Recap / Rick And Morty S 5 E 6 Rick And Mortys Thanksploitation Spectacular

Original air date: 7/25/2021

In this Thanksgiving episode, Rick and Morty need to get a presidential pardon.

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Tropes:

• Actually Pretty Funny: When the President tells Jerry he has no right to criticize the POTUS because he doesn't make enough money to have taxable income, Rick laughs and agrees with the President that Jerry is a piece of shit.
• Almighty Mom: After Rick and the President both snap at Morty to shut up and the latter continues insulting him further, Beth angrily tells him not to talk to her son like that, and the President immediately backs off and apologizes. She then orders the two adults to stop fighting and has them all join the rest of the family for Thanksgiving dinner.
• Ancient Astronauts: In the 15th century, two alien races at war crashed in America, but bonded over their hatred of turkeys. Which is a good thing because back then, turkeys were huge, carnivorous, and hunted people like rodents.
• Artistic License – Law/Artistic License – Politics: The Turkey President gets the approval of all members of Congress by repeatedly raising their pay. In reality, not only does all legislation involving money have to originate in the House of Representatives, the 27th Amendment makes any change in Congressional pay not take effect until after the next election. And why would Congress even be in session on a federal holiday?
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Lampshaded by Morty when the leaders of two rivaling alien races eventually hug each other.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • When the Statue of Liberty robot awakens in the Cold Opening, it seems like the rest of the episode will be about stopping it. Instead, it turns into a background gag and the focus is instead on the rivalry between the President and Rick, which causes a catastrophic chain of events.
  • The whole opening makes it seem like it's a 4th of July-themed episode, only to reveal that it's actually Thanksgiving.
  • When soldiers first cross the shimmer to attack the Smith home, a satellite dish on the roof takes aim at them, indicating a beam of some sort. Then the center section of the dish flips around and launches a plant at them, which then eats them.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: The two Presidents fighting in front of a burning cornfield.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Discussed. As Rick and the President obsessively work on increasingly elaborate plans to outwit the other, each of them is told that they should "just fuck and get it over with".
• Berserk Button: The President has a couple:
  • Considering Canada to be a superior country to America, or at least suggesting that Rick Sanchez moving there would make it so.
  • Associating Thanksgiving with genocide.
• Big Bad: The Turkey President.
• Big "SHUT UP!":
  • Rick and the President, in unison, to Morty when he tries to break up their argument.
  • Rick gives one to Morty when the latter is delighted that the President finally pardoned him.
• Body Horror: The Turkey President has some very obvious turkey bits on top of its human form.
• Both Sides Have a Point: As Morty tries to point out, both Rick and the President are right and wrong when it comes to their feud. For the President, much as he might let his ego and insecurity drive him forward, he is right that Rick's antics are continually a huge problem for the country, which is implied to be a much bigger issue for him than his pride, and he is just one step short of full blown terrorism most days. Not to mention a lot of the trouble Rick causes is invariably cleaned up by the government when the man just wants to go off and forget about it. The whole feud this time started because Rick was trying to steal the Constitution and Morty accidentally damaged several national monuments in the process. For Rick he points out that the President doesn't have the moral high ground he believes himself to possess, something very much supported by how much focus he gives to Rick when he shouldn't for the sake of his own pride. Rick also points out that the government doesn't automatically possess the moral high ground just for its governance and can be more concerned with its own self-benefit than anything else, which this episode does show examples of.
• Butch Lesbian: There's an unvoiced female marine. In a blink and you'll miss it moment, she's one of the marines leaving behind a visibly pregnant wife.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Invoked and Lampshaded. Part of the turkey transformation process is to swallow a tracking pill, which is noted twice as something that will "be important later." Sure enough, the President loses his thanks to a kick to the gut from Rick and it's swallowed by a random turkey, who becomes the Big Bad of the episode.
  • Rick's flesh-coated robot dummies of Morty and himself, which he initially uses to trick the President's men, is reused as a distraction when fighting the Turkey President.
• Comic-Book Time: Played for Laughs as Jerry asks how many times Rick has played the pardon scam at Thanksgiving. Rick asks him how long he has been living with the Smiths, then tells him to watch his answer.
• Complexity Addiction: Even for Rick and Morty, this is a prominent example. Rick apparently habitually disguises himself as a thanksgiving turkey to trick the president into pardoning him. Instead of simply not pardoning the turkey that year, The President plans an elaborate military operation to prevent Rick from infiltrating the turkey farm, which causes Rick to develop equally elaborate plans to defeat these measures, causing the two to spiral into insane levels of scheming. Lampshaded, as it's implied that both men enjoy the adversarial relationship too much to look for a simpler solution.
