President Curtis and Dr. Wong become smitten after a chance therapy session with Rick, only for things to get complicated when Unity assimilates the entire population of the state of Virginia.
Tropes:
- All Myths Are True: The Loch Ness Monster is real, but also a werewolf, with a silver skeleton buried in Lake Michigan. Also Bigfoot is real, but only in Washington.
- Bittersweet Ending: Ultimately the crisis is averted and everyone on Earth is returned to normal. However, Rick has ruined his chance to reconcile with Unity due to his stubbornness and has fully lost their trust. Also, President Curtis is at an all-time low due to his screwups catching up to him, how he tried to assimilate the entire world to gain a 100% approval rating and feel loved after being rejected by Dr. Wong, and now feels that like Rick he needs therapy.
- Brick Joke:
- Rick's first outing with President Curtis is to kill the Loch Ness Monster. When Rick calls Curtis later in the episode, the image on his smartphone is the pair standing over its corpse.
- During an argument, Unity tells Rick that they called him multiple times. The last scene shows Rick listening to those messages on his answering machine.
- The Bus Came Back: Unity, after having not appeared in the show since Season 2, makes their long-awaited return having taken over the state of Virginia in order to attract Rick's attention.
- Continuity Nod: The news lists the varioius crises Curtis has been president for: several alien invasions, a turkey crisis, the white house abandoned in orbit, and the dinosaur thing.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: When they approach Unity for help against the President's Assimilation Plot, Dr. Wong sides with Unity and points out to Rick that this whole mess would not have happened had he not ignored Unity's voicemails multiple times.
- Deadline News: The two anchors of 58 RGBH News are assaulted by hive-minds while on air.
- Desperately Craves Affection: President Curtis is jealous of how the Governor of Virginia has a 100% approval rating while he is floundering at 25%. After Wong basically dumped him, Curtis became so obsessed with winning everyone's approval that he's willing to turn himself into a hive mind and brainwash everyone into loving him.
- Domed Hometown: Rick encloses the whole of Virginia inside a dome to stop Unity.
- Droste Image: President Curtis watches the news on his phone about him watching the news on his phone.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After Unity turns him down, Rick grabs a six-pack of beer and goes to share one to Curtis.
- The Evils of Free Will: Touched on. Once the people of Virginia get their free will removed by Unity, they cease to have any crime or poverty and prosper in a shared economy. They also unanimously love their leader, a fact that intrigues the President.
- Funny Answering Machine: The last scene shows Rick listening to Unity's string of messages on his answer machine, each one getting more intense. Then the last message is from the leader of Scientology asking for more promotion for his church, causing Rick to hastily cut the message off.
- Given Name Reveal: This episode reveals President Curtis's first name is Andre while Dr. Wong's first name is Helen.
- Green-Eyed Monster: The residents of Virginia being happy and efficient with its Governor having an approval rating of 100% is apparently suspicious enough to the President to warrant an investigation. While his suspicions were right, it's the fact that someone is more popular than him that rankles him.
- Hand Stomp: President Curtis gets rid of a civilian clinging to the helicopter by stomping on his hand.
- Hourglass Plot: Rick ignored Unity and refused their help because he does not trust them. After they painfully free the converted US populace, Rick states he trusts them now, but they respond that they no longer trust him.
- Hypocrite:
- President Curtis points out that a 100% approval rating of anything is highly suspicious, only to jump headfirst into it when he becomes the new head of Unity's severed hive mind.
- Unity comes off as one as well. While Wong states that Rick is in the wrong for not answering their calls, they did the exact same thing when he tried to speak to them back in season two. It can be argued that if Rick wasn't taking calls, he didn't want to talk to them, and Unity should have gotten the message.
- Imposter Exposing Test: When Dr. Wong claims not to be possessed by Unity, Rick casually refers to her as a nutritionist, which she immediately plays into. Rick gasses her on the spot to free her.
