Rick scientifically proves the existence of the afterlife so he can mine it for infinite energy, only to earn the ire of Bigfoot and the Pope.
Tropes:
- Afterlife Welcome: In the opening scene, Jerry is greeted by his grandmother at the gates of the afterlife. He asks where his grandfather is, so she explains that he's gotten tired of showing up after Jerry has repeated this song-and-dance eight times now. Jerry is then pulled back to life, revealing that Rick and Morty are repeatedly exposing him to a Near-Death Experience to study the afterlife.
- All for Nothing: The story is kicked off by Rick attempting to tap into the infinity energy of the afterlife. He succeeds but is forced to destroy the conduit because the Pope immediately siphons all the energy to become an all-powerful God-Emperor, rendering the whole adventure pointless.
- Artistic License – Religion:
- While not killing is one of the commandments, Popes throughout history have demonstrated liberties with the rules (the Crusades, anyone?). Also, defining Bigfoot as outside God's domain goes against the Christian doctrine for which God is everywhere.
- Norse religion and practices are just The Theme Park Version of Vikings rather than anything even remotely accurate.
- Bamboo Technology: Rick's gadgets and weaponry at his Valhalla relay station are based on wood and steel due to the lack of more advanced materials.
- Big "NO!": The Pope lets one out at the end before getting sucked into the "Popéball". He then gives another one in The Stinger upon learning that his replacement as Pope is Rick's soulless clone.
- Body Backup Drive: Project Phoenix is used as an escape route from Valhalla once Rick has tapped its energy. When Bigfoot joins the resurrection cycle, he's initially dropped into a copy of Summer before Rick engineers him a unique human body.
- Brawn Hilda: There is at least one female warrior in Valhalla resembling this archetype.
- Brick Joke:
- Back in "Air Force Wong", one of President Curtis's aliens (Fleeflak) predicted that Rick would be pummeled by Bigfoot. In this episode, Rick captures and provokes Bigfoot as part of his scheme to get into Valhalla.
- The Clone Rick from the lab in Norway—who's basically mindless and animalistic due to not having Rick's soul or consciousness in it, and who disappears partway through the episode once Rick and Morty first resurrect themselves from Valhalla—is shown in The Stinger to have become the new Pope after Rick captured the real Pope in a Pokéball.
- Call-Back: Back in the first episode of the season, Poopy got a pistol from the Predator they fought with Rick remarking that it is perhaps their currency. In this episode The Pope mentions that he traded three flintlocks to a Predator to acquire one of their wrist devices to allow Bigfoot to communicate with a guard remarking that it really is their currency.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Pokeball used to release Bigfoot is used at the end of the episode to capture the Pope.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Rick explains in a Technobabble monologue that afterlife realms like Heaven are created from extra-dimensional pools of infinite energy, which are shaped and projected into localized metaphysical pockets by mass cultural beliefs; if enough people believe in a specific image of an afterlife, then it comes into being as what they think it should look and function like.
- The Commandments: Pretending to be Odin, Rick hands out 10 commandments to the warriors of Valhalla, the most important one stating not to go near the energy relay.
- Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: A woman in the crowd covers her child's eyes when Bigfoot chases the resurrected naked Rick up a pole and prepares to kill him.
- Crazy-Prepared:
- In this episode it's shown that if an outside entity is attempting to destroy one of Rick's backup bodies from Operation Phoenix, the security system will detect it and set the clone loose in a mindless, animalistic state so that it at least has a chance to escape being destroyed long enough for Rick to revive.
- It's also shown that Rick not only has clone bodies for himself and Morty prepared, but Summer as well, because he says that "statistically speaking, she's the third most likely to die".
- Crocodile Tears: After killing Rick, Bigfoot starts mourning, buries Rick's corpse, and prays for forgiveness. Morty, realizing Bigfoot is actually intelligent, believes he's remorseful and sets him free. Then Bigfoot reveals it was a trick, killing Morty, wrecking the lab, and attempting to kill Rick's backup body too.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Rick gets curbstomped hard by Bigfoot.
- The army of Valhalla is no match for Rick's modern weapons.
- Likewise, Rick, Morty, and Bigfoot are no match against the Pope when he steals Rick's infinite energy device.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Granted, Rick was going to use all that infinite energy from Valhalla for himself but the Pope is no better, using it to vaporize Rick and Morty over and over again instead of sharing it with the world.
- Cut the Juice: Realizing they'll never beat the Pope as long as he has literally infinite power, Rick has the Vikings destroy the transmission tower after resurrecting one last time, so the Pope will be rendered powerless by the time they get back.
- Death Montage: Rick, Morty, and Bigfoot are repeatedly killed by the Pope's infinite power from Valhalla, each time resurrecting and going back for another round.
