The biggest meta-episode yet

Rick Sanchez is known for subtly breaking the fourth wall from time to time rick and morty, but in the last episode he gutted it.

After a one-month hiatus, Season 6 of Rick and Morty returned to Adult Swim on Sunday night with the episode “Full Meta JackRick,” which, as the name suggests, went fully meta and self-referential.

Paul Giamatti and Christopher Meloni reprized their roles from season 4’s ‘Never Ricking Morty’ as the latest episode served as a surprise continuation of that story.

What happened in Episode 7 of Rick and Morty?

The entire episode seemed to have been triggered by the classic TV trope, “before on…” meaning Rick (Justin Roiland) was once again aware he was on some kind of TV show.

As clips of things we haven’t seen progress, Rick takes control of the montage and eventually discovers that he and Morty are being manipulated by a flying creature known as the Previous Leon. As an aside, the side story here, where Summer got pregnant, Jerry died, and Beth was sentenced to death for his murder, was incredibly entertaining. That’s all the time we spend with the other member of the Smith family in the episode.

As Rick and Morty wrestle with Previous Leon, they fly through the main title sequence and Morty comments on the scenes for the first time, “Why am I butter?”

For the first time, Morty also asks questions that break the fourth wall, but Rick explains how he’s just filled with “meta poison”. Rick admits, “It’s funny when I give the viewer a little nod,” and once again specifically addresses us at home.

Any fan who likes to spot an Easter egg or two inside Rick and Morty will have their work cut out in this episode as the pair actually step through a “fourth wall” where they meet the episode’s villain. “Every second we spend here equals ten space jam Cameos,” Rick quips, referring to her 2021 appearance in the poorly received space jam Consequence.

It turns out that the person pulling the strings here is the Story Lord (Giamatti), the fictional villain from the Story Train toy last seen in season 4. As mentioned in the tag of this episode, he is now working with Jesus Christ (Meloni), who continues to make Rick and Morty hotter.

Story Lord escapes to reality, but Previous Lon saves her from being killed by Jesus. Once in the real world, Story Lord hunts down its creator, an ill-fated writer, to find motivation. In a “lazy” twist, he discovers that his motivation is to “find motivation.” Later, this manifests as a giant device that demotivates everyone in the world.

The next part of Rick and Morty’s adventure takes them to the headquarters of the Self Referential Six (a variant of Spider-Man’s Sinister Six), where they meet a cast of meta-superheroes: Miss Lead, Flash Back, Connie TinuityError, Protago Nick, and Mr Twist (the twist is that there is no sixth member).

Rick and Morty unleash their prisoner, Bret Con, whose ability to mirror reality causes chaos. There’s also a flash of a fan-favorite gadget, the Butter Robot, whose new purpose is to pull a lever.

In circumstances too convenient to list, Rick and Morty are later rescued by writer Joseph Campbell, author of The hero with a thousand faces. With help from Previous Leon, Rick builds a device to take her home, and on the way out, Campbell challenges her to experience some classic adventures like in Season 1, another nod Rick and Morty fan forums.

Rick and Morty approach the episode’s dramatic battle to stop Story Lord and its writer from siphoning off the world’s motivation. Rick initially loses as Story Lord is too motivated to lose, but once Morty and the ghost of Joseph Campbell convince the author to turn off the machine, Rick easily wins the fight.

Rick and Morty tell the author that he must be the one to kill his own creation and murder Story Lord. He uses a doll available from rick-plush.biz which is a throwback to the Story-Train.com gag from the Never Ricking Morty episode.

“Full Meta JackRick,” a play on words from the 1987 Stanley Kubrick film full metal jacketwas full of pop culture references and throwbacks to earlier ones Rick and Morty Adventure. Casual viewers will have missed a lot, but enthralled fans will no doubt have discovered countless subtle clues on their second or third watch of the episode.

At the end of Episode 6, before the Season 6 hiatus, Rick fixed the portal journey, leading fans to assume that Episode 7 would see more portal adventures. Maybe the last three episodes of Rick and Morty In Season 6, the couple will have more interdimensional adventures.

Rick and Morty returns Sunday, November 27 on Adult Swim with Episode 8, “Analyze Piss,” a nod to the film’s title analyze that.

Although there are only three episodes left of Season 6, showrunner Scott Marder recently confirmed it news week that future seasons will now come out once a year and they are already working on seasons 7 and 8 with work on season 9 due to start next year.