Rick and Morty season 3 premiere: The 10 most squanchy things that made us go 'what the f*ck?'
The first episode of Rick and Morty season 3, otherwise known as The Rickshank Rickdemption (*slow clap*), aired on April Fool’s Day (because it’s Adult Swim, so of course it did). Boy, it was a doozy. After being imprisoned at the end of season 2 in a high-security complex, everyone knew the genius scientist Rick would be busting out, but we didn’t know how. His grandchildren Summer and Morty were due to play a part, but just how far they’d go to free their grandfather will bring a tear to anyone’s eye. For those of you that missed it, you can still watch it here on DailyMotion. With the official Rick and Morty account on Twitter breaking it to us that the next season will appear in summer, we’re going to have to survive on this one episode for a while. So without further ado, here’s 10 of the Rickiest moments that made us squanch.
The Eiffel tower gets weaponised
Yeah, you read that right. The Galactic Federation made the Eiffel tower into a big ol’ weapon, because what else would you do with a massive pointy landmark? Not appreciate it for the testament to modern architecture and French national identity, that’s for sure. Nah. Just one way to prove that the Galactic Federation are a bunch of disturbingly-megalomaniacal bureaucrats. Speaking of the Federation...
Mo’ pills, mo’ problems
Money is old hat. Instead at the end of the month with the Galactic Federation ruling Earth you can look forward to a bulging bag of pills. Which the robo-butler will shove down your throat if you refuse to eat them. I bet their satisfaction levels are through the roof, though. Especially as Jerry - Jerry - is getting promoted without doing anything.
Summer goes all graverobber
We really shouldn’t be that surprised that Rick and Morty went there, but they did. Summer dug up Rick’s decaying body from the Cronenberg episode where Rick and Morty teleported into a universe where they managed to solve the pandemic but tragically died in a lab explosion. Grim.
A tour around the Cronenberg universe
On their way to find Rick, Summer and Morty made the mistake of revisiting the universe where the mantis-people outbreak got a little out of hand. Waiting for them is a muscled and part-feral version of Summer, Jerry, and Beth who show that living in an apocalypse might give you abs, but it also means you’ve gotta sink your teeth into cronenberg steaks for dinner. Does that count as cannibalism? We’d rather not know.
A young Beth appeared in the Scary Terry episode
This is a genuine revelation - the small girl with the skipping rope in the nightmarish dream world featured in ‘Lawnmower Dog’ looks incredibly similar to Beth when she was a child. That is, unless Rick fabricated her appearance to fool the Galactic Federation’s prison guards. But for now we’re content to think that a young Beth was somehow in the depths of the centaur’s dream. Who was also in Morty’s math teacher’s dream.
Rick, laser, scissors is a game that exists
A distinctly Roiland version of rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock, this game is used by the Council of Ricks. God knows how it works, but I’d imagine at some point a Rick used an actual laser gun to win. Bonus points to whoever figures out how it works first!
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Hammer Morty reappears
Used by a Rick when the Citadel of Ricks collides with the Federation’s maximum security prison, looks like this tool was deemed far too useful to return to his home planet with the other Mortys. Who can blame them? Hammer Morty smashes the escaped convicts with disturbing ease.
Rick’s character arc is going to be rooted in McDonald’s Szechuan sauce
Honestly, I don’t know why any of this surprises me anymore. McDonald’s szechuan sauce that was released to celebrate Disney’s Mulan movie is the centrepiece of Rick’s character arc, according to the genius. He may have been kidding. But I very much doubt it. In other news, McDonald’s seems to be on board with reintroducing the sauce...
@RickandMorty .@RickandMorty McNugga Lubba Dub Dub. 👀April 2, 2017
I’m pickle Riiiick!
The mad scientist yells this while in - you guessed it - pickle form. Yeah. No Tiny Rick here. No siree.
‘Fake gun shoot me in stand off’ label
If there’s one way to end a repetitive stand-off, it’s by shoving a fake gun into the mix. When one of the leaders of the Council of Ricks was holding Summer hostage, our Rick was repeatedly saying he didn’t care about Summer’s life and threatening to shoot through her to kill the leader. Morty started yelling his head off at the thought of his sister getting turned into a colander, and in irritation grabbed a gun and fired one square in between Rick’s eyes. Luckily, plastered on the laser gun was a note saying ‘fake gun shoot me in stand off’, which Morty totally noticed. Definitely.
While here at GamesRadar, Zoe was a features writer and video presenter for us. She's since flown the coop and gone on to work at Eurogamer where she's a video producer, and also runs her own Twitch and YouTube channels. She specialises in huge open-world games, true crime, and lore deep-dives.