A Rick in King Mortur's Mort (2024)

"A Rick in King Mortur's Mort" is the ninth episode of the sixth season of Rick and Morty. It is the 60th episode of the series overall. It premiers on December 4, 2022. It was written by Anne Lane and directed by Jacob Hair. The episode is rated TV-14-DLV.

Synopsis[]

When Morty's offered a gift from a stranger, Rick tells him not to accept. Does Morty listen? No, he does not, and he's sucked into a messy adventure.

Plot[]

Morty drags Rick to a galactic pop-up restaurant located on an asteroid, to Rick's displeasure. While waiting in line, Morty picks up the dropped sandwich of two armored knights and tries to return it to them, politely declining their offer for him to keep the sandwich since he prefers to stand in line. One of the knights, Sir Helios, offers Morty his sword and his title as a Knight of the Sun. Rick discourages Morty from taking it, but Morty gets pressured by the knights and various other aliens offering to take it instead to go ahead and take the sword. Sir Helios dubs Morty "Sir Mortaniel" and kills himself with the sword. Rick watches in bewilderment as Morty is abruptly transported with the other knight to the Sun, then questions why the other aliens are not simply eating the dropped food. One of the patrons reveals they are paid by the pop-up to stand there to drive up business, which Rick suspected.

Morty arrives on the Sun to find it contains a medieval-like feudalist society living on a massive walkway, and agrees at the encouragement of the other knights and the King of the Sun to join them as an immortal being. That is, until he learns that a requirement of new knights is to cut off their penis. He promptly declares he is no longer interested, to the Knights' shock. Rick arrives to help Morty get out of his situation, but the King of the Sun demands Morty best him in combat if he wishes to leave. Rick gives Morty an AI Sword, which allows Morty to defeat the King easily. However, this backfires when the King relinquishes his crown and the Solar Scepter, declaring Morty is now King of the Sun before also killing himself. The Knights hail "King Mortaniel" but Rick and Morty promptly leave through a portal.

Back in the garage, Morty expects Rick to rub his recent debacle in his face. To his surprise, Rick decides not to, claiming Morty ignoring him at the pop-up made him realize how low he let Morty's opinion of him get. He agrees to be 22% nicer to Morty for at least one adventure. Their moment is interrupted by the arrival of the Knights of the Sun, whose duty is to follow him all day. They continue to trail Morty even to the Smith Family breakfast. The Knights explain that they and the King are meant to protect the Solar Scepter, which all planets in the solar system orbit, which is why they keep it on the Sun. Morty promptly reveals this is not true by explaining the basic physics of the solar system to the knights and revealing he has had the scepter on Earth. The Knights, angered that they cut off their penises for nothing, march off in a huff. At first, it seems that Morty has successfully used science and logic to destroy a religion, which the whole family praises him for. However, their celebration is interrupted by the sky changing color and all their electricity malfunctioning. One of the Knights, who missed everything because he went to the bathroom, explains the Sons of the Moon are attacking the Sun, but should be held off by a series of interplanetary treaties so long as the Knights stay together. He awkwardly backs out of the house upon realizing what happened.

Rick and Morty arrive at a neutral zone to find all the representatives from the various planets' rulers arguing over the sudden disappearance of the Knights of the Sun. Morty tries to interrupt through his authority as King of the Sun, but a magic hag reveals to the council that the Knights have disbanded. Lithdor, one of the Viscounts of Venus, questions Morty's legitimacy. Morty tries to prove it by revealing the Scepter, only to rather quickly learn that the Knights' claim that all planets orbit around it was symbolic: the Scepter actually denotes who rules the solar system, and all the rulers of the planets promptly start fighting for it while Rick and Morty make their escape.

A bloody solar war breaks out across the solar system as Rick uses his technology to protect Earth. Morty suggests they try jumping universes again, but Rick proposes they actually commit to this universe and try something else. Morty finally explodes, accusing Rick of pulling another "Vat of Acid" to rub Morty being wrong in his face again. Rick reiterates that he is just trying to do better, leading Morty to suspect he is a robot or a clone. Rick brushes off this accusation, and encourages Morty to think of something. Morty tracks down the Knights of the Sun to try to get them to return to the Sun. The Knights, who have become addicted to heroin in their despair over their loss of purpose, refuse to return to the Sun. Morty offers to cut his penis off if they do, which they point out would be pointless as he no longer needs to do it as king: Morty promises to do it anyway, which convinces them. Privately, of course, Morty is distraught, so Rick pulls him aside and promises to help him not have to actually cut it off using multiple fail-safes.

