Conspiracy
Rick and Morty travel to the factory. During the flight, Morty mentions that Rick might be setting him up for a double cross. It seems Morty is done with Rick’s shenanigans. Rick tells Morty not to worry – and as a last ditch effort if things “go wrong” that he has a plan and tells Morty to jump into the same vat of acid as him. Morty keeps complaining and says he should do his English homework. However, Rick did not move and continues to drive.
Rick encounters several intergalactic barterers with whom he trades. Everything seems fine until the dealer tells Rick that he has been conned and that Rick has been successfully conned. Angered by this, Rick creates a third arm and shoots the dealer in the head. However, Rick and Morty are still held at gunpoint and are forced to jump into a vat of fake acid that he had prepared beforehand. Rick and Morty sink to the bottom of a vat of acid and open predetermined hatches to trick the dealers into thinking they have died. The dealer and his cronies have time to watch the bones settle. They are shocked that a grandfather would commit suicide with his grandson and mourn Morty’s death. Rick and Morty wait at the bottom of the vat until the dealer and his cronies disappear. Morty grows impatient after a long time as the dealers take time for self-reflection and then decides on the dice and takes it upon himself to rise from the acid and kill the dealers. He failed and Rick took his gun and killed all his friends. They then make a getaway.
Morty becomes angry at Rick’s flawed plan and that Rick should be more open instead of always leaning on himself. Rick argues that he was able to handle things all by himself when he was turned into a pickle, and that Morty’s adventure with the dragon was a total disaster. Morty then waves that Rick likes to ignore most of the ideas Morty throws at him. As the argument escalates, it is revealed that Rick has already refused Morty’s request for a device that would allow him to save a point in time (like a video game) so that Morty can visit said time restarts. In a fit of rage, Rick reluctantly agrees. Shortly after, Rick admits that he is not actually capable of making said device and proceeds to shoot Morty. After being shot, Morty is still breathing—indicating that he’s been stunned—however, Rick triggers the device, creating the first time stamp and encouraging a careless Morty to play with the device.
Over the next few weeks, Morty will have a lot of fun with his time-saving device – including pulling down the teacher’s pants, talking to his love Jessica, avoiding embarrassing moments, correcting bad decisions, and saving himself from death. One day he activates the time saver before approaching a girl outside a cafe to talk to her. They get along well and go on dates, leading to a long-term relationship. Morty and his (unnamed) girlfriend go through many ups and downs over the following months, and even break up at one point, but emerge stronger than ever. The two go on vacation together, but the plane they boarded crashes and they are stranded in the mountains. They are forced to resort to cannibalism to stay alive, and Morty begins to trek across the mountains to retrieve his backpack. Although he finds a time-saving device, Morty decides not to activate it and uses his frozen hands to call for rescue. He is rescued just in time, and after a long hospital stay, Morty and his girlfriend fully recover from their ordeal. At their welcome home party, Morty and his girlfriend are happier and stronger than ever… until Jerry mistakes a time-saving device for a TV remote and presses the buttons, “resetting” Morty’s save point back to before he approached his girlfriend. He tries to approach her again but gets pepper sprayed in the face for his trouble. In his pain, he falls on the time saving device and saves this point so he can’t go back and try again.
Morty, depressed that the time saver only made him suffer, takes several turns at a gang of gorillas at the local zoo. He eventually goes to see Rick, sick and tired of restarting time, and decides to take the experience as an opportunity to face the consequences of his actions.
However, Rick lets Morty know that his previous actions did in fact have consequences. Stating that he never believed in time travel, he reveals to Morty that the boy did not perform any “coups”, but rather “did it, over and over again”. Rick shows a recording of one of these “coups” and shows that all the “time resets” were actually different probabilities of him all along. This caused many Mortys to die, replacing them with the current Morty, not unlike the Prestige movie. Disgusted by his actions, Morty is in a state of despair as he doesn’t know what to do or how to fix the mess he’s caused. Rick suggests that he can connect all of his alternate selves and their respective universes. Annoyed, Morty agrees and Rick reveals that he is not Morty’s original Rick, but another Rick who says that all Ricks have a vat of acid. He then fuses the universes together and returns Morty to the first save point with his Rick. Suddenly, a group of law enforcement and protesters appear outside Rick’s garage with posters against Morty (results of his actions in other universes). Morty is scared and confused, however Rick is determined to make Morty learn a lesson and tells him to jump into a fake vat of acid he has prepared. Morty snarls (just as his previous girlfriend arrives, only to leave in tears after seeing Morty go into acid) and hides at the bottom, releasing the fake bones just like before. Satisfied and feeling a little guilty, everyone leaves the premises except for the two policemen. The cops seem suspicious of Morty’s death and throw a scoop, and Morty’s attempt to blow it up results in him accidentally blowing the cop in half and spraying his partner with fake acid. The remaining policeman, instead of coming to a logical conclusion, believes himself to be immune to the acid and happily leaves after taking offense and exposing himself to his dead partner. Satisfied, Morty has learned something, “never make fun of him again, ever” and decides to head home (he says he’s not going to waste their home reality with this crap) and laments that the reality they’re in was nice . Johnny Carson was still alive and on the air, 9/11 never happened, and Rocky Road ice cream had peanut butter instead of marshmallows.
In the post-credits scene, the surviving cop goes on the Johnny Carson show and claims to be immune to acid. He is immersed in the right vat where he suffers a slow and painful death.
