their eggs.
- Captivity Harmonica: Morty plays one in his cell when he and Rick get locked up on Summer's command.
- Casual Danger Dialog: Rick and Morty have a heartful talk in their shuttle about how they should trust each other more while being chased by fighters from Glorzo.
- Chekhov's Gun: While in prison, Morty and Rick discover that harmonica music instantly causes the facehuggers to lay their eggs and die when Morty unintentionally instigates this. In the climax, when they and Summer are surrounded by the aliens, Morty once again plays his harmonica and Rick uses speakers on his ship to playback and amplify the sound to kill all of the facehuggers present so the trio can escape.
- Chest Burster: The facehuggers propagate by generating eggs in the bowels of their hosts, causing their groins to explode.
- Come with Me If You Want to Live: Said by Rick when they reach Summer in her Glorzo dwelling.
- Conversation Cut: At the dinner table, Morty tells his mother that Summer is sleeping. Cut to him and Rick in the shuttle where Rick scolds Morty for using "sleeping" as an excuse.
- Creator Provincialism: Rick and Morty referring to the damage they caused to the alien city in terms of American history. While it's understandable for the twin towers, they see the bombing right after as a parallel to Pearl Harbor instead of other instances when the American navy was the bomber is this trope.
- Cringe Comedy: Bruce and Steve are two facehuggers who are deeply in love, and at one point begin making out, stroking each others' faces, and holding hands—or rather, their hosts' hands. Where it gets cringe-y is that said hosts are, respectively, Rick and Morty, a grandfather
and grandson pair. To ram home the cringe even harder, since Voices Are Not Mental, Bruce and Steve have the same voices as their host bodies, and thus, when they start saying intimate things to each other while making out, it sounds like Rick and Morty are the ones speaking. - Crossing the Burnt Bridge: After causing as much destruction to Planet Glorzo as they can on their way out, believing they will never return, Rick and Morty realize they have to go back because they remembered they left Summer there. As Morty comments how much damage they caused, Rick points out that this is the reason they never return to worlds they've been to.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: The facehuggers grab hosts, control them, then use them to birth eggs that have more facehuggers. Deconstructed when Rick lampshades how it's not a very effective strategy to kill your hosts so gruesomely, especially when it's shown that they do this after about thirty minutes (although, this is because in this episode every facehugger produces exactly one offspring, which is just another facehugger, while this trope usually has either a pregnancy resulting in a different species, like the original facehuggers, or producing multiple offsprings).
- Facehugger: The primary focus of the episode, and spoofed. It's discussed how they don't have much technological development for a sapient species because they blindly kill their hosts laying eggs. Summer convinces them to hold off on doing that so they can advance their technology, reverse engineering that of all the ships which crashland onto their asteroid.
- Foreshadowing:
- Rick pointing out that there is an M&M Store comes off as a quick gag, but it reveals early on that the civilization had human influence.
- Spencer Grammer's voice can be heard as the announcer on the intercom praising Glorzo, indicating that Summer may have been involved in the mission before the facehuggers first latched onto Rick and Morty.
- Gassy Scare: Taking a dump in this case.
- Genre Blindness: The whole adventure started when Rick and Morty dismiss Summer's concerns and stared at wet alien eggs hatching.
- A God Am I: Rick proclaims that he is the God of Death while levelling the Glorzo city with his shuttle's canons.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Bruce (the parasite possessing Rick) became counterculture and preached for the parasites to go back to crapping eggs because he was jealous that Summer was taking Steve (Morty's parasite) away from him.
- Growling Gut: Near the end, Rick and Morty's stomachs both growl and they believe that they will shit eggs and die, but it turns out they just had to take a dump.
- Guilt-Free Extermination War: Rick and Morty lampshade this as they enthusiastically slaughter the facehugger race on their way out.
- Hypocritical Humor: Rick and Morty are perfectly fine with wreaking havoc and destroying an entire civilization... until they reach a pair of towers of roughly equal height, which they carefully avoid. They then pat themselves on the back for staying classy and not doing a 9/11 parallel. They also immediately after openly acknowledge that they are doing a Pearl Harbour parallel.
- Hypocrite: The aliens are basically doing what Unity was doing, except they have an actual society and individuals instead of just one hive-mind. This time, however, Rick, Morty, and Summer just see them as evil and kill them without second thoughts. In fairness, none of them knew what the facehuggers' true motives were until it was too late, unlike Unity who Rick personally knew, and the facehuggers do at least call them out at the end for having flimsy reasons to consider them "evil".
- In Medias Res: The episode begins when Rick and Morty have already been possessed by the facehuggers, and starts with them breaking free from control. They don't remember much of what happened before they were under control—including forgetting until they get back home that Summer was with them on the adventure—and don't learn about it until about halfway through the episode.
