‘Rick And Morty’ Season 6, Episode 2: Recap & Ending, Explained: How Does Summer Knock Out The Alien Gang?

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It comes out that you can ‘just do a Die Hard’ without even seeing the “Die Hard.” At least, that’s what Summer did in “Rick and Morty: Die Hard-ish” second episode. Yes! It’s that last week’s Summer, while her wolverine claws are on leave now, she has to do it in the ‘John McClane’ way to save Rick and Morty, trapped in a Meta world. So, let’s find out how Summer outsmarts the ‘Die Hard’ encyclopedia in an intergalactic arcade of ‘Blips and Chitz.’

Spoilers Ahead


‘Roy: A Life Well Lived’ – Who is Roy? What Is His Purpose?

Episode 2, titled ‘A Mort Well Lived,’ opens in a place unknown, with a bunch of over-smart children, who reveal an existence called ‘Grandpa’ to a girl named ‘Marta.’ As long as the story unfolds, we have already doubted why everyone in this universe sounds like Morty. However, it is apparent in the next scene, when a cult is found, with one million members. This cult is seemingly run by an iconoclastic man, named Roy, who believes that this is not the real world but a video game with 1 million NPCs (Non-Player Character). However, he clarifies he is not promoting a religion. He reveals that each one of the populations is a fragment of a fourteen-year-old boy, Morty, who is now trapped inside an intergalactic arcade, “Blitz and Chips.” Roy addresses everyone in this world as his ‘Grandson,’ and that creates a whole fuss, leading everyone to feel connected with him. Not sure if the grandsons are even getting the point, but we already know that Rick and Morty are now trapped in a video game called “Blips and Chitz,” which Morty has played before in the episode “Mortynight Run” in season 2.  


Who is Marta in A Gaming Meta World?

As we have seen, Summer has been stealing the show from the very beginning, and here is no exception. We see her come to their aid, but the problem is she has to fight those space aliens of the arcade in a ‘Die Hard’ way, which she clears is beyond her sense, as she’s only a 17-year-old girl. It has been profound, that Summer is the one who Rick blindly trusts, so pushing her to fight those ‘Jar Jar Binks’ kind of aliens, doesn’t seem so risky at all, but in the videogame, named “Roy: A Life Well Lived,” things are getting twisted. Amongst the cult, a smart girl emerges, leaving her suspicious family halfway to seek refuge in Roy’s cult. She is Marta, who surpasses others in intelligence and ideology of Morty. Thinking of Roy’s cult as fanaticism, while the army invades, Marta takes it upon herself to explain what is really going on in the game’s world. She reveals that each of them is a brainchild of Morty, who loves to eat pizza and touch himself. What brings them all together is their yellow shirt and a haircut that looks like a helmet. Later, this “Grandsonism” cult turns out to be a “doomsday cult” for the rest of the Morty world. They believe that Roy has a secret place in the mountains, which is right as we slip into the scene inside of a cave where Roy is preparing spaceships to launch all the Mortys as much as possible into an outer world, which is also not real, but the purpose is to reset the game to get out of it.

Roy and Marta now meet the President of the game world, who seemingly refuses to believe Roy’s idea and addresses him as a pope. But, out of Roy’s sight, the President implies to Marta the skepticism that Morty harbors for Rick, and that’s why some of them don’t want to follow Roy’s words. Marta understands that only 8% of Morty has trust issues with Roy, so they are going to be abandoned in the world. However, Roy doesn’t buy the ‘8% logic’ as he believes 8% of anything is nothing at all. But the NPC Mortys declare a holy war when their Grandpa takes a long pause to say “I love you” to them. Presumably, All Morty wants to have, is a little appreciation from Rick, which disrupts his trust system in a Meta game world. Consequently, this has originated a civil war inside the ‘Morty-verse,’ where now a mid-aged Marta attacks Roy. While Marta is outrageous to kill her emotionless Grandpa, Roy utters about the terrifying situation that Summer has to be in; he informs Marta that if he would be really ignorant about his grandson, he wouldn’t have to worry about Summer and Morty. He also points out that if Marta isn’t backing off, she’s going to ‘jinx’ Summer in an alien-loaded space arcade.


How Does Summer Knock Out The Alien Gang Without Even Watching ‘Die Hard’?

Summer, on her quest to block the aliens on her way, crawls with a gun here and there. She beats the gang members and steals their Furby-type walkie-talkies. While the leader of the alien gang, in Hans Gruber style, is on his mission to find an arcade safe. These Star Wars-derived’ Jar Jar Binks’ kind of aliens with a mafia lord mustache, in addition, want everything to be in a ‘Die Hard’ way, which, unbeknownst to Summer, she surpasses with her coolest tactics.

