Rick and Morty Season 5 Episode 2 Ending Explained

It's been great to see Rick and Morty back for a squanch-tastic episode!

After the fabulous introduction of the character Mr. Nimbus in the first episode. Episode 2 explores the concepts of clones, decoys, and multiple characters.

Rick and Morty Season 5 Episode 2 Release Date, Plot, Easter Eggs

The "Mortiplicity" episode was released on Sunday the 27th June at 11 pm PT/ET time on Adultswim. However, this episode and other episodes can be found on other streaming platforms too!

In the second episode of Rick and Morty's 5th season, we're informed that Rick has in fact built a set of decoy families that (like Westworld, Ex Machina, and Terminator) are a mixture of robotic skeletons covered in organic matter to produce sentient life.

His reason for building this is because as the smartest man in the multiverse, he sees a number of decoy families as a method of deterring or misdirecting the different enemies that he has built up across his 70 years of exploring multiple dimensions.

The episode weaves different themes as we get glimpses into each of the decoy families. The fact that we see a numerous number of Rick and Morty's dying throughout the episode nods back to episodes such as The Ricklantis Mixup where an evil droid Rick (powered by evil Morty) travels through the different dimensions attempting to kill all the different Rick's and kidnapping Morty's to be used as a shield against his unique brainwave.

In one small moment, you're lead to believe that this could even be an interdimensional cable 3 episode before realizing that you're just looking at another family that is going to be killed.

According to an inside episode clip with Rick and Morty writer/creator Dan Harmon:

"The decoy family was a long-running rift in the writer's room but it was always bumping with the other stories we wanted to do."

Just like the character Mr. Nimbus, it seems that the very concept of the episode may have been created years ago, but it was only now that they were able to release it.

Within the Inside episode clip, writer Alberto Lundy went on to explain the deeper dynamics of the episode:

"I to be able to explore the anthology of the episode. The first half of the episode would be dedicated to exploring the questions (of the decoy family) and the second half would involve exploring the fallout of that question. One of the fun parts is that you could play around with the differences of what the family would do, different flaws would begin to emerge.

He then went on to say:

"The challenge of this episode would be that the family would continue to ask more and more questions as the number of decoy families expanded."

There is no denying that the challenge of the decoy family all in the same universe is immense, but the writers of Rick and Morty nailed it.

Being able to explore multiple storylines simultaneously seems to be a top favorite for the writers. There are even nods to it in Season 5 Episode 1 when Morty is carrying Rick away from the collapsing planet, we see a version of Rick and Morty that even mirrors the bloodbath scene in Blade from 1998.

Rick and Morty Season 5 Episode 2 Ending

At the end of the episode, we finally see the Rick and Morty from Earth C-137 that we've known since season 1 and get a nod to an important character from the season 4 finale - Space Beth!

The Season 4 finale left Rick and Morty fans on a cliffhanger. Going into Season 5, fans weren't sure whether to expect Jerry to be settled with two new wives or if the writers would finally address which Beth was "Real Beth" and which one was simply the clone. Now that Space Beth is back with the family, will she disappear again in episode 3 or will she continue to have adventures with the rest of the family?

Now that episode 1 has shown us that Jerry and Beth are open for a threesome, would the writers be willing to push the boat out and create a storyline where the great beta male Jerry smith becomes a polygamist?

Hopefully, these questions will be answered in Rick and Morty Episode 3 which is due to release Sunday the 4th of July 11 pm PT/ET time on Adultswim.

Related: Rick and Morty Season 5 Episode Titles Revealed