- Instantly Proven Wrong:
- Rick predicts that the facehuggers are easy to deal with since they cannot be highly evolved. Then they see the city with flying cars and stuff.
- Quickly after, Rick tells Morty that he shouldn't worry about putting the facehugger back on his face because it's dead. Cue the little sucker reviving and trying to attach itself to Morty.
- Internal Deconstruction: This episode examines the aftermath of Rick and Morty's adventures, showcasing the sheer damage they do and how it affects the aliens considering their adventure amounted to a massive genocide and terrorist attack. One even refers to Rick and Morty as the worst thing to ever happen to their species and Rick explicitly mentions it as the reason they never head back to worlds they've been to before.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Rick and Morty, after breaking out of the aliens' possession, don't remember most of the details about how they came to be possessed and ended up on the planet. This includes not even remembering that Summer came with them on the adventure.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Agreed upon by Rick, Morty and Summer as soon as they get home.
- Likes Older Men: In The Stinger, after finding some fascination with Jerry being a beekeeper, Summer's friend Tricia outright tells Summer she wants to have sex with him.
- Mook Horror Show: Rick and Morty slash with their swords through a crowd of unarmed Glorzo people.
- Once More, with Clarity: The flashback leads up to, repeats, and adds context to the opening scene where Morty and Rick break free from the facehuggers' possession.
- Oral Fixation: Summer decided to try having a toothpick in her mouth for this adventure, which incidentally saved her from the facehuggers because they would impale themselves on it trying to latch onto her, killing them.
- Puppeteer Parasite: The facehuggers cover their host's faces and puppet their bodies, speaking with their voice.
- Reflexive Remark of Reverence: Everyone facehugged is hailing Glorzo.
- Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony: This is how Summer celebrates the completion of the shuttle repairment.
- Shout-Out: Naturally to a few alien movies:
- The facehuggers and eggs are essentially the Alien franchise's Xenomorphs, only not quite as terrifying and more civilized. The franchise also frequently utilizes flamethrowers, which Rick decides that he'll use next time to slay aliens instead of swords.
- The Glorzo are based on Starro per
Word of God. - Using terrible music to defeat the aliens is straight out of Mars Attacks!. Though it could also be a reference to Hocus Pocus and Frisby from The Twilight Zone when Somerset Frisby used his harmonica to escape the aliens' clutches.
- The title itself is a play on Prometheus, the prequel to the Alien movies.
- Particularly, the infamous Too Dumb to Live moment when Rick and Morty look in excitement at the egg hatching and promptly getting facehugged.
- Star Wars is mentioned by Morty when they discuss their Guilt-Free Extermination War on Glorzo.
- Something We Forgot: Since Rick and Morty both have some Laser-Guided Amnesia after breaking free of the aliens' control, they don't remember that Summer (who was not with them when they woke up) came on this adventure too until they've gotten home and are eating breakfast with Jerry and Beth, the latter of whom asks about her. They promptly have to fly back to the planet to find her.
- Spoof Aesop: The heroes conclude that the message of the story is that they suck and everyone else does too.
- Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly: When Rick and Morty return to Glorzo, they try to stay undercover, but after a few steps out of their shuttle they are already surrounded by the aliens. Which prompts Rick to engage Plan B, fighting their way through with their combat suits and separate BFS.
- The Stinger: Summer's friend Tricia Lang observes Jerry's beekeeping in the backyard and repeatedly makes somewhat-awkward comments about it, while Summer mostly ignores her and plays on her phone. And then...Tricia: ...Summer, I wanna fuck your dad.Summer: Oh really?!
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Rick's "unnecessarily badass" suits for himself and Morty include a BFS for each of them. Since neither of them has had the proper training with sword fighting, we hear both of them complaining after just a few minutes about how much swinging the swords hurts their wrists.
- Third-Person Flashback: When Summer is reminding Rick and Morty about how they got to the facehuggers' planet, her explanation is shown in flashback form. The flashback includes scenes that Summer wasn't present for, and Morty asks her how she could have known about those things, to which she replies that she filled in some gaps.
- Three-Point Landing: Rick and Morty perform one when breaking through the ground to reach Summer.
- Too Much Information:
- Rick's and especially Morty's reactions when Summer responds to Morty's admissions of frequently jerking off by noting that she jerks off too.
- This is likely the source of Summer's annoyance with Tricia in The Stinger.
- Transformation Sequence: When Rick and Morty change into their combat suits.
- Voices Are Not Mental: The facehuggers have the same voices as their host bodies, whose vocal cords they presumably use to speak.
- Xenomorph Xerox: The Glorzo species is based on the facehugger form of the Xenomorph, but their life cycle is shorter: instead of hatching into a Chest Burster inside their host and then growing into a large monster, they simply force their host to lay an egg with a new Glorzo inside, then die together with their host.
