Rick and Morty covered a lot of ground with Season 5’s newest episode! The fifth season of the series is nearing the end of its run with the newest episode of the series marking the eighth in the Adult Swim series’ slated ten episodes for the new season. The previous episodes up to this point have been fairly disconnected not only from one another, but the greater canon of the previous four seasons overall, but that’s all changed with the eighth episode that kicks off with a pretty big canonical return.
Rick and Morty Season 5 Episode 8 is titled “Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort” and just as the title suggests, it begins with Rick going through some of his past decisions as it kicks off with the return of Birdperson following Rick’s fight with him in the Season 4 finale. This is only the start of the wild episode to come, much like the rest of the season, and you can get a full breakdown of the episode below:
- The rest of the Smith family goes on a cruise, but Rick decides to stay behind at home by himself. Heading into the garage he prepares himself to finally try and deal with the broke Birdperson/Phoenixperson he’s had in there since the end of the fourth season. His computer dubs this new project as “Best Friend Rejuvenation,” and while Rick is against the idea he can’t really think of a replacement name for it either.
- It’s revealed that he rebuilt Birdperson’s body, but it’s not complete because Birdperson’s mind is missing within itself. Rick realizes it’s Birdperson’s conscious mind within his unconscious, and decides to go in and get him by connecting to him directly. Once inside his mind, Rick goes through a trippy sequence where he finds where they first met. It’s at a Burning Man type of event where Rick offered him drugs.
- He then sees the two of them going on a mission where Rick is killing other Ricks in an attempt to “bring her back.” He then sees a memory of the two of them in the resistance, but his younger self (who’s 35) finds his older self and realizes that he’s only an amalgam of Birdperson’s memories of him. He then finds Birdperson crying over a memory of a date he once had with Tammy.
- The younger version of Rick wants to team up, but neither of them are aware of whether or not the memory Rick can be hurt or die. On the outside, Rick and Birdperson’s bodies are foaming at the mouth while Rick’s garage computer tries to recruit a nearby neighbor to become their friend and replace him. Rick and his younger self fight amongst themselves, and soon finds Birdperson in his suppressed memories as Phoenixperson.
- He finds Birdperson rigging a series of bombs in his mind, and he prepares to end it all as it explodes and his mind begins to crack and fray. The two Ricks then run and try to find him at the memory of the “Battle of Blood Ridge” which is younger self refers to as their “Vietnam.” It’s soon revealed that this was a battle Rick and Birdperson fought in against the Galactic Federation.
- It’s soon revealed the battle comes to an end with Rick and Birdperson work together to kill the rest of the federation. Rick wanted to take Birdperson away from the fight and tells him about the multiverse, but Birdperson refuses to do so despite Rick telling him how much he cares for his friend. The older Rick tells the younger one he’s really doing all of this because he truly loves Birdperson.
- The Ricks soon find Birdperson with a memory of Tammy, but he refuses to leave because he and Rick both know that he and Tammy eventually had a child. Birdperson then decides to live, and they make their way to Rick’s memory garage and try to find a new exit through shared sad memories between the two of them such as “Gear Dude’s funeral” and Squanchy’s “stand up phase” in order to get back to their memory of the burning man festival.
- They soon make their way back, but the younger memory Rick sacrifices itself to save them from an evil memory Tammy. Birdperson then bids goodbye to his good memory of Tammy and he thanks Rick for not giving up on him as the two of them make their way back to the real world and into their original bodies. Birdperson then decides to raise his kid, but he questions Rick about whether or not he would have told him about the kid if there was a chance that Birdperson would leave his mind without it.
- In the end, Rick’s younger memory version hides himself in Rick’s memories and the episode comes to an end. Birdperson and Tammy’s kid is revealed to be in a federation prison and violent.
What did you think of Rick and Morty’s newest episode breaking down Rick and Birdperson’s origins? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!