As it’s especially notable that one second, in reality, is equivalent to one month in the game, so hours of Rick and Morty’s being trapped inside the arcade, almost lead the generations to pass on in the game. We see now an old-aged Marta is rejected by her daughter, who attaches to Roy’s side. While, in the end, Marta loses her father, she approaches Roy, and we see him develop a lot throughout the time dilation. He says that he’s proud of his grandson, and Marta agrees to take the remaining Mortys outside of the game on only one condition. As long as you’ve been hitting your head to know what that one condition might be, the Mortys have already got up the ship to finally make an end to this gaming world. Meanwhile, the timing is just picture perfect while the alien leader is about to pop Rick and Morty’s head, Summer attacks them from behind. Although she’s asked if she might have a plan by taping a gun inside her back, in the climax, well, that’s exactly what she does. But she doesn’t have to go so far as till then, Rick is back on the game, shooting all the aliens and kicking them out of the arcade. Morty gains consciousness, concluding his multipolar thoughts about Rick, saying that he trusts him explicitly. Rick sighs, confusingly if anybody’s left in that world.


What Was Marta’s ‘One Condition’?

Categorically, we get an idea of what might be that one condition. Some alien-guards in that arcade find the ‘Roy machine’ is now wrecked weirdly, where Roy is dead, and the game is still going. They later complain that a lady is still living her life in the game, which is most probably Marta, as we have seen her declining her identity as Morty and living her life as Marta. Presumably, it might be that one last condition that she chose in return for sending all the Mortys to a fake outer world.


All The Major Callbacks to ‘Die Hard’ in The Parodic Episode 2

“A life well lived” is indeed a good enough life, where Morty is making choices of his own, and finally, Summer is the hero from day 1 of season 6. As the mystery of Rick Prime’s ominous presence still hangs in the previous episode, we don’t see any revelations about his motives yet. However, it can’t be possible that “Rick and Morty” would bring a new season without a parody. For instance, this episode is entirely dedicated to ‘Die Hard,’ where we have a lot of things to talk about. Starting from the name Roy to the post-credit scene, we get a ‘Die Hard-sque’ callback, which comes out as a blast of season 6.

1988’s famous action thriller “Die Hard” franchise, from which Rick and Morty’s parodic episode two has derived, gives us alpha and omega Easter eggs. The name Roy was itself John McClane’s another codename, which he got from ‘Roy Rogers’ of Western TV. Even while we all wonder how Summer got the idea of ending it as McClane did, here she explains that she took the book named ‘Nakatomi Paradigm,’ which gave her all the spoilers from the movie. If the name sounds familiar, it’s that same Nakatomi Plaza from Die Hard. It’s also impossible if you haven’t even thought once about ‘Inception’ while watching Rick, trapped in a meta gig, wanting to save the world. Yes, it’s all “Inception-vibe” where time, in reality, differs from the time in imagination. Also, I don’t know who else remembers Non-Playing Characters, but it’s very natural to be reminded of “Free Guy,” where Ryan Reynolds was an NPC bank employee. 

“Rick and Morty” Season 6, Episode 2 has no shortage of Easter eggs and callbacks, starting from Winslow’s Alien version to featuring Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” to remind us of that old “Die Hard” aura. The post-credit scenes are incomplete without mentioning Simon Gruber’s inheritance from Die Hard 3. Even just like McClane, we see an alien wearing a placard that reads, “I hate everybody,” though the placard in the movie had some racist comment written on it. All in all, Episode 2 is enough to amaze us for a while; we see previous seasons’ Easter eggs, a hyped franchise’s major callbacks, and a fine storyline to connect all of them together. Even the cult vibe all over the gaming world mostly shows off how, in reality, the cults did work, revolving around one single belief and chanting the ‘Guru’s’ fanaticism. So overall, thanks to Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon for putting us through such amazing stories with brain-tickling humor that we can’t help but want more and more.


See More: ‘Rick And Morty’ Season 6, Episode 3: Recap & Ending, Explained – What Is Cooking Between Beth & ‘Space Beth’?


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Poulami Nanda
Poulami Nanda
Poulami is an artist and an aspiring screenwriter both by profession and passion. Apart from writing stories, poems and songs, studying cinema is her obsession. She is also a freelance painter yet it is the world of cinema that fascinates her the most.

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