Season 1, Episode 01:
Pilot
The beginning of a completely odd, dimension-travelling duo.
"Listen to me, Morty. I know that new situations can be intimidating. You're looking around, and it's all scary and different, but, you know, m-meeting them head on, charging right into them like a bull that's how we grow as people. I'm no stranger to scary situations. I deal with them all the time. Now, if you just stick with me, Morty, we're gonna be-" (A gigantic alien monster suddenly appears behind them) "HOLY CRAP, MORTY RUN!"
— Rick Sanchez
Original air date: 11/27/2013 (internet), 12/2/2013 (TV)
Mad scientist Rick Sanchez moves in with his daughter's family. Capable of intergalactic and -dimensional travel, Rick drags his grandson Morty Smith through some epic and painful adventures. Meanwhile, Jerry attempts to convince his wife (Rick's daughter), Beth to put Rick in a nursing home because he believes that Rick is a horrible influence on Morty.
Tropes:
- All Deserts Have Cacti: There are cacti in the place they land towards the end of The Teaser.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Summer has a crush on Frank Palicky, even though he's perfectly willing to pull a knife on someone and threaten to stab them for an imagined slight.
- Amusing Injuries: Morty's broken legs.
- And the Adventure Continues: Rick says he and Morty are gonna go on more adventures and that Morty's gonna keep his mouth shut about them.
- Artistic License – Education: Morty's math teacher Mr. Goldenfold hands out a test that only uses addition to his high school students. Though this could be a Take That! to the low standards public schools have with math and reading.
- Asshole Victim: Frank Pollicky is a violent bully quick to pull out a knife.
- Asleep in Class: Morty falls asleep during math class and ends up having a naughty dream about Jessica.
- Ass Shove: Rick has Morty shove the seeds waaaayyyy up his butthole to carry through customs. It triggers a temporary Dumbass No More side effect when they dissolve.
- Big Damn Heroes: Rick freezes Frank just as the guy talks about cutting Morty with his knife. Of course, this is less about saving Morty from physical harm and more about getting help for an errand.
- Blatant Lies:
- Rick trying to brush off his intention to nuke humanity, by telling Morty that it was a secret test of his character.
- After Rick and Morty are caught by his parents and the principal trying to flee the school again so Rick can extract the mega seeds from his rectum, Rick tries to act surprised that Morty left school again and scolds him to try and make himself look good. Nobody buys it.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Jerry to Rick for dragging Morty off on adventures and affecting his school performance.
- Chekhov's Gun: The grappling shoes come in handy when fleeing customs security.
- Dumbass No More: Morty demonstrates a good deal of knowledge at the end of this episode. Subverted in that this was just a temporary side-effect of the mega seeds dissolving in his rectal cavity.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Rick is significantly more rambling and incoherent here than in later episodes and repeats Morty's name much more. He also has a subtle New York accent you can hear whenever he pronounces the letter "R" that would later disappear.
- The first episode has no Stinger.
- Rick's ship has a sail on the back that we never see again.
- This is also one of the few times Rick is shown to panic in the face of danger.
- When Rick runs out of juice for his portal gun, he gets home through a public portal he modifies to work like his portal gun. "The Rickshank Redemption" shows that interdimensional technology belongs to Rick and Rick alone, and the Ricks jealously guard against any possibility of it getting out.
- Rick refers to the portal gun as "my interdimensional portal device" instead of its usual name.
- Jerry actually stands up to Rick and Beth in this episode, telling Beth bluntly that Rick is a bad influence on their son and planning to move Rick to a nursing home for making Morty miss school. Later episodes would show Rick despising Jerry for being an Extreme Doormat. Justified since this is a completely different Jerry compared to the current Jerry/Jerries.
- There's a heavy amount of out-of-focus backgrounds.
- Rick isn't as dangerous, smart, or well equiped as described and shown in latter seasons. Even the leg serum should be something he could make instantly or have on hand. Also he doesn't not once shoot guards with his various weapons. Instead he's just running and having Morty shoot with a stolen gun.
- The words "shit" and "fuck" are never uttered by anyone.
- Faceplanting into Food: A drowsy Morty faceplants into his breakfast because he's been out with Rick all night.Summer: (dully) Oh my God, his head is in his food. I'm going to puke.