- Didn't Think This Through: Freeing more monsters to fight the Pope really sounds and looks cool, but they're just as powerless against the Pope's infinite energy and insta-kill attack. They do provide a distraction for the Vikings as Rick, Morty, and Bigfoot escape Valhalla one last time, albeit unwittingly.
- Escalating War: Albeit only on one side. Every time the Vikings are killed and rally to attack again, Rick has developed stronger weapons to repel them. Eventually, Rick just blows them up before they can even leave the hall, just when their leader was questioning if they even need to attack at all.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: Rick scientifically proves that religious afterlife realms like Christian Heaven and Valhalla are real, but he's still an atheist. Rick being an atheist is a plot point in the episode because it means he can't get into the afterlives of most religions, which is why he ends up choosing to enter Valhalla for his scheme since it only requires he be killed gloriously in battle on Nordic soil.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Rick calls out Jerry for believing in a "concrete and fog machine heaven".
- Gatling Good: Rick builds a turret-mounted Gatling gun for Morty to mow down the Vikings attacking their relay station.
- God Guise: When Rick's scheme gets found out by the Vikings, he claims to be Odin testing them. It begins to work before Morty knowing him reveals the ruse and it takes him blowing them up multiple times and appearing to them on mechanical wings for them to believe it.
- Go into the Light: In the opening Near-Death Experience, Jerry's grandmother asks him to follow her into the light. Jerry is then yanked back because Rick is repeatedly killing him to study his connection to the afterlife.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Bigfoot tries and fails numerous methods to breach the Project Phoenix pod before finally whaling on it with Rick's corpse in frustration. Unfortunately, whatever Rick's cybernetic implants are made of is tough enough to damage the reinforced glass.
- Healthy in Heaven: The versions of Dracula, the Mummy and Frankenstein at Valhalla look much better off than their living counterparts. Lampshaded by Dracula who notes that the Mummy is looking good, and by Rick, who notes that it doesn't make much sense for Frankenstein given that he is composed of multiple corpses.
- Hold the Line: Rick, Morty, and Bigfoot leave the other monsters in Valhalla to buy time for them to escape to the living world, at which point Rick expects them to be overrun and the conduit destroyed. This being Rick, he doesn't actually tell them the plan, so by the time the monsters realize they've been played, it's too late.
- Hollywood Satanism: Satanists are, of course, depicted as people wearing conspicuous robes, practicing animal sacrifices and literally worshiping the devil. None of it is correct.
- Honorable Warrior's Death: Rick needs to die in glorious battle against a mighty enemy in order to get into Valhalla. Turns out that losing in a Curb-Stomp Battle against Bigfoot will do as well. Even being murdered by Bigfoot while showing him kindness counts, as Morty learns the hard way.
- Humanity Ensues: Thanks to dying and being revived by Project Phoenix, Bigfoot is given a human body.
- Hypocritical Humor: Unintentionally, but Bigfoot stigmatizing the "we must poke corpses with a stick to ensure they are dead" rule as a fucked-up rule comes right after the one time the rule proved to be useful.
- In a World…: When Bigfoot gets his Translator Microbes from Rick and a new voice to go with it, he immediately decides to play with his improved voice by saying "In a world where time actually is money..." before getting interrupted by Morty who says he remembers that movie.
- Incoming Ham: Rick screams "Pope!" whenever he is at the doorsteps of the Pope's throne room, each time accompanied by Dramatic Thunder.
- It Can Think: Bigfoot turns out smart enough to outgambit Morty and speak intelligibly when he is given the means to produce human speech.
- Lame Pun Reaction: To Rick's "Popéball", as mentioned below, although subverted when Morty sheepishly confesses he was about to make that exact pun.
- Look Behind You: Rick uses this trick to overpower Valhalla's blacksmith.
- Loophole Abuse:
- Rick gets himself into Valhalla by dying in battle against Bigfoot in Norway in a room filled with Norse runes. These constraints are so loose that Morty winds up meeting the same fate when Bigfoot rather unceremoniously kills him.
- The Pope captures Bigfoot because he reasons that, as a monster, he doesn't technically run afoul of the Bible's prohibition on killing or having others do it for you.
- The Men in Black: The Pope's agents, dressed in black with sunglasses, show up in Norway to capture Bigfoot and Rick's clone.
- Mighty Roar: Bigfoot lets out a mighty roar once released from the Pokeball.
- Monster Mash: After dying multiple times at the hands of the Pope, Bigfoot calls in a Vampire, a Werewolf, a Mummy, Frankenstein, and a Fishman. They still all get vaporized together and sent to Valhalla.
- Mythology Gag: When trying to find defenses against the Pope's laser attacks, one of their attempts consists of them wearing armor made of pillows similar to the "doomsday device" seen in "Pillows and Blankets," an episode of Dan Harmon's previous show Community.
- Naked on Arrival: Rick, Morty, and later Bigfoot all arrive in Valhalla completely nude.
