History Recap / RickAndMortyS3E10TheRickchurianMortydate

** After Rick once again decides to rebel and taunt a government, risking making himself and his family {{Outlaws}} without any chance of normal life, Morty, wanting to avoid a repeat of Rick's run-in with the Galactic Federation, takes the portal gun and maroons Rick in his own mess.

** Despite stating that there wouldn't be any ''Film/BladeRunner'' stuff that could happen at the end of the last episode, he taunts Beth about her possible CloningBlues. If she's a clone, he's more or less admitting that he lied to the original Beth, and if she isn't a clone, he's psychologically abusing his own daughter and attacking her self-esteem, leading her to go to Jerry.

* CloningBlues: Beth undergoes this as a result of the end of last week's episode, contrary to Rick's claim that there would be "no chance of [her] going Film/BladeRunner" (that is, if she is a clone at all). Rick flat-out tells her she isn't and reassures her, but then [[SayingTooMuch asks if she's only pretending to have accepted his explanation because she knows he'd have to get rid of her otherwise.]]

* TakeThatUs: After Rick and Morty abandon their VR Minecraft session, Rick points out that they were slow to reference it as ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' already did episodes on both [[Recap/SouthParkS17E2InformativeMurderPorn Minecraft]] and [[Recap/SouthParkS18E7GroundedVindaloop VR]] four years ago.
-->'''Morty:''' Boy, they're fast.\\
'''Rick:''' Or we're ''slow''.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: The US president gets this after Rick and Morty successfully negotiate peace between Palestine and Israel, but since it's a power-play by Rick, the president isn't happy about it.

-->'''President''' What the hell was that?\\
'''Rick''' Death.\\
'''President''' What kind?\\
'''Rick''' [[MathematiciansAnswer Instant.]]

-->'''The President:''' The office of the Presidency ''cannot'' coexist with an infinitely superior god who refuses to submit to him... well, except for Poseidon, but he's locked up in Area 51, so it doesn't count.

-->'''Rick''': Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You win, Jerry. You '''win'''! No amount of genius can stop your dumb mediocre vacuous roots from digging into everything and everyone around you and draining them of any ability to fend you off.\\

* AwesomeButImpractical: The President's own teleportation technology requires the military to manually airlift the platform to its destination just for the President to step through it. At best, it just ensures that the President isn't in any danger during the transportation to the location, but he still has to wait for them to get there whether he flies with them or not.
** If Rick's assessment of the president's portal is accurate, then constructing the damned thing has tripled the deficit!

--> '''President''' "What the hell was that?"
--> '''Rick''' "Death"
--> '''President''' "What kind?"
--> '''Rick''' [[MathematiciansAnswer "Instant"]]

* FakeWeakness: the Feds restrain Rick and Morty with Sanchezium handcuffs. Too bad Rick made Sanchezium up!

* CaptainObvious: When the security guard dies instantly by touching him.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The president reveals that the only reason he doesn't have Rick and Morty arrested for their multitude of lawbreaking escapades - is because Rick is the only man who can really deal with alien threats. And when Rick blows them off when they need him to help with aliens, the president drops any pretenses they have and says they will be treated as foreign enemies if they meddle in government affairs. Although Rick wins out in a Technology fight with the president and murders his Secret Service agents? He's still labeled a terrorist. He has to fake dimension-hopping just so he won't be arrested and to avoid any harm that would come to his family so he can apologize.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The president reveals that the only reason he doesn't have Rick and Morty arrested for their multitude of lawbreaking escapades - is because Rick is the only man who can really deal with alien threats. And when Rick blows them off when they need him to help with aliens, the president drops any pretenses they have and says they will be treated as foreign enemies if they meddle in government affairs. Although Rick wins out in a Technology fight with the president and murders his Secret Service agents? He's still labeled a terrorist. He has to fake dimension-hopping just so he won't be arrested and to avoid any harm that would come to his family so he can apologize.

* AliensInCardiff: The tiny nuclear aliens land in a Brazilian rainforest. When Rick and Morty go, the Brazilian military are already on site building a perimeter and then the Americans roll in with their tanks, more or less making another alien invasion [[ItsAllAboutMe be about them]].

** Also near the end, the narrative seems to suggest that "our" Rick followed through on his words and decided to leave to a new dimension, and a new, much-nicer Rick who enjoys fishing and is friendly with the President has moved in with "our" version of the Smiths. Then we see that he is indeed "our Rick", who was just wearing a disguise he borrowed from Jerry to speak with the President. (Though this is probably easy for the audience to guess from the beginning, anyway.)

