Rick, Morty, Beth, Summer and Jerry are having breakfast and Beth is telling Jerry again to get a job when there is a knock on the door. A “courier flap”, an organism serving as an intergalactic postal service, arrives, inviting Birdperson to his wedding to Tammy on Planet Squanch. Rick immediately dismisses it, saying that weddings always hurt people (or, as he puts it, “funerals with cake”). While Beth tries to convince Rick to attend his friend’s special event, Jerry manages to be accidentally delivered to the planet by a courier, forcing a reluctant Rick to bring the rest of the family to the wedding.
The family arrives with Squanchy welcoming them and the Smith Family (minus Rick) mingling with the many guests; Jerry unsuccessfully tries to prank Tammy’s parents, Beth asks about Rick with Birdperson revealing obscure and dark parts of her and Rick’s past, and Morty protests to Rick to open up more and enjoy the wedding.
Birdperson and Tammy are married, and Rick reluctantly follows Morty’s advice to open up by giving an ad-libbed wedding toast about love and his happiness to the newlyweds. Unfortunately, the luck runs out when the bride is revealed to be a top secret agent of the Galactic Federation and the building is surrounded by officers. As the reception erupts into chaos, Birdperson is shot multiple times and seemingly killed, much to Rick’s horror. When most of the criminals attending the wedding are shot, Rick is about to use his portal gun when Tammy ambushes him and holds him at gunpoint, ordering him to drop the gun. He does so, though he also wires it to kill several Galactic Federation officers and explode before it can be retrieved. As a result, the explosion also causes Tammy to become temporarily deaf. As the last few shots are fired from those still alive, Squanchy provides a distraction for the family to escape by drinking a potion and transforming into a great warrior, temporarily fending off the surviving Galactic Federation goons and avenging the deaths of many of his allies.
After the chaos at the wedding, an enraged Rick reveals that he is vehemently against the Federation, enough to join forces with the deceased Birdperson and other like-minded rebels. Despite Beth’s suggestion to return home, Rick points out that this option is no longer possible, as Earth will be the first place the Federation will look for him. He even went so far as to say that if any of them returned home alone, they could be interrogated, even though he didn’t know where Rick could run to.
Instead, he suggests finding a new world to live in. When he asks his computer, he discovers that there are 765 Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, with only 3 existing outside of federal jurisdiction. They find a very similar Earth-like planet, but also discover that it is incredibly small. Then they find a much larger planet where everything from plants to animal life is “on the cob”. However, Rick panics at this discovery and quickly takes everyone back. The last non-Federation planet seems almost perfect (and “cob-free”) until they discover a sun that screams endlessly throughout the planet’s 42-hour day. With only this and small Earth as their only option, they decide to return to small Earth.
While the Smiths are hiding out on small Earth, they learn from a news broadcast that the Federation has taken over Earth in an attempt to find them, and ultimately Rick. As Rick explores the cave leading under the house, he overhears the rest of his family arguing about what to do about their predicament. Jerry suggests turning Rick in, the main reason being that he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Everyone else, especially Beth, is willing to put up with Rick’s antics and sacrifice their current and future lives on earth to avoid losing him, with Summer arguing that you don’t love someone in hopes of a reward and Morty echoing Birdperson’s response to trying to leave Rick during Armageddon, disproving Jerry by believing that the family would stand by Rick, even if he wouldn’t do the same for them. When Rick hears his family defend him and Beth finally breaks down and emotionally confesses that she is afraid he will leave her again, Rick realizes that despite their past mistreatment of his family, they are willing to sacrifice their lives and their future on earth to be with him. This makes him feel guilty about being a selfish and destructive person, eventually leading him to have a defining moment where he decides to surrender to the Galactic Federation. He says goodbye to Morty under the guise of ice cream and flies off to a nearby cafeteria to await his arrest. On the way to the cantina, Rick impersonates Jerry to alert the Galactic Federation to where Rick can be found, while also asking that his family be spared when it turns out that the Smiths are not wanted by the Federation.
The Smiths are escorted back to Earth, now a protectorate of the Galactic Federation. Jerry is happy when the robot agent tells him to check in at the job office to “assign him a job” so he can pay off a 7,000 credit debt for anti-depressants, though Morty and the rest of the family seem fine.
Rick is booked and incarcerated in a maximum-security Federation prison, seemingly without bail or parole. A fellow prisoner asks him what he did. “Everything,” Rick replied gloomily.
In the post-credit scene, Mr. Poopybutthole is seen in his apartment watching the show, breaking the 4th wall. He turns off the set, limps to the table, and while hoarsely addressing the audience swallows an inordinate amount of painkillers, noting that they’re meant to treat lingering pain from when Beth shot him in Total Rickall. He then pesters the pizza delivery guy at the door about the show and what his favorite part was, but the delivery guy has no idea what he’s talking about. Mr. Poopybutthole then tells viewers to tune in for season three to see how the Rick “mess” unravels.