- Never My Fault: Rick only had to spend a few seconds actually answering Morty's questions about Bigfoot (instead of brushing him off) to tell him he was more intelligent than Morty thought and capable of deception to save him from being killed and avoid the whole mess. Rick then berates Morty, without apologizing for not giving the relevant information he was actually asked about.
- One-Man Industrial Revolution: Given a lampshade when Rick finds Valhalla at least has basic metal-working for armor and weapons, as his initial concern was that he'd have to start from scratch. Still, he gets from that to his own tech inside of a day.
- Onrushing Army: The warriors of Valhalla have no strategy in battle beyond screaming and charging in one big clump, which makes it incredibly easy for Rick and Morty to massacre them repeatedly when they try to attack Rick's energy relay. Eventually, they realize how pointless it is, just in time for Rick to drop several missiles on their hall.
- Pelts of the Barbarian: The Vikings and later Rick and Morty wear attire made of fur.
- Personalized Afterlife: Different people get different versions of the afterlife depending on their faith, though as Rick demonstrates, cheating the system isn't that hard with a little creativity.
- Pillar of Light: Rick sends the infinite energy at Valhalla as a beam straight up into the sky.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Bigfoot types "You are fucked!" into his wrist translator before giving Rick a beating at the Smith home.
- Prisons Are Gymnasiums: While being imprisoned by the Pope, Bigfoot does pull-ups in his cell.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": Rick lets out a "No, no, no, no, no, no" when he learns that Morty also got killed by Bigfoot.
- Respawn Point: Characters dying in Valhalla will respawn at the central inn.
- Resurrective Immortality:
- Everyone in Valhalla instantly resurrects in the main hall when killed, which proves obnoxious to Rick and Morty because they quite literally never stop coming. Rick eventually solves this problem by blowing up the hall numerous times to create a giant hole, scaring them into leaving his transmission tower alone.
- Because the Pope keeps killing Rick, Morty, and Bigfoot with energy siphoned from Valhalla, the trio is sent there each time they die, allowing Rick to beam their consciousnesses to a Body Backup Drive in his lab.
- Reveling in the New Form: Inverted. Bigfoot hates his small feet when he gets resurrected into Summer's body.
- Roboteching: At Valhalla, Rick creates missiles that home in on the enemy once in midair.
- Shoo the Dog: Parodied at the end with Rick and Morty weeping while releasing Bigfoot in his human form back into the woods, with Bigfoot protesting all the while that he is perfectly capable of understanding them.
- Sinister Minister: The Pope is in this episode but he is far from being a benevolent man of the cloth. He kidnaps Bigfoot and trains him to become his personal assassin, steals Rick's infinite energy for himself, and has no problem killing a 14-year-old boy along with his grandfather countless times.
- Soulless Shell: When Bigfoot breaches the Project Phoenix pod, a failsafe activates and Rick's soulless body starts running for its life, gibbering all the while.
- Spell My Name with a "The": Rick addresses the Pope in this way at one point."It's over, the Pope!"
- Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly: When Rick's plan to sneak into the Vatican as Trojan Prisoners fails, they use brute force gunfire to blaze the trail to the Pope's quarters.
- Stating the Simple Solution: After several rounds of Rick, Morty and Bigfoot fighting their way through the Vatican guards before fighting the Pope, Morty points out that Rick could use his portal gun to teleport directly to the Pope's room and skip the first round. They actually do that from that point forward.
- The Stinger: Rick takes the captured Pope to an underground cage fight, but escapes once the cops to bust up the operation. The now-rescued Pope asks how long it's been and who has been appointed the new Pope, learning that Rick's gibbering, soulless clone body has been appointed in his place.
- Takes One to Kill One: The pods containing the clone bodies for Operation Phoenix are absolutely unbreakable... except by Rick's own technology. Bigfoot is unable to even scratch the pod despite several minutes of whaling on it, even slamming it with a boulder (which crumbles into pebbles), but accidentally discovers that one of Rick's cybernetic implants immediately cracks through.
- This Means War Paint: Morty wears facial warpaint for the fight against the Viking crowd at Valhalla.
- Translator Microbes: The Pope gives Bigfoot a Super Wrist-Gadget that he can use to type out speech, bought from a Predator for three Flintlock pistols. Rick later upgrades it so it reads Bigfoot's thoughts.
- Trojan Prisoner: Bigfoot sneaks Rick and Morty into the Vatican by pretending to hand over their bodies to the Pope.
- Weird Currency: The Predators literally use Flintlock pistols as currency.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Bigfoot pretends to mourn Rick's death, convincing Morty he's a gentle, intelligent soul. The latter is true, the former not so much, as Morty learns when Bigfoot quickly kills him.
- Your Mom: Rick insults the Viking leader with a "your mom" joke in order to rile up the crowd to attack and destroy Rick's energy relay station.
