"Rick and Morty" Total Rickall (TV Episode 2015) Poster

(TV Series)

(2015)

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10/10
Funniest episode ever!!!
lokeshsingh-890688 February 2016
This has got to be the best episode of Rick and Morty, and one of the funniest episode of an animated show ever. The concept of flashbacks adapted in this episode is brilliant and absolutely genius. Right from the moment the episode starts, it doesn't fail to amuse even for a moment. I've watched it over and over again, and every time I find new interesting side characters who are as good as the main characters in the show. I can re-watch this a thousand times, and still laugh because the humor isn't exhaustive but rather very conceptual. With episodes like these, which combine sci-fi with extremely absurd hilarity, in a manner that is both unique and effective, Rick and Morty has proved itself to be an animation of its own kind.
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10/10
The ULTIMATE clip show episode!
TouchTheGarlicProduction4 September 2015
Ever since the Community clip show episode, we've all known that Dan Harmon is a genius at the format, but this took it to a whole new level. For those who don't know, a "clip-show" is a television episode that involves a lot of flash-backs. They use this when budget is low and they need to fill an episode. What better way to fill runtime than show us what we've seen before? One such example is the finale of season 2 of Star Trek the Next Generation. These episodes are often crap. Dan Harmon's genius is using the format but showing us things we hadn't seen before. We saw this in Community, where he confuses us by making us think we are going to see a flashback, but then showing us an adventure we hadn't seen before, leading to the inevitable moment when you think "Wait, I have no memory of this. What is going on?". That was the running joke in that Community episode, but this time, he uses that feeling to construct a clever premise that hinges on a brilliant new alien race on par with the weeping angels from Doctor Who.
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10/10
Original and totally awesome !
namikazedante10 April 2017
This episode was hands down one of the best episodes they've done so far. I mean just look at how original the episode was and lol how the first scene is first like getting you ''What the heck is this?'' and then Rick comes in does his thing but in the end always trust Rick.

This is how a Rick & Morty episode should be and what it's all about.

We have the totally insane lines and the most ridiculous characters. And the way the story always end up in a even more weird way. This is why we need more fresh blood into the comedy pool. I mean this is what Family Guy, South Park etc. should be like but got lost in all their messages and how accurate the episodes must be with today's time and all.

No I love I started watching this show that is intelligent and super hilarious. Anyone with sick and twisted humor needs to watch this show.
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10/10
That Post Credits Scene!!!
japierce322 July 2021
OMG!! This entire episode from the beginning to the opening credits sequence to the post credits scene was absolutely genius!
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10/10
Parasitism
amindostiari26 January 2021
One of the best episodes that was both fun and rewarding. It was a very interesting subject. The last scenes were great.
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9/10
We've got a lot of friends and family to exterminate.
sharky_5518 August 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Another week, another crazy demonstration of the wide reaching premises that Rick and Morty can deliver from the brains of Roiland and Harmon. Here we take a left turn on the classic clip show format, and this time it's just as good as when Community first did its twist way back in the season 2 episode Paradigms of Human Memory, where it hit every emotional and humorous bone in that talented cast also while parodying the whole idea. Total Rickall takes it even further; in the cold open we are immediately thrust into a relatively normal domestic scene where the familiar face of Uncle Steve is thanking the Smith family for their warm welcome over the past year...wait a second. And of course it's Rick who shatters the illusion by shooting Uncle Steve in the head and revealing that alien parasites from outer space have infiltrated their home and are posing as long time companions. So Rick hurriedly locks down the home and establishes the ground rules and safeties. There are only 6 real people in this family: him, Morty, Beth, Jerry, Summer and of course my favourite cast member, the lovable Mr. Poopy Butthole.

That kickstarts a whole range of alien parasites manifesting themselves in the most absurd and colourful characters and creatures in true Rick and Morty style. There's funny Cousin Nicky, Mr. Beauregard as the supportive and loving family butler, Sleepy Gary as the long time husband of Beth who has been painfully repressing his feelings for Jerry. There's Frankenstein from Rick's Vietnam days, Sprinkles the magic unicorn ballerina, Pencil Vester the animated pencil...All utterly ridiculous and that is what makes it work, and makes it so funny.

Eventually it is Morty who figures out how to tell reality from fiction; by weeding out everyone with no bad memories. And the following series of events is just great. R&H contrast these horribly depressing, disgusting and sometimes darkly humorous memories of the Smith family with the grim realisation they have after figuring out who they are stuck with in this life. It's the sort of serious/absurd mix that shouldn't work but just does, and it's emotionally significant because of it. I mean, how many shows can make you cheer and fist- pump at the line "She's my bitch of a sister"? And on the flip side, it's also hilarious: "I hate you and I was thinking of your friend Grace!" The whole scenario is perfectly encapsulated in Jerry and Beth's memory, or rather the lines after it. Jerry wails: "I'm a parasiteeeeee" after that cowardly memory where he runs away from an angry hobo and ditches his wife, aiming the gun at his forehead, and Beth seems to agree with him, but has to relent and accept the fact: "Yeah, but you're real". It's a wonder they can pack that much hidden regret and resignation but also love and reconciled commitment in a cartoon sitcom character like Beth. And of course it's nicely bookended by the rejected kiss.