• Crazy-Prepared: The President has an emergency shut-off wrench stored in the Reflecting Pool. Unfortunately, Turkey President knows of the backup emergency shut-off wrench installed there as well.
• Cue the Billiard Shot: Coop, the first soldier, gets introduced striking a pool ball.
• Cutting the Knot: Morty can't figure out which shade of blue wire to cut on the weaponized Washington Monument, so he just uses his laser to slice the thing in half against Rick's protests.
• Destroy the Villain's Weapon: Rick and Morty manage to destroy the Turkey President's rocket.
• Developer's Foresight: The turkeys programed their superweapon in the Washington Monument to say "Heritage Destroyed", and it does, when Morty cuts it in half.
• Didn't Think This Through: The Turkey President gives the real President a Sadistic Choice: either fight him or stop the Washington Monument (which has been turned into a rocket aimed to turn all turkeys on Earth into Super Soldiers). The President points out that he has Rick and Morty as backup, so obviously they'll stop the rocket while he stays behind to fight.
• Discriminate and Switch: A bartender refuses to serve President Curtis, not welcoming "his kind". Turns out, he means they don't serve Presidents, because Jimmy Carter has a large unpaid tab there.
• Dive Under the Explosion: The President dives into the water of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in order to escape the blast from an exploding Turkey President.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The arrival of the advanced aliens in America during the 15th century who then go on to wipe out the dominant turkey race reminds of the genocide of indigenous people by the Europeans.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Lampshaded by Morty when the Turkey President comes into view at the maize field.
  "Damn, this guy loves arriving from the shadows."
• Enemy Mine: Apparently, the two rivaling alien races united over the hate of turkeys.
• Escalating War: The turkey pardon plan has happened so many times that there are an elaborate series of failsafes and countermeasures on either side to foil the other.
• E.T. Gave Us Wi-Fi: The President explains that the rise of America was enabled by the technology handed down from the aliens that arrived on the continent in the 15th century.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Summer makes the connection between Thanksgiving and genocide which gives the President the idea to reactivate the aliens who dealt with the turkeys in the past.
• Every Man Has His Price: Congress willingly goes along with the Turkey President just because he's giving them all enormous raises.
• Exact Words: The soldier outside Sanchez's house is sure they are seeing the true Rick and Morty and not robots because he can tell when he's seeing flesh. Cue Rick discussing how the flesh-covered robots are going to buy them time.
• Fed to the Beast: The unchosen turkeys go down the elevator to the feeding chamber of spider Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Every marine having a truck and pregnant wife? Funny. But take a close look at the third truck leaving the line of homes; even the female marine has a pregnant wife!
• Friendly Enemy: They might act like sworn enemies, but the President still has the Smith's house as an emergency safehouse and Rick still keeps sets of clothes for the President. It seems they very much enjoy their rivalry, and aren't very good at hiding that from those around them.
• Genetic Memory: Humans turned into turkeys get copies of their memories before they're transformed back to normal, implying they're reborn. The President's tracking pill ends up being swallowed by another turkey who ends up getting turned into his body shape with turkey bits and inherits the copy of his own memories on top of its natural ones, which only helps it gain knowledge to start a turkey revolution.
• Given Name Reveal: In this case, a surname. Previously, the President was just referred to by this title, but this episode reveals that his surname is Curtis (as he is referred to as "President Curtis").
• Green Thumb: The Thanksgiving aliens can cause corn stalks to spontaneously grow from the ground.
• Half-Human Hybrid:
  • The turkeys converted into Super-Soldier humans.
  • Spider Franklin Roosevelt.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • Invoked by the Smiths when Rick declares he has no choice but to turn himself into a turkey and trick the President into giving him a pardon.
  • Later discussed when Rick insists on disabling the humanizer ray rather than just destroying the Washington Monument that it's attached to, much to Morty's confusion. Rick points out that they just got the pardon they needed and he doesn't want to run through the whole mess that led up to this point again next year for destroying a national monument.
• I Know You Know I Know: The whole planning session for the turkey pardon is built on this, with Rick and the President anticipating the other's plan step-by-step. It helps that Rick has fallen back on this tactic on an apparently regular basis.
• Immune to Bullets: The Super-Soldier turkey-humans are immune to regular bullets. Rick's laser guns, on the other hand, work just fine.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Turkey President is run through with a corn stalk.