* BittersweetEnding: The family is happy except for Rick. During the ending, Jerry and Beth reunite, and Morty now has enough confidence not to be bullied into taking part of Rick's adventures anymore. Now, Rick is forced to live a more normal life with his family, or at least one where he has less control over them than he wants to.

* ConvenientReplacementCharacter: In order to smooth out the events of the episode with the President, Rick pretends to be one by [[PaperThinDisguise dressing up in fishing gear]] and posing as a different Rick who just moved in and was friends with his reality's POTUS.

** Throughout the series, Rick has killed plenty of people with his inventions with casual indifference. When a Secret Service agent is killed by his TouchOfDeath during the standoff, it sours the situation immediately, a Cabinet member lambasts him for not just knocking the agent out, and the POTUS angrily calls him out for committing murder in the Oval Office.
** His constant nihilism and ContemplateOurNavels attitude to the multiverse, and expecting his family to share his attitude and get with his program and crazy schemes, get turned back on him by the rest of his family. Rick tries to insist that the multiverse and everyone in it is meaningless and disposable, but Beth simply asks [[ArmorPiercingQuestion why Rick doesn't go find an alternate version of them that shares his attitude]], while Summer responds to his usual StrawNihilist spiel by farting, similar to how Rick usually reacts to other people's serious concerns with snide toilet humor. Rick does depend on the family for some kind of connection since he can't do without them, and decides not to leave, leading the status quo coming back.

* DoppelgangerSpin: One of Rick's gadgets is a device that creates a couple dozen illusions of himself. For bonus points, they [[GunFu cartwheel while]] the President ineffectually blasts at them.

** The reptilian stripper in the lounge Rick takes some Arab officals to.

* GovernmentConspiracy: Apparently, a number of US Presidents have secret areas under the White House where they engaged in drugs, hookers, and slave fights. Poseidon is also currently locked up in Area51.

* AHandfulForAnEye: During combat the president throws a bowl of cocaine into Rick's face.

* IWarnedYou: Unlike most episodes where Rick causing the deaths of others and disregarding the damage he's done is PlayedForLaughs, here it's played chillingly straight when he warns a federal agent that if the agent touches him, he'll die and then sure enough, the agent promptly dies after touching Rick. While everyone is horrified [[ConditionedToAcceptHorror (even Morty)]], Rick did in fact warn them, and given [[SociopathicHero his personality]], was surprisingly insistent with his warning.
-->'''Rick:''' Son, you have a right to refuse his order and I guarantee you're going to die if you touch me and there's no afterlife, everything just goes black. Don't do it. ''(cue the agent touching him and then falling down dead)''

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The President is relatively the sanest leader to cooperate with Rick and Morty. While he's furious with them for leaving the White House to face the monster as previously agreed. He then decides to, instead of blasting the hell out of them, to try and conduct missions without them and tells them Rick is a free agent. Rick to spite him starts doing the President's job better while giving him the credit. While the President is annoyed about this because he knows Rick is doing it to get his goat, he just orders Rick and Morty to leave the White House. It's not until Rick kills a Secret Service agent that the President pulls out the big guns, and the mecha suit.

* TheStinger: Mr. Poopybutthole shows up like he did in last finale's stinger. Now, he's married and has a kid, promising another long hiatus.

** Rick's StrawNihilist attitude, which is something that the show makes fun of very often, finally comes to a head in this episode. After all the crap that the family has been through, they find their own meaning in life while Rick continues to think of it all as meaningless. This culminates in the family ignoring Rick's attitude and not caring if he actually stays or goes. Which is one of the central premises in the show: "The knowledge that nothing matters--while accurate--gets you nowhere".

* TookALevelInBadass: In "Get Schwifty", the POTUS was a weakling who came inches from being fragged by his own general. Here he's a ScienceHero who is physically adept, and manages to score a draw with Rick Sanchez, becoming the only authority and government that Rick has opposed to still remain standing after getting in conflict with him. But...

* ActionPolitician: The President engages Rick in personal battle.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Rick finally admits that Jerry is better at being the patriarch of the Smith-Sanchez household than he is:

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Morty leaves while Rick and the President fight, no longer interested in a selfie with the latter.

* CoolGate: The President has a teleporter which is a copy of the Nether Portal from ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', complete with a soldier having to use a lighter to boot it up.

* TeleportersAndTransporters: The President has a teleporter which is a copy of the Nether Portal from ''Minecraft'', complete with a soldier having to use a lighter to boot it up.