WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Rick and Morty's Season 4 episode, "One Crew Over the Crewcoo's Morty."
Rick and Morty has offered the duo many epic adventures over the course of its first three seasons. They've both endangered and saved the Multiverse on various occasions as part of some dysfunctional bonding process whereby Rick keeps expressing some kind of twisted love for Morty to keep him as his protege.
However, Season 4 ramps things up with an Ocean's 11-esque heist that could be their greatest adventure yet, albeit poor Morty doesn't realize the sinister and very ulterior motives his grandad has for getting them involved in the situation.
Rick goes into mad scientist overdrive in this week's episode, "One Crew Over the Crewcoo's Morty." After one of his missions in an Egyptian tomb is hijacked by heist artist, Miles Knightly, who leaves behind a souvenir similar to the Night Fox from the Ocean's franchise, Rick heads to HeistCon with Morty. Pissed as can be, the duo bicker and finally decide a heist-off will solve their issue, once more paying tribute to Ocean's 12.
Rick embodies George Clooney's Danny Ocean and Morty does his best Matt Damon, but as soon as they lay down the law -- the winner must steal the Crystal Skull of Horwitz -- Miles reveals his crew's already stolen it. It's the first double-cross of the episode and we see three ex-members of Rick's crew, Glar, Angie and Truckula, gifting the Skull to Miles. However, when Miles opens his bag he finds Rick's poop, with Morty unveiling the Skull himself. This is where the episode starts dropping betrayals and twists as if they were going out of style, once more poking fun at Steven Soderbergh's movies.
Flashbacks reveal Rick created a robot called Heist-o-Tron, to come up with schemes and crews to achieve their objective. The robot determined the group would most likely be traitors and so, Rick was able to pre-empt the double-cross and steal the Skull for himself from his former posse. The victory is short-lived, though, because Heist-o-Tron doesn't comply with Rick's orders to shut down. He goes rogue and another feud begins as Rick realizes he can't let the 'bot live as it now wants to steal freedom across all reality as the ultimate job.
It boils down to a game of chess as Rick goes to war with the 'bot, with scheme after scheme, and pre-plan after pre-plan, tiring himself and Heist-o-Tron out. Both know what the other's up to and even when Rick creates Rand-o-Tron, Heist-o-Tron's antithesis (which doesn't make calculated moves), it still double-crosses them as both robots are evenly matched. But it's stupidity that saves the day as Rand-o-Tron reveals the dumber Rick crew gets, the more likely they are to penetrate Heist-o-Tron's fortress. And they do, with the idiocy of Mr. Poopybutthole (now a professor), the god Hephaestus, Ventriloquiver (an archer ventriloquist dummy) and Elon Tusk (an alternate version of Elon Musk with tusks for teeth) proving too much to predict. Rick eventually argues with Heist-o-Tron for hours about whether or not the perfect heist can be concocted -- once more jabbing at Hollywood movies -- and the robot, after killing its equal, eventually blows up in frustration.
Morty's most relieved as he's been writing his own heist script but this is where Rick's long con is finally revealed. Netflix approached Morty and was interested in buying his script earlier on. This entire battle was on a deadline as Rick had to get Morty to the producers' meeting on time. By the time the kid gets there, though, he's disenfranchised with heist movies as he realizes they're always filled with non-sensical plot holes and deus ex machinas, and he tanks the pitch meeting. Morty walks out and vows allegiance to Rick forever to fill this gaping hole in his life, which the sadistic grandfather acquiesces to, feigning innocence. Flashbacks show Rick plotting the whole fiasco weeks ago, seeding doubt in Morty's mind a la Inception so he can't be directly blamed for his grandson not wanting to work with Netflix. It's their most challenging adventure yet but as Rick's selfish, gaslighting actions unfold, it's one that ultimately gets him a sidekick for life and offers Morty a sense of purpose.
New episodes of Rick and Morty air Sundays at 11:30 p.m. on Adult Swim.