• Insane Troll Logic: Apparently, since polio causes a degeneration of one's ability to walk, the USA government thought that a perfect solution was to create a hybrid with the genes of something who could "walk more", which also apparently just meant getting more legs.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While the President is obsessing over his rivalry with Rick to the exclusion of other important matters, he is correct that Rick represents the single largest threat to the U.S. and the world. Rick's antics often end up endangering millions and causing widespread destruction, with even the release of the secret Statue of Liberty assassin robot being due to Rick's actions.
• Kill It with Fire: How Morty gets rid of Spider Franklin Roosevelt.
• Landmarking the Hidden Base: The pods with the sleeping aliens are stored underneath the Lincoln Memorial.
• Language Barrier:
  • None of the soldiers understand the turkey-ified President trying to communicate to them in turkey language that they got the wrong guy.
  • The President only knows the activation phrase for the Thanksgiving aliens and otherwise doesn't understand them, but their intent is clear enough to get the point across.
• Laser Hallway: Downplayed. The opening scene shows the National Archives museum being secured with lots of laser lights. They don't affect the plot though.
• LEGO Genetics: Franklin Roosevelt was turned into a spider-hybrid by an experimental polio vaccine because it was reasoned at the time that they could fight a degeneration of the ability to walk by using something from the thing that walks the most.
• Lesser of Two Evils: Dwayne would rather have the Turkey President than the real one due to how much of a jerk the real President is.
• Limited Wardrobe: When Rick opens a hidden closet to get clothes for himself, Morty and President Curtis, we see several copies of the usual outfits for all three of them and Summer.
• Mama Bear: Beth doesn't appreciate President Curtis being mean to Morty, and gives him (and Rick) a thorough tongue-lashing for it.
• Man-Eating Plant: Rick uses one of these as a weapon that eats two soldiers storming the Smith house.
• Meat-Sack Robot: Rick leaves copies of himself and Morty at the house to throw the President off. The President anticipates the tactic, despite the general on-site insisting he can tell flesh from metal. It then cuts to Rick explaining that he covered the robots in actual flesh to help sell the ruse.
• Mood Whiplash: Rick and Morty's adventures tend to be rather farcical, as one would expect about an episode where people turn into turkeys and aliens battle turkey-monsters. The comes the stinger, with the more mundane details of living with PTSD...
• Monumental Damage: It's a bad day to be a monument in this episode. In order: the Lincoln Memorial, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty (hidden robotic assassin notwithstanding), the Lunar Flag Assembly, and the Washington Monument.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: The President has such a moment after performing his Dive Under the Explosion. Played for laughs as most of what he remembers is the release of every new Playstation console, and he's still proud of it. Rick lampshades it after the fact, making sure to only yank him out of the water after he was finished reminiscing.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Another trip to the White House, another bizarre Presidential secret revealed. It turns out Franklin Roosevelt didn't die in 1945 from a cerebral hemorrhage, but experimental polio treatments turned him into a Spider Person who lives below the building.
  • Rick tries to activate a Go Go Sanchez cybernetic implant but it fails because his body still has turkey DNA.
• Neck Snap: The Turkey President does this to the scientist running the turkey conversion ray when she becomes suspicious of his requests.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When trying to steal the Constitution along with Rick, Morty suggests simply using the laser gun Rick used to melt the vault door on the display case, and tries before Rick can stop him. The steel-melting laser shoots right through the case, the Constitution, the wall, the head of the Lincoln Memorial, the Liberty Bell, and finally impacts the Statue of Liberty, melting the exterior and releasing a robotic assassin hidden there by the French.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently Rick had to disguise himself as a turkey to get pardoned by the President on Thanksgiving several times prior to this, enough times that the President has thought out a multi-step plan involving a turkey-human transformation ray to prevent Rick from succeeding this time. It's never explained what he did to need a pardon those other times.
• Ominous Adversarial Amusement: After the President impales his turkey counterpart during the Final Battle, the latter starts laughing to the surprise of the former. Cue the turkey President pulling out a wishbone.
• One-Liner, Name... One-Liner: The last line spoken by the President, in response to Morty's unease about learning that E.T. Gave Us Wi-Fi.
  "Feel thankful, Morty. Feel thankful."
• Out-Gambitted: Rick and the President anticipate each other's actions while planning the turkey pardon, with each seemingly having a counter for whatever the other one has planned. Ultimately though, the one thing the President does that ends up catching Rick and Morty is turning himself into a turkey so he can see through their own turkey disguises.
• Painful Transformation: Getting turned into a turkey appears to be a painful experience.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Rick and Morty try to use the sunglasses of the turkey guards to disguise themselves. The President sees through the pathetic ruse.
  • Averted with the Turkey President, whose disgusting looks make his subjects think it's just a little unfortunate side effect.