I cannot believe they wrote off a main character, never mind such a funny and great character like Mr. Poppy Butthole after all these episodes. It's a crazy twist ending from R&H and I can hardly breathe after such a shocking and graphic scene where Beth takes out her gun and shoots him right in the chest. Why, Beth, whyyyyyyy? Only last season Mr. Poopy Butthole and you bonded over your aimless career paths and lack of a satisfactory love life in that great monologue at the end of episode 7. Why, Harmon and Roiland? Why get rid of such a wonderful character?

In all seriousness, what a fitting and dark ending, right down to the nervous shake of Beth as she downs yet another glass of wine (adding to the persona of the alcoholic). I keep waiting for a genuinely bad Rick and Morty episode, but it doesn't seem to come and they keep hitting it out of the park with these hilarious but also emotional deep episodes backed by great original concepts.

Notes

  • I immediately recognised Keith David's sultry tones as Reverse Giraffe after Community season 6.


  • "Oh wow, baby wizard was a parasite??? He set me up with my wife."


  • I would have liked some sort of recognition of last week's deeply dark ending for Rick, but it is a sitcom and I think it will definitely be addressed more this season, and I trust them to do it well.


  • "Nintendo give me free stuff"


9/10
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10/10
Genius.
zachzilla-8021321 September 2019
Just when I thought it couldn't get better, they totally raise the bar. The best episode IMO.
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10/10
Grimly Genius
kpjo413 September 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Best episode in the series thus far, the extra addition of Mr. Poopybutthole in the series intro clip gives you an onset to the upcoming episode making you feel like he's been part of the show in the past; which this is his debut episode. It tosses you into an uncertain feeling about this character but the viewer is still well assured that he's still a parasite just as how Beth felt.

The whole continuation of flash backs tend to give a sense of confusion and curiosity, this episode nailed it right on the dot with that ploy. The icing on the cake for the episode was the Ending scene before the credits roll in. After Beth shoots Mr. Poopybutthole she enters the kitchen in a very deranged mood, the cabinets that are on the upper portion of the scene where she pulls her cup and wine from leaves Beth more on center with the screen giving an effect of concentration on only her, tears bellowing from her eyes, sounds of police sirens in the background, hands constantly shaking while she attempts to pour red wine into her cup spilling a lot of the wine doing so. The show rarely ever shows a dark side, and it just happened in this episode out of nowhere; from a well thought out comical episode which gives you a "that was a creative episode" feeling and then the last scene hits and your emotions turn to "Oh Sh*t!". In my opinion this was the most artistically dark scene in this whole show and I LOVE IT!
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10/10
Amazing Episode
kaushal018124 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
According to the meditation technique of Vipassana, it is said that the one and only reason of all the misery in this world is human beings entertaining their cravings and/or aversions without bounds. This episode reflects gloriously on the same.

According to Rick's final solution to battle the space virus, the idea was to figure out and eliminate all such characters from your life with whom you only had good moments/storylines/memories and no bad ones at all. The faulty characters Rick is trying to spot and is annihilating on sight are none other than the cravings which we should keep spotting and removing from our own lives to make our lives better according to this technique of meditation.

Towards the end, the episode takes an interesting turn to accommodate for such gems in the world like Mr Poopy Butthole, who is so pure in his love and compassion, that Rick's family mistakenly thinks that he's also to be annihilated. It signals the seldom losses you might face along the way of getting rid of all your cravings.
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10/10
Hilarious again
ericstevenson27 June 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This is currently the highest ranked episode of "Rick And Morty" on the IMDb and it's not hard to see why. This episode is great because there's just so many crazy things going on. We get wacky character after wacky character that invades the Smith house who are actually alien parasites that implant false memories. An episode of "The Amazing World Of Gumball" made fun of how sometimes characters just disappear with no explanation and this episode made fun of the opposite! All the voices and personalities were just so freaking funny. I loved the "Where's Waldo?" joke. It seems like any image with a lot of the characters look like a game of "Where's Waldo?".

