Rick and Morty (season 3)

Rick is being captured and interrogated via a mind-computer link, inside a galactic federal prison. Summer and Morty attempt to rescue him, but they are captured by SEAL Team Ricks, who take them to the Citadel and decide to assassinate Rick. Back at the prison, Rick tricks both the federal agents and his aspiring assassins by switching bodies with them. He then teleports the entire Citadel of Ricks into the prison, prompting a massive battle. Amid the confusion, Rick rescues Morty and Summer, and uses the Galactic Federation's mainframe to make their currency worthless. The Federation falls into chaos and collapses as a result, with the aliens leaving Earth.

Back at home, Jerry asks Beth to choose between him and Rick, but she chooses Rick. After the new status quo is established, Rick reveals to Morty that his ulterior motive was to become his de facto male influence. This escalates into a nonsensical angry rant, centered around Rick's desire to find more of the discontinued McDonald's Szechuan sauce, a promotional product for the 1998 film Mulan.

Post-credit scene: Tammy observes Bird Person's resurrection as a cyborg dubbed "Phoenix Person".

To get away from Jerry, who is saying goodbye after his separation from Beth, Rick takes Morty and Summer to a Mad Max-esque version of Earth. After being chased by a group of scavengers known as the Death Stalkers, they find a small flake of the powerful Isotope 322. Rick tries to leave until he sees that the Death Stalkers have a basketball-sized chunk of Isotope 322 as a monument, and then convinces Morty and Summer to join the Death Stalkers instead in hopes of stealing it. Summer finds herself enamored by this world and the Death Stalkers' leader Hemorrhage; Morty, as part of Rick's plan, is given a giant dismembered arm's strength and begins to work through his issues about the parental divorce during bouts of murder in a gladiatorial dome. Morty's new muscle comes with the memories of its original owner and after betraying Rick in the process of stealing the rock, the arm takes Morty in search of its killer. Rick escapes with the rock and leaves the kids behind, creating robots to fool Beth, but realizes he must bring the kids home. Returning, he helps the Death Stalkers use the power of the Isotope to transform the post-apocalyptic world into something resembling suburbia. As Summer's relationship with Hemorrhage falls apart, they decide to return home, and Rick steals the Isotope as they leave. The experience helps the kids move on from their parents' divorce: Summer reconciles with Jerry and imparts advice gained from her time with the Death Stalkers, telling him not to look back, while Morty explains to Beth that if Jerry wanted to stay he would have fought to make it happen; ultimately he either does not care or is not strong enough to do it.

Post-credit scene: Jerry receives his unemployment check in his mail, but a growling coyote appears and bullies him into handing it over. The coyote eats the check and regurgitates it, thus further ruining Jerry's new life. For the second time in the episode, a voice from nowhere whispers "loser" at Jerry.

After Summer and Morty get in trouble at school, Rick turns himself into a pickle in an attempt to get out of attending school-ordered family therapy. Beth is irritated by this and takes Rick's serum, which was timed to inject him and change him back once the family left. The family leaves and Rick is left immobilized in the open garage. In therapy, Morty and Summer respond positively to Dr. Wong's counseling while Beth is resistant to her observations that her admiration of Rick's callousness and selfishness blinds her to the destruction it causes to her family. She struggles to openly admit that Rick turned himself into a pickle in order to skip therapy. Meanwhile, a helpless Rick is battered around by a local cat and ultimately rolls down into an open sewer drain. However, he manages to manipulate the nervous systems of dead roaches and rats to build himself a sophisticated and macabre mobile exoskeleton. He unwittingly escapes from the sewers into a maximum security foreign government building. After its director attempts to have him killed, Rick kills all the guards. The director releases a deadly prisoner named Jaguar to take Rick out, promising to free Jaguar's daughter in return. Rick and Jaguar battle each other, but eventually kill the director and get away in a helicopter. Jaguar thanks Rick and escapes, while Rick flies to the therapy session. He admits to Beth that he intended to skip the session, and Dr. Wong concludes the session by observing that Rick dislikes normalcy and seeks adventure, and crafts relationships that punish emotions and vulnerability. As such, Beth projects this onto her children, resulting in their family's dysfunctional state. She states that the work required to maintain relationships is never exhilarating, but that it is ultimately necessary. On their way home, Rick apologizes to Beth for deceiving her and Beth gives Rick the serum, turning him human again. While Morty and Summer express their wish to continue seeing Dr. Wong, Rick and Beth ignore them and make plans to go drinking together.

Post-credit scene: Rick and Morty are about to be killed in an elaborate piano death machine by a nefarious villain named "Concerto", tied down next to the bodies of previous victims. Before he can kill them, Jaguar slays the villain and flies away. Rick gloats to Morty, saying that making allies like Jaguar is the reason he doesn't go to therapy.