- Ironic Echo: Early on, the President calls out Rick for not answering his call during one of Rick's therapy sessions. Later when the President ignores a vital phone call from Rick while in Virginia, the latter retorts with the same line:"Pick up your phone, asshole, when I call it's an emergency!"
- Jerkass Realization: President Curtis has one at the end of the episode where he recognizes that he may well need therapy after all his antics throughout the series.
- Karma Houdini: Despite doing it to help who they consider a friend, Unity ultimately faces no real punishment for body snatching the nearly nine million residents of Virginia just to force Rick into a dialogue. The only consequence they suffer is the mental strain of voluntarily releasing a third of the United States population from their hive mind all at once.
- Landmarking the Hidden Base: Virginia's dome hub is located underneath the Washington Monument
in Richmond. - Mind-Control Eyes: Characters under Unity's control have their eyes turned bright yellow-green. When President Curtis takes over the disconnected part of their hive, his version is represented by a faded yellow.
- Noodle Incident: Dr. Wong says she hasn't done field work since grad school when the President recruits for a mission to infiltrate Virginia. What kind of fieldwork that was is never elaborated. She was part of a hippie sex cult when she was in grad school, too.
- No Sympathy: Rick belittles Unity's pain from being telepathically cut off from the state of Virginia as losing a finger. The thing is, losing a finger still very much hurts. When they do it again with a much greater population in front of him, Rick sees how much pain it puts them through and admits he trusts them for doing it. Unfortunately, by that point the suffering they endured due to his stubbornness has burned that bridge for them.
- Not Helping Your Case: When Unity is shocked that Rick created a spray that could free people from their control Rick just fires back that the present situation only reinforces his reasons for having something like that.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Mind-controlled characters spread their "infection" by vomiting into other peoples' mouths.
- Portal Cut: One woman in the Curtis hive mind gets her hand cut off in the process of teleporting Dr. Wong out of the limo.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: The President before he starts shooting at a crowd from his helicopter:"Civil war, baby!"
- Properly Paranoid: Curtis becomes suspicious about the fact that not only has Virginia sequestered itself to be exclusively for lovers and refuses to let anyone else in, but also that their governor is now a Universally Beloved Leader, assuming they've become some kind of cult. While this isn't completely correct, he's pretty close; it's because everyone there has been taken over by Unity, a Hive Mind.
- Psychic Block Defense: Rick's dome blocks Unity's telepathy, leaving the population of Virginia cut off from their influence but still possessed. Without their direction, they'll attach to the first new mind that connects to them, which President Curtis does to get his approval ratings up.
- Schmuck Bait: Mr. Stabby has swords for arms, legs, and a nose, and regularly kills audience members who ask questions. Rick questions why anyone would buy tickets, with Morty attributing it to celebrity culture.
- Shipping Torpedo: Rick is very much against President Curtis (his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis) dating Dr. Wong (his therapist), and tells him off for it several times, including temporarily firing Wong until he needs her help again and refusing to help the President until the latter's own actions get out of hand.
- Spreading Disaster Map Graphic: Lampshaded by Rick when Unity displays an animation showing the dangers of their Hive Mind people getting hijacked by another Hive Queen."You made a powerpoint!?"
- Start X to Stop X: In order to stop the Curtis Hive Mind, Rick has to ask Unity to invade and take over with their own. They, however, are kind enough to release the United States population once they're finished.
- Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Rick threatens to kill himself as a last-ditch measure to make Unity stop, even though they only want to talk to him.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Unity says this word-for-word after she tells Rick that releasing millions of people at once will tire her out a lot since she's never done it before.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: On-screen vomiting of mind-controlled characters takes up quite a portion of screen time. There's even a sequence of a war of sorts between Unity and Curtis' forces converting each other, with Unity's forces projectile vomiting. Unity wins by using a giant creature with multiple mouths that floods the streets with vomit.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: It's implied that the President is chasing for his late mother's approval which he never got when she was alive.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Curtis was already emotionally desperate when he sought to become the new center of the hive mind of Virginia, but Rick also says a human mind can't handle being spread out between that many people.