I admit that it doesn't make any sense how in the end Mr. Poopybutthole was real. I guess that was a straight version of this trope being played. If there were no alien parasites at that point, how were there more? And how are there not going to be more? Who cares?! I love how they mock Rick's catch phrases and how utterly unpredictable this episode is. It's just wacky scene after wacky scene. An absolute must-see! ****
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10/10
Leave it to Rick and Morty to out-Family Guy even the best Family Guy episodes.
derpypikmin24 April 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Where to start with this brilliant work of art...(Seriously) Total Rickall is (as of this review) the highest rated episode of R&M on IMDb. Though it personally isn't my favorite, I can see why it is ranked the way it is. Watching the family interact with the outrageous characters they think have always known is hilarious and leaves room for a lot of jokes, visual gags, and improvising done by Roiland. The cutaway gags here never cease to amaze and the Nintendo reference just made me giddy! I can even remember every character that appears in this episode (Sleepy Gary, Mr. Poopy Butthole, Photography Raptor, Hamurai, Amish Cyborg, Tinkles, Frankestein's MONSTER, Mr. Bouregard, Cousin Vinny, Baby Wizard, etc.) and that says a lot considering this is Rick and Morty's first, and hopefully not the last, attempt at cutaway gag humor. Take notes Family Guy. Also, the ending twists are smart and very unexpected. Overall, spectacular episode with charm and wit.
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Life themed episode.
allkillahnofillah1 May 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Life is not always bleak, yet it's also not always dandy and bad memories are important just as much as good memories.

The ending is a metaphor for mental problems. Too much of bad memory would close the door for good memories to come into your life.
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4/10
Predictable and boring
gediminas-610 January 2021
It was obvious from early on what the rest of the episode would be about. Cheap filler.
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10/10
One of the Best
tristantlee12 August 2021
Amazing episode, one of the best in the series. While maintaining a simple theme, they do an amazing job of keeping it fun and interesting the entire episode.
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10/10
bad memories
fountainshima1 November 2020
We have Good memories and Bad memories, and that is nice.
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10/10
Oooo Baby!! (Spoilers!!)
mrnatwarlal-4524216 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Thou gives and thou takes it away. Knew Mr. Poopy Butthole was too good to be true. The guy showed out of nowhere and even then, we were okay with. Throughout the episode they kept us wondering of his existence. Made us miss him in such a brief presence. He left as he came. Really was another outstanding episode. A masterful episode of a show that came out of nowhere and holds a cult status already!
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10/10
Got me to thinking.
GraXXoR9 May 2017
Warning: Spoilers
This was perhaps the zaniest 30 minutes of TV I have ever experienced and the clip show way in which this episode was presented was pure perfection-animated!

And yet, it was zaniness reined in to within an inch of its life by the masterful direction and intelligence of Roiland et. al.

How good was this show? Well I usually cram a couple of beers down me to get me in the perfect mood before watching R&M and as such, sometimes my memories get a bit cloudy after three or four shows in a row.

So the way they mixed in real and "fake" flashbacks threw me off and I became more and more uncertain about what was actual clip and what was made up.

In fact, after watching the show I came to make a comment here and one of the excellent reviews above mentioned Mr. Poopybutthole in ep 7 of season 1... I actually went back to see if I had missed something.

That, to me, shows just how magnificently one of the premises of the show (we cannot trust memories) worked!

Fabulous, fabulous and intelligent TV at its very unhinged best!
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10/10
Perfection.
elapamarquina11 February 2022
This may be the greatest and funniest episode of an animated show I have ever witnessed.

By the time I watched it, R&M was just another cartoon from Adult Swim and I didn't think much of it, but by the end I simply could not stop thinking about it and had to go find some answers. That lead to me Reddit posts and YouTube videos on theories and eastern eggs.

When I read a comment about someone explaining a super complicated theory for a character called "Mr. Poopy Butthole" with a straight face I knew I had found something special.
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10/10
Phenomenal
TheFirst016 June 2020
This episode was just fun. There's no other way to describe it. It's probably the fastest 22 minutes of Rick and Morty I've seen so far. The plot makes the entertainment factor make it non-stop, and I really got scared for a second thinking one of the main characters would be one of the parasites. Overall this is a masterful episode of Rick and Morty with a great twist at the end.
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10/10
Best of Rick and Morty
markq-7565431 July 2019
Warning: Spoilers
This is the most crazy episode, and all the jokes are hilarious. From the different characters we get to their outrages stories is just perfect. Like the old homeless man going after Jerry or Jerry kissing sleepy Garry. It's just the most fun episode of Rick and Morty
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5/10
Too Close To Reality: Cartoon Mass Shooting .vs. Politcal Fueled Mass Murder
Kittylogue28 November 2022
Rick And Morty is not afraid to blow up, gun down, Slice & Dice Humans, Non-Humans, Robots, Clones, and so on. Viewers have seen Mortiplicity where viewers watch family after family killed in some gory way - or was it a clone?

To be a long-time viewer, viewers have to tacitly accept such things.

By 2022, politicians have blocked regulating guns like AR-15's, Guns are "Open Carried" In public, Children can buy AR-15's at 18-years of age.