- Foreshadowing:
- Rick says he's not gonna argue with Jerry, it's "Your house, your world". Because he's a Rick from a different universe who landed in this one after his family was killed and he probably killed this universe's Rick.
- Morty shows a lot of quick thinking and intelligence, despite Rick's claim that he's stupid. The writers have said Morty is potentially as smart as Rick and put a lot of effort in later seasons to showing that potential.
- Rick didn't actually need Morty's help, he could have gotten the seeds on his own using his portal gun. He just wants to spend time with the boy.
- Godwin's Law: When pushed too far, Morty compares Rick to Hitler, only to back down from this as "Hitler at least cared about Germany".
- Hypocritical Humor: Rick gives Morty a heartwarming speech about courage - only to run away screaming mid-sentence as an alien creature shows up.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: At the end, Rick promises to be 100% honest but lies right afterwards when claiming he doesn't know anything about Frank's death.
- Insane Troll Logic: "Morning? What does that mean? Are you saying my family's poor?"
- Just a Machine: To get him to open fire, Rick tells Morty that the armed guards are just robots. However, the one Morty hits screams out in agony and bleeds out.Morty: They're not robots, Rick!
Rick: It's a figure of speech, Morty. They're bureaucrats; I don't respect them. - Lame Comeback: Both Jerry and Rick in rapid succession:Rick: Be careful with that, it's beyond your reasoning.
Jerry: YOU'RE beyond our reasoning!
Rick: Takes one to know one! - Literally Shattered Lives: Frank Pollicky dies this way.
- Noodle Incident: Jerry says Rick can "make baskets and watch Paul Newman movies on VHS and mentally scar the Boy Scouts every Christmas at the nursing home. He refuses to explain when Beth questions him on that last one, just saying It's Personal.
- Overly Long Gag: Rick's And the Adventure Continues speech to Morty at the end as Morty's body reacts violently to the seeds he shoved up his ass earlier.
- Papa Wolf: It turns out that Jerry is very concerned with how Rick is using Morty and nearly moves him to a nursing home.
- Secret Test of Character: Invoked; when Morty convinces Rick not to destroy humanity, Rick claims that Morty "passed the test." He is almost certainly less than sincere.
- Series Establishing Moment: Rick freezes Frank Palicky in a moment of desperation and leaves him there, only for him to tip over and shatter into a million pieces, effectively killing him. Not only does it immediately do away with The Bully cliche, but perfectly illustrates just how seriously the show takes absurd concepts like Harmless Freezing.
- Short-Lived Organism: Morty accidentally releases a being from a glass jar that quickly goes from being an infant to old age and dies in a matter of seconds. Rick's response to Morty regarding it is "don't think about it".
- Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Rick is constantly pulling Morty out of school because he thinks school is a waste of time. It's revealed he has caused Morty to miss so much school he only attended 7 hours in two months.
- Shout-Out: Morty's daydream in the middle of math class features piles of numbers, much like in the Looney Tunes short From A To Z-Z-Z-Z.
- Stock Scream: While Morty exchanges gunfire with the intergalactic agents, "Wilhelm
" flees in horror. - Suddenly Shouting: "Hey, Tom? We know when we're losing him we can hear the beeps!!"
- The Teaser: This and most of the following episodes would have a cold opening.
- Title Drop: Rick does this over and over during his ending spiel.
- Treasure Chest Cavity: Rick convinces Morty to keep seeds in his rectum to sneak them through customs. They end up dissolving, giving him a temporary intelligence boost... followed by incapacitation for 72 hours.
- With Due Respect: Morty's father when talking to Rick:"Okay, with all due respect, Rick... What am I talking about? What respect is due?
- You Monster!: Morty says this to Rick, even comparing him to Hitler.
"The outside world is our enemy, Morty! We're the only fehh-friends we got, Morty! It's just Rick and Morty! Ruh-ick and Morty and their adventures, Morty! Rick and Morty forever and forever, 100 years, Rick and Morty's things! Me and Rick and Morty running around and... Rick and Morty time! All day long, forever... all- a hundred days! Rick and Morty forever a hundred times! Over and over, rickandmortyadventures.com. Www.rickandmorty.com. Www.rickandmortyadventures. All 100 years. Every minute, rickandmorty.com. Www.100timesrickandmorty.com."