• Punny Name:
  • A mild and probably involuntary one with the Turkey President. He pretends to be the President of United States of America, not the President of Turkey.
  • But voluntary and played straight in the french dub, where he is called the "Présidinde", à portemanteau of "président" and "dinde", french for the bird "turkey" (the french for the country Turkey being "Turquie").
• Racial Face Blindness:
  • Parodied. Rick's plan to get pardoned by the President as a turkey hinges on the fact that humans are face blind to turkeys. Later, when he's human again, he can't tell the Turkey President from another turkey.
    "Man, the face blindness is real."
  • Similarly, the President later shows up at a bar and the bartender acknowledges that he cannot tell him apart from the fake Turkey President shown on TV. He then concludes "Well, I am racist".
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Vice President Dwayne comports himself maturely and competently, in contrast to President Curtis getting into a feud with Rick and Morty. He argues against the President's Skewed Priorities and even cuts off his scheme against Rick when the situation with Killer Robot goes too far. Subverted when he sides with the Turkey President out of spite and because the latter sold New York to France and used the money to give him Congress raises.
• Robot Me: Rick makes robot versions of him and Morty before turning themselves into turkeys to throw the military off their scent. The President isn't fooled.
• Rousing Speech: Parodied. The President makes a speech to the soldiers at the bar to get them to fight for his cause... about speeches and what they are.
• Running Gag:
  • Summer and the Vice President both say Rick and the President should just "fuck and get it over with."
  • The President needs 10% of the white vote.
• Sadistic Choice: Attempted but subverted. The Turkey President tries launching the humanizer into space with the hopes that Rick, Morty and President Curtis would have to choose between fighting him and stopping the humanizer ray. Curtis is quick to point out that there's three of them and that Rick and Morty are spacemen, meaning they just as easily could do both.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: The Turkey President's solution to dealing with the limits of presidential powers is simple, he just turns huge sums of public money over to the members of Congress, who immediately agree to go along with all his proposals.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: A couple of US mooks wonder who's side they're supposed to be on: the giant turkey soldiers or the alien soldiers fighting them.
  Soldier: Screw it, we've done enough to pay for three years of college.
• Sealed Army in a Can: The map on the Constitution Rick was seeking in the opening wasn't to treasure, but to a secret crypt beneath the Lincoln Memorial. It holds two races of alien warriors in stasis, ready to be activated at any time by the acting President in defense of the country.
• Shout-Out:
  • The United States Constitution secretly being a treasure map is a reference to National Treasure.
  • The Smith home is surrounded by an "anti-portal shimmer" that also messes with the oven timer, a reference to Annihilation (2018).
  • One of the tools the military uses to test if the robot Rick and Morty are real is a Blaine Box, referring to magician David Blaine.
  • When Rick, Morty, and the President are surrounded by turkey supersoldiers, Rick shouts "Go-Go-Sanchez-Laser-Fists!", in a parody of Inspector Gadget.
  • Robot drones of Rick and Morty pilot a knockoff AT-AT from The Empire Strikes Back to attack the White House.
  • Possible one to Aliens, as President Curtis says to "stay frosty".
  • Turkey President attempts to blow up the President much like the ending of Predator. One of the Alien Pilgrims tosses the President his rifle in a nod to Predator 2. The Pilgrim even mentions having taken it from a Predator.
• Sins of the Father: When President Curtis is explaining spider-FDR's origin, Morty latches onto how he used the word 'we', implying that he's taking some credit. Curtis responds that 'the office carries baggage'.
• Skewed Priorities: As Dwayne notes, there is a robot Statue of Liberty running about attacking New York and all the President cares about is bringing down Rick. The President makes the excuse that Rick is more dangerous than the robot. The Turkey President eventually "solves" this problem by selling New York to the French and then bribing Congress with the profits.
• Spider People: Franklin D. Roosevelt was accidentally turned into one using an experimental vaccine for polio (created using spider DNA under the logic of "what walks the most").
• Spiteful Spit: Turkey Rick tries to spit on the turkey-ified President when he tells Rick to admit defeat. He forgets that turkeys don't have salivary glands so it's more of a dry heave.^note Which is not actually true.
• Spotting the Thread: The President is doubtful that Rick and Morty are actually at the house despite the commander on site affirming otherwise. He's fully proven right when the duo there wind up trapped in a David Blaine box, knowing that such a thing couldn't possibly hold Rick.
• Stay Frosty: Said by President Curtis. Naturally, considering all the other shout-outs to other action movies.