2015 was before some of the most publicized mass School Shootings with mostly kids murdering children. Children Trapped in classrooms. Children in Closed Coffin funerals.

Here, the family is gunning down Parasites trapped in the house. It is an alien invasion. Like Covid, nothing should take over the planet. Take the safety off.

Still, the mind CAN see children. (or Gay Night Club Patrons) or possibly would could have happen January 6, 2020. Screaming inanimate parasite disguised as imaginative things. Is this how children behaved when a gunman chased them about their school classroom, hallway?

Children watch this pretty much adult cartoon. Condom Company has been a sponsor. Do children see a cartoon? Metaphor for children/adult victims? The pleasure The Family gets in 'justified' killing?

This is just a cartoon.

Still, if the mind recalls the hundreds of mass shootings, AR-15's, it is not hard to feel for families who can imagine how generically it looked.

This episode is not for everybody.

If this episode were never made, Rick & Morty would not lose a fan. Every time this is shown, you can count on it alienating a victim or surviving familiy.
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10/10
The ultimate Rick and Morty Episode
gageboothe11 August 2020
Maybe not the best but definitely the most Rick and Morty of any episode of that makes sense. It has everything you want this show to have.
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10/10
An incredible metaphor for psychosis
fernando_moren7 October 2017
Warning: Spoilers
This episode just blew me away, so funny and exciting but best of all - so littered with symbolism that makes you think! I might be primed to see the episode in this way, because of my studies but the whole situation with parasites taking over the minds of the main characters and serving them false memories to be able to control them is a pretty good metaphor for psychosis - that is to lapse in to a state of delusion often with hallucinations! The parasites in that case are of course not space aliens but certain parts of the persons mind that destroys the persons capacity to have contact with, understand and think about reality. In this metaphor Rick serves as the only "sane" part of the psyche left which tries to take the person back to reality and sanity/kill the parasites but are heavily attacked by the other delusional parts of the psyche for doing that. Love what this show is doing with heavy subjects from psychology, philosophy and science!! :D
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10/10
I know it's an easy pick but it's one of the best for a reason
FriedToast0221 September 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This show is only in the beginning stages of season 6, and are renewed through season 10 so it's possible an episode surpasses, but most of the episodes as of recent have been good but not top tier episodes for me. This episode though is the everything perfect about a Rick and Morty episode as well as a cartoon episode in general. The amount of times I've watched this episode and found new characters in the background is astounding. The amount of work you have to put in to get that many different wacky characters on screen is a lot, especially coming up with so many original ideas. Cartoons for me seem to have some of the most memorable plots and episodes just because of how insane animation can go, they have way more boundaries can break, because a lot of the times live action comedies and sitcoms need to have some kind of grounded feelings and animation do whatever they want. There's so many classic moments like pencilvestor introduction. All the fake flashbacks making the parasites duplicate. The whole premise is classic Rick and Morty. I love that the whole epsidoe takes place in the house, episodes like this in shows that take place in one area I always tend to like quite a lot and this is no different. Rick is hilarious not an asshole with one of my favorite 4th wall broken jokes "NOOOO, shoot now it's like a where's Waldo page. Can you find me, check out all these zany characters. We'll be right back after these messages". As well as himself forgetting the right amount of people that are supposed to be in the house. One of my favorite parts of the whole show is the family teaming to take down the parasites, besides Jerry of course who has his own little story with Beth's "husband" sleepy Gary and Jerry's lifelong friend is so funny to me. The parts when the family try to figure out if the have bad memories of each and having flashbacks of all the bad times is comedy gold especially summer to morty. "WHY IN THE KITCHEN" Summer. "I do it everywhere stop shaming me" Morty. Fantastic exchange. I also love the little bit continuity kept between this episode and the last, with in this episode showing rick disposing some kind of glowing rock, which we saw in a previous episode. A lot of people have theorized this episode took place in a different timeline mostly because of mr poopy butthole being a real person that the family knew in this episode, which obviously up to this point we had never met him. The most recent premiere (Season 6) pretty much confirmed that this episode was in a different timeline. The scene of Beth shooting Mr Poopy Butthole always gets me as well as the very first scene of the episode with Rick shooting the parasite at the table coming across as their uncle. The opening is a great way to introduce us to this premise and episode. Most shows I have such a hard time deciding what's my favorite episode but in Rick and Morty ever since I saw this episode it's been my favorite and probably will never change.
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10/10
Big concept with a big heart.
Dark_Forces26 January 2020
The concept at the heart of this episode is just beautiful. There's a symmetry in 'Total Rickall' that distinguishes from all the rest.

It's a simple idea the get's stretched and stretched ludicrously, ending in a highly satisfying conclusion.

Personally, for me it's the best of the best. It has the usual crazy ideas, lots of violence and a shed load of irony...

But it also celebrates 'family' without really saying it.

10/10 mofos!!! x
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