Season 1, Episode 09:
Something Ricked This Way Comes
Written by: Mike McMahan
Directed by: John Rice
Directed by: John Rice
Summer: Grandpa Rick, I like working here.
Rick: You work for the devil!
Summer: So what?
Rick and Mr. Needful: "So what?"
Summer: Yes, so what if he's the devil, Rick? At least the devil has a job. At least he's active in the community. What do you do? You eat our food and make gadgets. Buh-bye.
Rick: You work for the devil!
Summer: So what?
Rick and Mr. Needful: "So what?"
Summer: Yes, so what if he's the devil, Rick? At least the devil has a job. At least he's active in the community. What do you do? You eat our food and make gadgets. Buh-bye.
Original air date: 3/24/2014
Summer gets a job at a pawn shop owned by the devil. Jerry helps Morty with his science fair project.
This episode contains examples of:
- Acceptable Targets: Who deserves to get the shit kicked out of them by roided up Rick and Summer? Satan himself. A neo-nazi. A bully stealing some kid's ice cream. A member of the Westboro Baptist Church. A guy who's mean to his dog.
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: Jerry is really enjoying being validated by the rich elites of Pluto, so much so that he publicly humiliates Morty in response to a legitimate question about Pluto's destabilization.
- Ad Hominem: Morty argues with Jerry's theory of Pluto being a planet by presenting a well-worded and bulletproof argument backed by a vast majority of professional scientists. Jerry's response is to remind him of the time when he was five years old and he threw his poopy undies out the window and it landed on a bush while Jerry was trimming it. The Plutonians (influenced by their own biases) immediately accept Jerry's statement as a witty and appropriate rebuttal.
- Aesop Amnesia: When Mr. Goldenfold became impotent from his woman-attracting Deal with the Devil, he learned a lesson about lust and hubris, but when Rick then cures his impotence, leaving him with no negative side effects, he instantly runs home with two armfuls of ladies, screaming, "I haven't learned a thing!"
- Affably Evil: Summer is okay with working for Mr. Needful since she figures that every business hiring teenagers is evil in some way, and at least he is polite about it.
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Spoofed. At the end of the episode, Summer and Rick wonder what the Aesop might have been.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Alongside a school bully, a Neo-Nazi, a Westboro Baptist Church member, and the Devil, one of the random people that Rick and Summer beat up in the montage at the end of the episode is a guy who mistreats his dog.
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Mr. Goldenfold's cost of having women want him was becoming impotent. He falls to his knees crying, complete with Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" playing in the background.Mr. Goldenfold: Oh mah gawd, how could I not see this coming?! My lust! My greed! I deserve this!
- Mr. Needful's response:
- And then Rick nulls the magic of the cologne...along with all the artifacts in Mr. Needful's shop so anyone buying them can get away without paying any price. Needless to say, Mr. Needful rightfully declares him to be worse than any devil.
- And then there's the robot Rick builds. It wants to know why it exists.
Butter Passing Robot: What Is My Purpose.
Rick: You pass butter.
Butter Passing Robot: [looking at hands] Oh My God.
Rick: Welcome to the party, pal. - Mr. Goldenfold's cost of having women want him was becoming impotent. He falls to his knees crying, complete with Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" playing in the background.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Summer wants to support Mr. Needful and his business and competes against Rick because he's been a kind boss to her. Though this changes when she gets "Zuckerberged" by him later on.
- Bully Hunter: Rick and Summer react to Needful's betrayal by taking up an intense, steroid-fueled workout, and once they're super buff they go out and attack people the likes of which are Neo-Nazis, animal abusers and a "God Hates Fags" protester. And yes, an actual school bully.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Summer proved herself as a loyal worker to Mr. Needful by helping him relaunch his store online after Rick sabotaged his storefront, even going as far as saving his life. Mr. Needful repaid Summer's kindness by firing her and keeping the revived business all to himself, showing himself to be a greedy scumbag through and through.
- Crippling Overspecialisation: Rick's butter robot is programmed to serve butter and nothing else. When Rick attempts to befriend him, the robot merely replies that he's "not built for friendship".
- Devil in Plain Sight: Mr. Needful is a literal one and gets immediately recognized as such by Rick. Zig-Zagged as he's genuinely nice with Summer, but ultimately played straight when he ends up Zuckerberging her out of his business.
