‘Rick And Morty: The Anime’ Episode 1 Recap And Ending Explained: Is Morty Stuck In Virtual Reality?

The multiverse hopping zany adventures of Rick and Morty Smith have returned in a new medium, this time with an anime series adaptation created by Takashi Sano. The much-acclaimed, wildly popular original Rick and Morty animated series, which is often considered one of the most unique creations of western animation, is now trying to establish stronghold among the otaku fanbase, and it remains to be seen whether the humor, style, and narrative treatment that are typical of the original series suit the sensibility of the anime adaptation as well. 

Rick and Morty: The Anime’s pilot episode takes no time to pick things up from an already established groundwork, which means that series fans won’t need to go through yet another beginning arc, but at the same time, first-time viewers might face a bit of difficulty getting right into it. During this discussion, we will try to simplify things as much as possible and highlight the major events in the episode.

Spoilers Ahead

Summer’s Heroes and Rick’s Shenanigans

The pilot episode, titled “The Girl Who Manipulates Time,” begins with a spaceship of the Galactic Federation full of alien insectoid Gromflomite soldiers moving towards a planet of a pacifist alien race to take over their world. The Gromflomite commander decides to blow the denizens of the planets up anyway, and the pacifist aliens prepare to meet their end. All of a sudden, a mercenary version of Summer Smith, Morty’s elder sister, is seen hacking the mainframe of the Federation ship to deactivate their energy beam core, which saves the lives of the pacifist alien species, much to the dismay of the Gromflomite commander. 

Following a beautifully animated opening sequence, the narrative focus shifts to the Smith household, where the Galactic Federation arrives to take the mad genius scientist, Summer and Morty’s grandpa, Rick, into their custody, as they suspect he is in possession of an antimatter bomb. However, Summer later reveals to her parents that the version of Rick the Federation has taken was merely a hologram with a trojan bomb built in to him, and Space Beth follows the Federation ship. The real Rick is seen chilling in some far-flung corner of the cosmos, somewhere so remote that he asks Summer’s assistance to navigate his way back. As the duo converse, it is revealed that Rick doesn’t have an antimatter bomb, and instead he has got his hands on a time flow-reversing thingamajig, which he himself professes can function as a bomb as well. 

As Rick questions Summer regarding Morty’s whereabouts, she reveals that her brother is spending his time gaming with the new virtual reality gadget that Rick had designed for him. Rick warns Summer that even though the reality shown in the VR gizmo is a make-believe world, it is absorbing enough to make users perceive the reality to be palpably real. After all, the definition of reality varies with persons involved, irrespective of its nature, and Rick warns that Morty needs to be pulled out of the game before he goes too deep into the rabbit hole. 

Morty Lives Multiple Lives

Rick’s concerns turn out to be true soon enough, as the focus shifts on Morty inside the RPG world, being surrounded by a bunch of thugs—probably NPCs in the game itself. The thugs threaten Morty that they will take his belongings by force, and Morty sees a cowardly guy, whom we later know as Frank, who at present is unable to help him in peril. The thugs scram soon enough as a gigantic snake-like creature emerges all of a sudden, and while fleeing from it, Morty sees a different version of himself getting eaten by the monster before getting consumed himself as well. Time reverses inexplicably, probably an effect of Rick’s latest gizmo or the in-game mechanism, and he once again gets chased by the snake monster. 

After a while, Morty wakes up in a dilapidated setting, where he sees the butchered corpse of the monster lying on the ground, and in front of him stands his savior, a girl who introduces herself as Elle, a warrior who can control time. Even though Morty is unable to recognize her, Elle reveals that she had not forgotten him at all, and with a promise to see him again, Elle kisses Morty. 

A different version of Morty wakes up to see an alternate reality version of his grandpa, Rick, standing in front of him in a similar setting to the previous scene. After blowing up the snake monster, this version of Rick reveals that his world’s Morty had passed away, and shares a feeling of relief/remorse in seeing a version of his grandson in front of him. Rick opines that multiple realities are intersecting, even in the game’s reality. The next scene once again brings a different version of Morty, who this time gets rescued by Frank, the guy who was unable to help him before, and in this reality he is seen wearing a powerful exosuit. Frank apologizes to Morty for his past version’s cowardly behavior. 

Is Morty Stuck in Virtual Reality?

Three or more different versions of Morty live three different lives inside the virtual reality; one is seen spending his time with the armor-clad Frank, one is seen with Elle, and another spends his life building a fortune and longing for Elle till the very end of his life. Every version of Morty gets an orb with his own face grafted onto it; one version of Morty gets it from Elle, who mentions it to be Neander Dragon’s tears, while another version gets it from armored Frank, who calls in Neander Dragon’s sweat. The older Morty, who longed for Elle’s companionship all his life, passed away with the sphere rolling out of his hand. The Morty who lived with Frank got separated from him and lived through an unhappy marriage till he reached middle age, when he once again reunited with his friend tearfully. 

While leaving whatever godforsaken corner of the cosmos he was stuck inside, Rick asks Summer to execute Protocol 1098, as they plan to bring Morty back. Morty is seen in the virtual reality; this time he is on the brink of being reunited with Elle—when Summer’s sudden command execution creates a glitch, presumably abruptly stopping the game itself. It remains unknown what happens to this reality’s version of Morty, which will be revealed in the upcoming episode. In a post-credits scene, the slug-monster version of Elle and Morty are seen reuniting in a vegetation-infested reality, but the duo become captured by a hunter.