• The Stinger: Coop, his wife and newborn son are in the store shopping for groceries when a crate of blueberries tips over onto the floor nearby, and Coop's instincts from his time as a turkey kick in, causing him to start eating the blueberries off the floor turkey-style while his wife looks on in horror.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Summer and Vice President Dwayne say that Rick and the President should just screw each other and get it over with.
• Super-Soldier: The Turkey President converts normal turkeys into these. Some of them are even Kaiju-sized.
• Surrounded by Idiots: The President's view of his subordinates' efforts to stop Rick.
  Coop: [seeing the President staring at two turkey Marines] That's Fincher and Rodrigeuz, sir.
  President: It's Rick and Morty, you useless fucking stump humper!
• Take That!:
  • The President tells his Vice President that he was only chosen to get 10% of the white vote, an obvious shot at President Obama's choice of Joe Biden for VP, which Obama himself admitted in his third autobiography, A Promised Land.
  • The Vice President, Dwayne, is a toady man that sucks up to whoever gives him money even if what they are doing is wrong. He looks and sounds like Sen. Lindsey Graham.
  • Congress does whatever the turkey president says so long as they get their raises.
  • One of the Congressmen comments "He became President today" when given said raise; variations on this line pop up in media outlets every so often for what can be considered poor reasons.
  • The President's comment about how America used its newfound power (by colonization) to commit slavery.
  • As President Curtis flashbacks to the greatest moments of his life, we can hear him angrily declare he wants a PlayStation 5, a knock at the scarcity of the console. Not even The President of the United States can get one.
  • The Stinger, despite its absurd premise, is on the nose about the struggles veterans face and the apathy of some citizens to their problems, with one store patron saying he doesn't want to pay for the man's medical care.
• Taking You with Me: The Turkey President, after being skewered by a corn stalk, pulls a wishbone out of his chest and wishes to explode, trying to take the real President with him. Since they're in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the President is able to dive into the water to survive the blast.
• Teleport Interdiction: When the military surrounds the Smith house they cover it with an "anti-portal shimmer" meant to keep Rick from just portaling away. It also apparently screws with the oven timer, ruining the cooking of the Thanksgiving turkey.
• Thanksgiving Episode: It's got everything; Pilgrims, allusions to American history, turkeys, and the Smith family having dinner together. It premiered in July, though. Though that might be part of the joke, in that Rick claimed it was America's birthday, which is traditionally viewed as July 4th...
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: The President pulls a Come with Me If You Want to Live at the Congress, asking Rick and Morty to join him on the escape vehicle with the line "Who's dead weight now, bitch?"
• Traintop Battle: Turkey Rick battles two Turkey soldiers on top of a truck.
• Trojan Horse: Apparently, the Statue of Liberty that was sent over to the U.S. by the French was actually a mechanical assassin encased in copper. Morty accidentally destroys the statue's copper shell, awakening the assassin.
  Rick: Never trust the French.
• Two-Keyed Lock: The President and Rick have to pull a lever at the same time in order to activate the alien warriors.
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: The planning session for the turkey pardon intercuts Rick and the President explaining their plan as it was performed by one person.
• Weaponized Landmark:
  • The Statue of Liberty has a steampunk Humongous Mecha hidden inside it, a Trojan Horse courtesy of the French.
  • The Washington Monument is turned into a rocket equipped with a Transformation Ray to turn all of Earth's turkeys into hybrid Super Soldiers from orbit.
  • The Lincoln Memorial holds two alien races in stasis that the President can call on to slaughter America's enemies.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The steampunk French robot is never dealt with, and New York may or may not be a French colony.
• Wire Dilemma: Morty is told to cut the blue wire on the rocket, but all of them are shades of blue and Rick fails to clarify which blue he meant. Morty just lasers the monument in half.
• Wrench Whack: The President pulls an emergency shut-off wrench from an underwater compartment in the reflecting pool. The Turkey President pulls his own wrench from an identical compartment on the opposite side.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Coop, the first soldier shown who Answers the Call twice, first to be turned into a turkey to help the President with his pissing contest against Rick and then to fight the evil turkey mutants. In The Stinger, we learn he is so poor he can't afford knock off Lucky Charms and that his health insurance was cut by the President to buy more missiles. Oh, and he has a wife and newborn son to support, and the turkey experiment accidentally gave him a side effect of acting like a turkey addicted to blueberries, to which a bystander remarks that he doesn't want to pay for his healthcare.
• Zany Scheme: Rick transforming himself into a turkey to scam a pardon from the President at Thanksgiving. Rick has done this scheme numerous times, and it has only grown more complicated as the President got wise and tried to thwart his efforts over the years.

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