- The Devil Is a Loser: Mr. Needful is ultimately a pathetic figure, easily undone through common sense and modern science. Or failing that, a few good punches.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When Rick finds out that all of Mr. Needful's objects curse the people who take them, what does he do? Set up a shop right across from Mr. Needful's that removes all of these curses, and leaves their owners with only the benefits the objects provide. Bonus points for Rick literally giving Mr. Needful the finger. With both hands. While dancing.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Pluto subplot is a clear allegory for anthropocentric climate change and its deniers.
- Driven to Suicide: Mr. Needful attempts to hang himself after Rick removes the curses from his artifacts and drives him out of business.
- Evil Brit: The Devil, as voiced by Alfred Molina.
- Evil Laugh: Both Rick and the Devil. They even end up trying to out-laugh each other.
- Green-Eyed Monster: He denies it, but Rick is clearly jealous when Summer prefers hanging out with and looking up to Mr. Needful instead of him, to the point of going out of his way to destroy Mr. Needful's business.
- Heel Realization: Jerry realizes how awful he's being just because he doesn't want to admit he's wrong when he sees King Floppy Nips willing to throw Scroopy Noopers, his son, into high-security prison "Plutonamo Bay" just to keep the lid on Pluto's destruction.
- Ignored Epiphany: After Rick injects Goldenfold with an impotence cure, the latter runs off with his harem screaming "I haven't learned a thing!" Note that he actually did beforehand.
- Leet Lingo: n33dful.com.
- Literal Metaphor: Pluto is being mined hollow by the elites who don't care about the negative results of their actions. They're plutocrats.
- Literary Allusion Title: The episode's title is a reference to Ray Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, about a mysterious man who runs a travelling carnival and grants wishes, but they come at a price. note
- Little Shop That Wasnt There Yesterday: Needful Things, of course! (It used to be a Jamba Juice) And later Curse Purge Plus.
- Louis Cypher: Lucius Needful.
- Magic Versus Science: And as it turns out, science wins. Rick reverse-engineers a cursed microscope into a scanner that identifies the properties of the Devil's cursed items, then opens a business uncursing the items with technology.Rick: Hey, Morty, let me *urrrrp* let me *urrrrp* let me ask you a question real quick. Does evil exist, and if so, can one detect and measure it?
Morty: Ummm—
Rick: Rhetorical question, Morty. The answer's yes, you just have to be a genius. - Mundane Utility: Rick invents a robot to pass him a plate of butter within arm's reach. The robot is intelligent enough to be horrified by the utter pointlessness of its existence.
- N-Word Privileges: Discussed. Rick remarks that the microscope he got from Mr. Needful would have made him literally mentally retarded. Morty tells him that the word is inherently derisive, as it's objected to by "powerful groups who think that they're doing the right thing." Rick's response? "Well, that's retarded."
- Obviously Evil: When Summer is shocked that Mr. Needful would betray her, he points out that she knows he's the devil. It should have been obvious what was coming.
- Oh, Crap!:Butter Robot: What is my purpose?
Rick: You pass butter.
Butter Robot: [looking at itself] Oh, my God!
Rick: Yeah, welcome to the club, pal. - Overly Long Gag: Morty telling Jerry to knock next time he comes into his room.
- Overly Preprepared Gag: Retaliation, that is. At the end of the episode, Rick and Summer work out hard for weeks or months to give the Devil a good beating. Apparently, it was Worth It.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Rick and Summer, after using steroids to become muscular, go around beating up many an Asshole Victim: First Mr. Needful in Revenge for him betraying Summer, then other scumbags like a homophobic religious zealot with a "God Hates Fags" sign, a Neo-Nazi, a school bully picking on another kid, and a man mistreating his dog.
- Person as Verb: "You're Zuckerberging me?"
- Pet the Dog:
- Beth encouraging Morty to let his father help him with his science project because she knows how insecure Jerry is about his intelligence and doesn't want to hurt his feelings. Considering how dismissive or even abusive she usually is to her husband, that's especially nice of her.
- Despite initially refusing, Rick does take Summer to work.