The Knights of the Sun reunite, prompting most of the planets to declare an end to the war. However, Lithdor suspects trickery and comes to the walkway to oversee the "Stumping of the King's Stem." First, he has Morty step through a machine that scans for "nanotechnological hologram dicks". Rick accounted for this, and Morty steps through with ease. But Lithdor then has Morty step through a second machine that checks for "emergency clone dicks." Morty quickly throws his away before stepping through the machine and passes once again. The third test, the old hag from before, reveals the presence of a "prosthetic/witchcraft dick", which he once again throws away. With all alternatives exhausted, Rick and Morty promptly make a run for it. During their escape, Rick applauds Morty for standing his ground and trying to solve the problem himself. However, stuck on a ledge above the surface of the Sun, they realize they need to pull their last option, which Rick is reluctant to do but Morty accepts is their only chance, and they promptly leap into the surface of the Sun.

One of the Knights is shown telling the story of "King Morty the Molten" and Rick's death from leaping into the Sun to some pages, telling of how their bones floated to the top and they even checked they died in the real Sun, not a vat of fake Sun. This prompted the knights to finally do away with their "stem stumping." It is revealed Rick and Morty snuck back to the walkway to learn what happened while they were gone, despite Morty pointing out they are risking ruining their whole escape by coming back. One of the pages walks by and realizes Morty is alive, but is easily convinced not to tell anyone when Morty points out the only thing that will come of revealing his survival is the page having to cut off his penis.

In the post credit scene, Special Agent Mongo Bongo arrests the Hot Dog Vendor at the Restaurant Asteroid for illegal hot dog trafficking. After finding more hot dogs in another area, he releases the hot dogs at the beach before he himself is captured by a bird.

Characters[]

Major characters[]

• RickBot (retroactively)
• Morty Smith
• Knights of the Sun

Minor characters[]

• Summer Smith
• Rick Sanchez
• Jerry Smith
• Beth Smith
• Space Beth
• Sir Helios
• King of the Sun
• Sons of the Moon
• Lithdor
• Marquis of Mars
• Earl of Earth (Santa Claus)
• Mongo Bongo
• Hot Dog Vendor

Deaths[]

Locations[]

• Parmesan dimension
  • Solar System
    • Earth
      • Smith Residence
      • The Moon
    • The Sun
    • Mercury
    • Venus
    • Mars
    • Jupiter
    • Saturn
    • Uranus (pictured)
    • Neptune (pictured)
    • Pluto (pictured)
    • Restaurant Asteroid
    • Neutral Zone

Episode notes[]

Trivia[]

• In celebration of Season 6, Pocket Mortys' weekly updates coincided with new episodes, including new avatars for players to collect. With the release of this episode came Viscount of Venus as an avatar, plus King of the Sun Morty and Mortanial Morty to catch.
• Apparently, some or all of planetary nations have a tradition similar to the Knights of the Sun of severing one of their body parts: right breast for Mercury, arm for Mars, testicl*s for Neptune etc.

Themes[]

• This episode seems to build on the development Rick has been going through this season, in terms of being honest about actually caring for his family ("Solaricks"), trying to express his love for Morty ("Rick: A Mort Well Lived"), and being more responsible about when he intervenes in affairs on a galactic level ("Analyze Piss"). It is worth noting that this is development that the audience has seen Rick going through, but Morty has not been entirely present for said-development, and when Rick is trying to behave better Morty treats his motives with suspicion.
  • Then again, even with that development, it is a little suspicious that he had such a massive heel turn midway through an episode...
• This episode is in some ways a follow-up to "The Vat of Acid Episode", in that Rick lets Morty take the wheel on an adventure. Unlike that episode, it appears Rick is not doing this because of an ulterior motive to prove himself right, but because he values his relationship with his grandson, only intervening when it is absolutely necessary for him to do so.
• Morty, like his grandfather, is the instigator of the civil war, although Rick was the initiator of the civil war in the whole Milky Way galaxy in his youth, and Morty in the Solar System.

Series continuity[]

• Rick claims that hanging out on Pluto is "Jerry level sh*t", referencing the time Jerry went to Pluto in "Something Ricked This Way Comes".
• Morty questions whether Rick's support is because of another Vat of Acid style punishment, referencing the events of "The Vat of Acid Episode." Additionally, the poses and facial expressions Rick and Morty make when they fall into the sun mimic their poses and facial expressions from when they fall into the fake acid vat.
• After the adventure escalates, Morty suggest that he and Rick should move into another universe, referencing the events of “Rick Potion No. 9” and “Solaricks”.

Cultural references[]

• The episode's title is a reference to the film A Kid in King Arthur's Court.
• On the sun Rick make a science joke: they treat power like a magical thing even though this medieval looking Asgardian culture is really just advance science that most people don’t understand, about Thor from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• When Rick gives Morty a sword with an A.I. that learns its opponents' attacks, he says the sword has already seen Blade and loved it.
  • Rick also refers to Deacon Frost, the main villain in the movie.
• Mongo Bongo bares a resemblance to the titular character in the television series, Columbo.
• The song that plays during when the planets are fighting is Goodbye Blue Sky by Pink Floyd, an anti-war song that appeared The Wall.

Transcript[]

View a full transcript of this episode here.

Gallery

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References

https://comicbook.com/anime/news/rick-and-morty-season-six-episode-titles/

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