- After completely making life a living hell to Mr. Needful and pissing off Summer, Rick is left wandering around the empty house trying to hang out with someone but fails and settles with his butter robot, who tells him he wasn't programmed for social interaction. Once Morty arrives from Pluto and asks Rick to help him with his science project, Rick plays it cool to hide his loneliness.
- Pluto Is Expendable: It is revealed that Pluto used to be a planet, but is shrinking and close to destruction due to its inhabitants mining Plutonium from its core.
- Produce Pelting: When Jerry finally announces that Pluto is not a planet, he gets things thrown at him by the audience.
- Shout-Out:
- The store is called Needful Things, and the sign is written in the font ITC Benguiat, which has appeared on more Stephen King dust jackets than you can shake a stick at.
- Rick describes the store's products as "Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury, Friday the 13th: The Series voodoo crap magic.''
- Rick describes his feud with the Devil as "just a bit... like when Bugs Bunny fucks with the opera singer for twenty minutes".
- The Devil breaking out into a fiddle solo in celebration. (Yes, it's "The Devil Went Down To Georgia".)
- Rick refers to Summer sarcastically as Rosemary's Baby.
- In its final scene, the butter-passing robot utters a flat, quick "Butter," a reference to the Kraft Parkay Butter commercials
.
- Shown Their Work: While the real Pluto didn't shirk due to excessive mining, its decreasing size over the years did lead to it becoming a Dwarf Planet.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Jerry gets super insecure because Morty asks Rick for help with his science project and when he learns that Pluto isn't a planet anymore, he spends the entire episode in denial and then relishing in the attention that Pluto's socialites give him and ignoring the King of Pluto's obvious manipulation.
- Solar System Neighbors: The B-plot has Jerry's insistence that Pluto is a planet leading to him meeting the natives.
- Sorry to Interrupt: Morty calls his dad out for bursting into his room without knocking.
- Spiteful Spit: Summer spits on the devil after they roughed him up in the closing scene. In the tag, she and Rick are seen spitting on their Bully Hunter victims.
- The Stinger: The still-muscular-from-steroids Rick and Summer (having beaten up the Devil at the end of the episode) go around beating the crap out of other shitty people, such as a Neo-Nazi, a school bully, a homophobe, and an animal abuser.
- Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Despite the Devil's powers being presumably supernatural in nature, Rick can use science to analyze and neutralize his cursed items (or at least removing the negative effects).
- Surrounded by Idiots: When an alien asks Morty if everyone in his family is an idiot, Morty says "Well, for sure me and my dad are."
- Take That!: Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg's name is synonymous with the act of betrayal.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: I'm the devil, bitch!
- This Is Gonna Suck: Morty has this reaction as everyone on Pluto hails Jerry as a genius, realizing this is gonna go straight to his head.
- Three Wishes: Summer uses a monkey paw (the one thing the store couldn't get rid of) to save the devil from committing suicide, by wishing for a lighter desk, a looser knot and knowing CPR.Mr. Needful: Jesus, what a waste of a monkey paw!
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Mr. Goldenfold has a My God, What Have I Done? breakdown when he discovers that the aftershave he bought from Mr. Needful makes women attracted to him but also makes him impotent. When he's collapsed to his knees and wailing about how he deserves this terrible fate, Rick injects Goldenfold with a serum that cures his impotence, who then gleefully runs off with his three new lady-friends.Mr. Goldenfold: I haven't learned a thing!
- Training Montage: Complete with steroid use.
- Ungrateful Bastard: After Summer goes out of her way to help the Devil turn his business around, he throws her out without any of the profits.
- Villain Has a Point: Rick may be doing it solely to dick over the Devil and Summer, but all of the Devil's curses are disproportionate as hell. Sure, Goldenfold arguably got off alright, but his punishments range from killing a guy for trying to cheat with magic shoes, trying to kill a family for buying a cheap doll, and killing a woman for buying a animal scarf from a antique shop, which wouldn't encourage the continual killing of real animals. Of course, this is a more dickish devil rather than the punishment type in fables.
- Was Just Leaving: When Rick accompanies Summer to the Devil's shop, Summer announces that Rick was "just leaving" in the hope he would get the hint and leave. But Rick decides to stick around.
- Wimp Fight: Between Rick and the Devil.
- Your Makeup Is Running: Summer's makeup is running when she returns home sobbing after being dumped by the devil.
